The State Capture

Zuzana Piussi / Slovakia, Czech Republic / 2019 / Czech Premiere / 79 min.

synopsis

After the murders of the journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová, the shooting of the documentary about a new kind of social establishment in which the traditional state structures become replaced with Mafia and oligarchy took a huge turn. By interviewing various persons - lawyers, bloggers, journalist, security experts, and former secret service agents -, the author tries to uncover the complex network of those influencing the Slovakian public space. The investigative film about a country in which the communist regime fell thirty years ago offers overwhelming facts about the unclear relationships among former secret service agents and interest groups, and shows the issues and threats faced by both journalists and the public.

“The murder of a journalist raised more questions than just who the killer was. The tragedy illuminated the real picture of social institutions and created a short window when it was possible to capture it with a camera.” Z. Piussi

biography

Zuzana Piussi (1971) focuses on the phenomena of the contemporary Slovak and Czech societies in her documentaries. She was a co-creator of the films Common Sense (2017) and University and Freedom (2019). Her documentary The State Capture was originally supposed to continue in the tradition of another film of hers, The Grasp of the State about the Slovak “Gorila case” during which a conspiracy flat where the Slovak politic and oligarchic elite met was uncovered.