Three men are the heroes of this unusual film. All of them planned or carried out terrorist attacks against the regime in Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, for which each of them spent several years in prison.
Stano wanted to blow up a Communist party viewing platform. Fero plotted the assassination of Gustáv Husák, long-time president of Czechoslovakia. Vladimír blew up billboards and dropped masses of protest flyers from the sky.
The men re-enact their former deeds in the film, whilst also revealing what their lives are like today. Stano is looking for a wife. Fero lives with his wife and two adolescent sons, who he teaches how to build bombs and drive getaway cars. Vladimír gives training in self-defence and resistance techniques to a young woman. Their peculiar relationship carries a sexual charge, uniting these two fierce outsiders who are ready to take up the struggle at the drop of a hat.
With equal parts humour and ambiguity, the film blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction and heroism and stupidity. Laconically and with a quiet sense of irony, the film tells the story of people caught between totalitarianism and rebellion. (Gabriela Seidel-Hollaender)
Production: Hypermarket Film, Prague; Nukleus film, Zagreb; Sentimentalfilm, Bratislava; partizanfilm, Košice
Screenplay: Pavol Pekarčík, Ivan Ostrochovský, Peter Kerekes
Camera: Martin Kollár
Format: DCP 1:1.78 (16:9), Colour
Running time: 87 min
Languages: Slovakian, Czech
Zamatoví teroristi
Velvet Terrorists
Pavol Pekarčík, Ivan Ostrochovský, Peter Kerekes
Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, Croatia 2013
