What are your expectations for the jubilee 20th edition? What would you most wish for the festival?
For every new edition of the Cinematik festival, regardless of it being a jubilee year, I always wish for a smooth running, a large number of attendees, and if I were to sum it up in one word, I'm of course thinking of success. More importantly, what I wish for the festival's future is stability, a predictable audiovisual environment, and if I were to be more specific, another standard cinema hall with professional projection equipment would be useful.
Your most intense moment from the festival's history that you won't forget?
This question has inspired me to reflect on what memories I actually have of the previous 19 years of the festival. The result is that I don't perceive the festival's history to date as a relay race of individual years, but continuously, as a constant and positive series of colourful impressions, sounds and music, in short, as a permanent celebration, and that is probably good, because that is precisely what every film festival should fulfil. And I can never get enough of the sight of over 600 viewers in the crowded hall of the House of Arts.
The organisation of the festival has changed significantly over two decades – what were the biggest challenges and what do you consider the biggest success in Cinematik's history to date?
Compared to its first year, the festival has reached a completely different level in terms of organisation and technical aspects. Cinematik addressed several fundamental changes, for example, the digitisation and transformation of the House of Arts and the Fontána cinema into modern 21st-century cinemas and screening spaces; of course, we did not do this alone, but we contributed significantly to it. Another major challenge was the pandemic, and I must state that the festival was lucky, as it was the only international film festival in Slovakia held in a physical form during all three pandemic years. We are currently dealing with what is, for us, a very pleasant problem – how to satisfy our festival audiences so that they can get to see all the films they would like to. And I consider the main success to be that Cinematik has become one of the most important film festivals at home and among recognised festivals on the international scene, and that we have managed to build arguably the best audience base.