Ostrochovsky tackles a new topic in Slovak film, the infiltration of the Catholic Church by the communist regime, in his film Servants, which was first pitched in 2015 at Connecting Cottbus. The main characters in the drama are a pair of devout young men who enter the seminary to escape from the period of Soviet crack-down known as “normalization”, taking place after the brief years of the Prague Spring. As they discover the surveillance by the state security police and the seminary’s collaboration with the communist regime, they become disillusioned, which leads to their falling out and the eventual suicide of one of the young men. A protest at the seminary results in drastic repercussions.

Ostrochovsky co-authored the script with Marek Lescak and Rebecca Lenkiewicz. The film received its earliest funding from the Slovak Audiovisual Fund and pre-sales. It is a coproduction between Slovakia, Romania, the Czech Republic and Ireland, and it premiered in 2020.

Production Information:

Produced by Punkchart films
Coproduced by RTVS, Point Film, Negativ, Film & Music Entertainment, LEV Design, sentimentalfilm
Supported by the Slovak Audiovisual Fund, Eurimages, the Ministry of Culture of Slovak Republic, CNC, the Czech Film Fund, the Bratislava Region, Romanian Public Television

Credits:
Director: Ivan Ostrovsky
Writers: Ivan Ostrochovsky, Marek Lescak, and Rebecca Lenkiewicz
DoP: Juraj Chlpik
Cast: Samuel Skyva, Samuel Polakovic, Vlad Ivanov, Vladimir Strnisko, Milan Mikulcik, Tomas Turek, Vladimir Zboron, Martin Sulik, Vladimir Obsil