Ms. President

synopsis

The time-lapse picture of Zuzana Čaputová's five-year term in office is not a celebratory portrait, but a statement about the importance of the office of the head of state and the state of society. Slovakia's first female president takes over the country a year after the murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée at a time of mass protests against the links between high politics and organised crime. The end of her presidency, on the other hand, is marked by the assassination attempt on Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico in 2024. She is faced with a task that goes far beyond her representative function. The president has the power to give hope to a society in crisis, to speak for and protect a part of the public who has not yet been heard, to change the way society is configured by setting a positive example and steering it towards values that are compatible with the liberal West.

However, she does not want to run for another term, and Marek Šulík reveals why. He captures the head of state in less formal situations, in the role of a woman, a mother and a wife who faces gender-based attacks, death threats and fears for her family. The portrait of Čaputová as a public and private figure looks at a society whose leading cultural institutions are currently removing LGBTQ+ works from their repertoire and, like Hungary, Romania or Poland, are thus removing a section of the population from public life and encouraging a mindset that leads to acts like the shooting at a Bratislava gay club in 2022.

“We politicians must have power over our emotions. We have to control our thoughts, because the way we think makes us the kind of people we are. And now, first and foremost, we need to become better people.”

Source: Quote from the film

biography

Marek Šulík (1975) is a Slovak documentary filmmaker, editor and teacher and a graduate of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, where he currently teaches at the Documentary Production Studio. He works with non-profit organizations such as Media 3, Návrat, IVO and Občan a demokracie. He specializes in social issues, and has dealt with Roma issues in the films Cigarettes & Songs (Ji.hlava IDFF 2010), Bells of Happiness (2012) and Heavy Hearth (2017).

more about film

director:	Marek Šulík
producer:	Barbara Janišová Feglová
script:	Marek Šulík
photography:	Marek Šulík, Marek Moučka, Martin Jurči
editing:	Jana Vlčková, Marek Šulík
music:	Eva Sajanová, Martin Lauer
sound design:	Daniel Němec
co-producer:	Anna Lísalová, Ivo Andrle

contact

Barbara Janišová Feglová / HITCHHIKER Cinema boruska@hitchhikercinema.sk