About film
Synopsis
The heart of this dramatic story based on the novel by Leopold Lahola is the search for the principle of humanism. The story plays in a single day towards the end of World War II in a rough, snow-covered landscape where a German soldier escorts his prisoner with orders to shoot him.
The background of the story is formed by the flashbacks of the partisan soldier being interrogated by a Russian commissar who wants to know all about him being taken prisoner. The German soldier Helmut Kampen escorts the captive partisan who is condemned to death but finally manages to flee. The commissar wants to know why the Germans did not kill him and accuses the partisan soldier of collaboration. This period film is conceived in an untraditional modern manner. The dynamic editing integrates authentic shots of the actual war conflicts that are in a direct confrontation with the story from the end of World War II.
On location
The shooting took place during 2006. When looking for winter locations, the filmmakers chose the beautiful countryside of the Vrátna valley in the Terchova region where most of the story takes place. Many of the film scenes were shot in rough winter conditions with deep snow and temperatures around minus 14 °C. It is the very first film ever shot during winter in the treacherous terrain of the Jánošikove diery (the Jánošík holes) in Terchová.
The locations were situated in remote places with no roads so that the whole crew had to be transported there on snowmobiles. Some locations were not reachable even for the snowmobiles and the only possibility was to walk on foot carrying the whole film equipment several kilometres in deep snow in a difficult high-mountain terrain.
Boris Farkaš summed up the whole situation on the freezing location by a sentence the whole crew would probably remember: „It was so terribly cold with no possibility to warm up...such a terrible cold that we heated with cigarettes only"
The film „Meeting the enemy" marks the debut of the young generation of filmmakers.
Director and screenwriter Patrik Lančarič, 34, actor and screenwriter Marko Igonda, 32, director of photography Peter Kelíšek, 30, producer Marek Veselický, 31, editor Ľubo Čechovič, 30, screenwriter Peter Pavlac, 30, actor Alexander Bárta, 30, sound designer Ján Ravasz, 32, composer Vladimír Martinka, 30. The only debutant out of this age range is Boris Farkaš. It sounds unbelievable, but this outstanding actor got his first major film appearance here.
The most renowned personalities of this film are Štefan Kvietik and Monika Hilmerová who won fame mainly in Czech films „THE SPRING OF LIFE - DER LEBENSBORN" and „VICTIMS AND MURDERERS" (OBĚTI A VRAZI). She won several prestigious awards at international film festivals (e.g. Silver Dolphin at the film festival in Troy in the category Best Actress). After a long absence from the Slovak audience, the voice of Štefan Kvietik will resound again. He is the narrator of the whole story and symbolises the author Leopold Lahola in the film.