Slovak film returns to Cannes

The last time Slovak filmmakers experienced the glamour of the Cannes Film Festival was in 1971, with the premiere of Juraj Jakubisko’s Vtáckovia, siroty a blázni (Birds, Orphans and Fools).

Slepé lásky (Blind Loves), a documentary by Juraj Lehotský, screened in the famed festival’s Directors’ Fortnight section, which was created in 1969 as a protest against “all forms of censorship and diplomatic considerations”.

Since then, it has held the first screenings of debut films by such renowned directors as Martin Scorsese, Jim Jarmusch, Spike Lee and Sofia Coppola.

Blind Loves, which tells the story of four non-sighted people looking for happiness, received an extremely warm response from both the public and critics. The Screen Daily called it a “charming, thought-provoking curio [that] could easily prove to be a hit on the indie circuit”.

The story is about love between blind people. Love can be soft, love can be silly, love can be blind at times... To find one´s place in this world is not an easy thing to do for people with good sight, but how much more difficult it can get for somebody who is blind? The „view" of blind persons is often pure and essential, and very often witty. It uncovers new dimensions of meaning of happiness.

The end of the festival held another pleasant surprise for the team behind Blind Loves. Although the Directors’ Fortnight is a non-competitive section, the International Confederation of Art Cinemas (CICAE) gave this “sober, touching and human movie, which stimulates imagination and delivers a positive message” a prize “for the originality of the theme and for the balance between fiction and documentary”.

http://www.blindloves.com/