Film Archive

wave vs. shore

Documentary Films - Out of Competition 2015 / vlna vs. břeh / Czech Republic, Slovak Republic 2014

“Technique? Not interested. Whatsoever. No problem if it’s out of focus, but it should have feeling and atmosphere,” says one of the originators of the 1980s Slovak New Wave in describing their approach. This likable and lively documentary investigates a generation of photographers for whom playfulness, freedom of gesture, and irony became essential elements of artistic expression.

Synopsis

The Slovak New Wave. A group of photographers formed at the beginning of the 1980s unleashed a storm of emotion upon the stagnant waters of Normalization. Fortunately, the period had a predilection for creative courage; by that time the regime was no longer strong enough to quash the new trend. Miro Švolík, Rudo Prekop, Jano Pavlík, Vasil Stanko, Peter Župník, Tono Stano, and Kamil Varga could therefore stand against contemporary conventions. “Technique? Not interested. Whatsoever. No problem if it’s out of focus, but it should have feeling and atmosphere,” says Kamil Varga describing their approach. Play became the strongest principle, while other common denominators were staging, manipulation, freedom of gesture, positivity, and irony. And cameraman Martin Štrba’s directorial debut absorbed these New Wave principles like a sponge: “I wanted to avoid traditional artistic portraits, nostalgia, and overly-involved representation.… I was interested in people’s stories, in mutual relationships that lasted. The contemplation of the photographers themselves, myself included.”

Martin Horyna

About the film

88 min / Color, DCP

Director Martin Štrba / Screenplay Martin Štrba, Olina Kaufmanová / Dir. of Photography Martin Štrba / Music Michal Novinski / Editor Olina Kaufmanová / Producer Zuzana Mistríková, Ľubica Orechovská, Katarína Štrbová / Production PubRes, Šmik / Contact PubRes / Distributor Aerofilms
www: www.vlnavsbreh.sk

About the director

Martin Štrba (b. 1961, Levice, Czechoslovakia) is one of the most award-winning of Slovak DOPs. In 1976–1980 he studied photography at an applied arts high school in Bratislava. From there he went directly to Prague’s Film Academy (FAMU), graduating in 1985 from the camera department. He has most frequently cooperated with Slovak director Martin Šulík (e.g. Tenderness, Everything I Love, The Garden, Orbis Pictus, Landscape, The Key to Determining Dwarfs, The City of the Sun) and with Czech director Vladimír Michálek (e.g. Autumn Spring, Of Parents and Children). He took Czech Lions for Michálek’s Sekal Must Die (1998) and Angel Exit (2000) and for Agnieszka Holland’s Burning Bush (2013). His camerawork on Soul at Peace (2009, dir. Vlado Balko) garnered him Slovakia’s national Sun in a Net Prize. The documentary wave vs. shore is his feature-length directing debut.