The Prime of Life (1967)
Juraj, a Slovak artist living in Prague, realizes that his life is passing without purpose. It is time for him to choose between two women, the city and the country, and creative work and practical craft. While he feels passionate about art, he knows he also has to earn a living.

Birdies, Orphans and Fools (1969)
Although this mosaic-like parable is set in an undefined space and time, the insane world which it depicts, a world without ideals, filled with violence, cynicism and hopelessness, strongly resembles the social atmosphere in Czechoslovakia after August 1968.

Sitting on a Branch I am Fine (1989)
This story of two inseparable friends – circus comedian Pepe and soldier Prengel – takes place shortly after the end of WW II. When their fates are intertwined by the discovery of hidden gold and the arrival of a Jewish girl, Esther, the three of them together start their search for happiness.

I LOVE, YOU LOVE (1980)
A tragicomic film about people from the social periphery. Director Dušan Hanák portrayed his characters with a sensitive understanding, without romanticizing. That was also why the film, similarly to Hanák’s previous works 322 and Pictures of the Old World, ended up on a shelf until 1988. Impressive performances are given by Czech actress Iva Janžurová, Polish actor Roman Klosowski and Serbian actor Milan Jelić. In 1989, the film won a Silver Bear for Best Directing from the IFF Berlin.

PINK DREAMS (1976)
An amiable picture about entering adulthood, great dreams, and the first – forbidden – love of a white postman, Jakub, and a pretty Gypsy girl, Jolanka. This is a poetic story, a mosaic of the playful world springing from the wild imagination of the village postman and its clash with the pragmatic mundane reality that finally beats the rosy dreams of the young protagonists. Director Dušan Hanák and screenwriter Dušan Dušek‘s most popular film has been cherished by critics as well as wide audiences at home and abroad.

322 (1969)
A story of a man threatened by a fatal illness evaluating his life (the number 322 in the film title stands for the diagnosis of one kind of cancer). He understands his illness as a form of punishment for the cruel deeds that he committed in the 1950s. In the face of reality and his efforts to purge himself he hits a barrier of indifference, lack of interest, and individual and collective selfishness. He has to find his own reconciliation with his illness and his past and present life.

A comedy about Šimon, an honest, clever confectioner. In practical life, the humble bachelor becomes an easy prey to his boss, his mother, and hords of women eager to get married. The story incorporates well-tested methods of nearly all major periods in the history of film comedy: from a lumiérish etude with the garden hose to a melancholic tramp to the menace of the streets Jacques Tati. Director Juraj Herz made a major contribution to the modest tradition of Slovak film comedy. 

A story of a family that after WWII moved to the south of Slovakia and acquired a prosperous butcher business left behind by a Hungarian emigrant. From the previous owner, the family also inherited a self-assured, greedy assistant who does not like to observe any firm moral principles. He assists the family in gaining wealth but in the long run, he causes the family´s moral dissolution. In his most successful feature film, director Zoro Záhon combined a complex drama with excellent acting performances, especially that of Hungarian actor Gábor Koncz in the lead role.  

A tragicomic story from a rural setting was based on the collection of short stories by Milka Zimková, who was also cast in the lead role. The lives of Johana Ovšená and her illegitimate daughter Pavlína seem to copy each other. Johana, a single mother, watches her daughter make the same mistake as she herself had made in the past. The makers of the film had very good knowledge of village life. Štefan Uher´s film is an authentic picture of the way of life, regional traditions, and mentality of people from eastern Slovakia. 

Two men of principle face each other. One is backed by a whole, however poor, village, the other by the law. It is a conflict that reaches its climax in the closing shoot-out. Instead of the Wild West, the gunshots go off on the Slovak-Polish border. Michal Dočolomanský as the horse smuggler and Radoslav Brzobohatý as the customs officer from Prague meet in Hollý´s Night Riders in a western-like confrontation set in the insecure years of the newly founded Czechoslovak Republic. 

After The Assistant, The Southern Mail is the second novel of Ladislav Ballek to be adapted to the movie screen. It is set in a fictitious border town in the south of Slovakia shrotly after WWII, when the new state borders were just drawn on the maps. The recollections of a forty-year-old author about his childhood take us back to the 1940s. We see the un-certain times, the conflicts, and the colorful characters of the mulit-cultural region of southern Slovakia through the wondering eyes of a five-year-old boy. 

A tragicomic film about people from the social periphery. Director Dušan Hanák portrayed his characters with a sensitive understanding, without romanticizing. That was also why the film, similarly to Hanák´s previous works 322 and Pictures of the Old World, ended up on a shelf until 1988. Impressive performances are given by the Czech actress Iva Janžurová, Polish actor Roman Klosowski and Serbian actor Milan Jelič. In 1989, the film won a Silver Bear for Best Directing from the IFF Berlin. 

A story of a young student of medicine, who arrives in a small mountain village after being accused for carrying out illegal abortion. The film reflects the moral decline of the society, where stealing in secret and making compromises against one´s beliefs make up mundane reality. The filmmakers went to perhaps the furthest possible limits in terms of allowed social criticism in the 1980s. The negative picture is enhanced by its rural setting, since the Slovak village had been traditionally associated with strict morals and conservative values.