Ivan Ostrochovský is an acclaimed Slovak director and producer who hardly needs an introduction. His work speaks for itself, including films such as Koza (2015), Servants (2020), and Photophobia (2023), as well as numerous producing successes, including 107 Mothers (2021), Nepela (2025), Broken Voices (2025), and many others. This year, at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (3–11 July 2026), he will present three new films: Only Beautiful Things To Look At and Igor and After as a director and 33 Steps as a producer.
Presenting three films at the same international festival in a single year—two of them your own directorial works—is quite an extraordinary achievement. I won’t ask which premiere you are most looking forward to, as I imagine your relationship with each project is different. How do you perceive this unique situation?
Basically, I see presenting three films at once as a mistake. (laughs) I think it would have been wiser to premiere one film per year. Each of these three films is important for a different reason. 33 Steps marks the beginning of Anna and Šimon Domček’s filmmaking journey. Igor and Then portrays, in a way, the final chapter of cinematographer Igor Luther’s career. And The Spring is my first appearance in the Crystal Globe Competition as a director.
The Spring opens up an unresolved chapter of Czechoslovak history, a time when the state had the power to decide who could have children. When, how, and why did the idea for the film emerge?
The inspiration came from a conversation I had with my mother many years ago about the functioning of abortion commissions during the period of Normalisation. While screenwriter Marek Leščák and I were researching these commissions, we came across the issue of the sterilisation of Roma women.
This has been a long-term project. Back in 2021, you presented it at the Berlinale Co-Production Market, and later at Les Arcs Works in Progress in 2024. How did these platforms help shape the project?
Of course they changed it. That is essentially what these platforms are designed for—to test a project’s viability throughout the production process and adjust it when necessary. For us, it is important to continuously evaluate whether the film remains understandable to film professionals coming from different cultural backgrounds.
Igor and Then was originally intended to be directed by the outstanding Slovak filmmaker Igor Luther himself and carried the working title Self-Portrait. The funding application was submitted as early as 2019. Sadly, Mr. Luther passed away in 2020. The fact that audiences will now be able to see the finished result suggests that you strongly believed this project had to exist. After these tragic events, you took over the directing duties to bring the film to completion. What was the journey like?
Igor and Then deals with the final years of the life of cinematographer Igor Luther, who was arguably the most successful Slovak filmmaker of his generation. He collaborated with Andrzej Wajda, Michael Haneke, Volker Schlöndorff, and many others, so I never doubted that a film about Igor should exist. In some respects, my task was easier because Martin Šulík had already created a profile of Igor’s work as part of a documentary series on the Czechoslovak New Wave. This allowed me to focus more on Igor’s personality and, let’s say, his peculiarities. From the very beginning, I knew Igor would never direct the film himself. During the two years he spent working on it, he shot only a single image—the one that ultimately closes the film. In that sense, Igor and I are quite similar. It then took me another six years to finish it.
33 Steps, which you produced through escadra, follows the story of Milan, a Roma man who was brutally attacked by neo-Nazis at the age of eighteen. Is the decision to premiere the film now also a way of highlighting the fact that this issue remains highly relevant in our society—perhaps even more so than it has been for a long time?
First of all, I should point out that the story takes place in Břeclav, so it primarily reflects the state of society in Moravia rather than Slovakia. What interested me most, however, was the way Šimon approaches the subject. He attempts to treat it in an innovative and, in some respects, even experimental manner.
Once the attention surrounding these films subsides, what other projects are you currently developing? What can audiences look forward to in the future?
The next project I will probably be working on is a film about surrogacy together with Eva Mores. We are also writing a film about Lata Brandisová, the only woman ever to win the Velká pardubická steeplechase. I would like to make a US remake of The Spring, focusing on Native American communities. Together with Martin Šmok, I am developing a Cold War spy film. And with Igor Engler, we are planning to produce a crime thriller in the United States. So, in about five or six years, I may actually have some of these projects finished.
The interview was conducted by Veronika Krejčová (National Cinematographic Centre of the SFI).
Only Beautiful Things To Look At
Crystal Globe Competition
Screenings:
