– The 33rd edition of the festival pairs a regional competition line-up with Visegrad Film Forum master classes and the Bratislava Industry Days Works in Progress showcase
Last Routine by Jakub Červenka (© Zuzana Panska/Continental Film)
The 33rd International Film Festival Febiofest Bratislava (11-17 March) will screen over 60 titles, continuing to promote its established mix of festival-circuit selections, curated classics and industry-facing programming. The festival will open with a preview of Jakub Červenka’s Last Routine, a Slovak-Czech sports biopic centred on figure-skating icon Ondrej Nepela and his coach Hildegarda “Hilda” Múdra (see the news). As in previous editions, the festival also continues its longstanding collaboration with the Visegrad Film Forum (see the news), whose programme will run in parallel.
The In the Heart of Europe Feature-length Film Competition brings together six titles that explore personal crises, social pressures, and the lingering aftershocks of political and historical upheaval. The line-up includes György Pálfi’s Hen [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: György Pálfi
film profile], an offbeat Hungarian drama told from an unconventional perspective, and Wojciech Smarzowski’s Home Sweet Home, which examines the dynamics of domestic violence and toxic relationships, while the Czech entry The Other Side of Summer [+see also:
film review
interview: Vojtěch Strakatý
film profile] by Vojtěch Strakatý follows a fragile coming-of-age friendship overshadowed by the uncertainties of adulthood. Ukrainian filmmaker Valentyn Vasyanovych contributes To the Victory! [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], set in a fictional near-future Ukraine grappling with the aftermath of war, and the Austrian-German co-production White Snail [+see also:
film review
interview: Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter
film profile] by Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter offers a visually striking meditation that juxtaposes beauty and mortality.
The In the Heart of Europe Short Film Competition presents 20 titles spanning fiction, animation, documentary and experimental forms, offering a snapshot of emerging voices from across the region. The line-up includes works by established festival auteurs, such as Greetings from Rhodes by Viera Čákanyová (Notes from Eremocene [+see also:
film review
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interview: Viera Čákanyová
film profile], White on White [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), alongside younger filmmakers, with highlights including Tereza Smetanová’s Seablindness, Eva Sajanová’s How to Listen to Fountains and Marie Lukáčová’s Orla, reflecting the strong presence of Slovak and Czech filmmakers within a broader Central European selection.
On the industry side, the Bratislava Industry Days will once again showcase 17 works in progress (15-17 March) from the region for producers, festival representatives, industry platforms and sales agents. On the 2026 slate are projects such as Anna Ahaliieva’s short fiction 9 Months, inspired by the ongoing deportations of Ukrainian children; Radek Ševčík’s essay documentary 66852/Reimagined, which works with archival traces to confront homophobia embedded in language; and Kristína Leidenfrostová’s Raid, a documentary revisiting testimonies of police brutality against Roma communities in eastern Slovakia. The selection also includes fiction and hybrid works such as Alica Bednáriková’s feature-length black comedy in development Attention Whores, the Czech-Slovak “political western” The Zone by Michal Baláž, and Milada Těšitelová’s Animal, a grotesque motherhood story edging into horror-tragicomedy territory.
Febiofest Bratislava is organised by the Association of Slovak Film Clubs (ASFK), with the Slovak Film Institute as a main co-organiser.
The full line-up is available to peruse here.
