Voice of the Forest

synopsis

Slovak forests have become the centre of cultural wars. For private owners, foresters, and hunters, they are a commodity that needs to be “cultivated with the saw.” Conservationists, on the other hand, advocate a hands-off approach. According to them, unrestrained logging and the mass culling of bears, which are moving closer to human dwellings from noisy forests, are destroying the ecosystem. The ongoing debate about who owns the forest is as polarized as society itself. Often, it is not rational arguments and long-term concepts that decide, but momentary emotions and ideologies. In her analytical documentary, Zuzana Piussi gives space to all parties involved and, together with them, reflects on the future of the Slovak landscape in times of a declining ability to communicate with one another.

“The film began eight or nine years ago when the We Are the Forest campaign was launched. I shot some footage at the time and put the film aside. I waited to see how the topic would develop. I returned to the material years later and found that not much had changed. The old material hadn't aged, but it had matured, so I finished the film.” — Zuzana Piussi

biography

Slovak documentary filmmaker Zuzana Piussi (born 1971) studied film directing at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava. In her investigative documentaries, such as Disease of the Third Power (2011), The Grasp of the State (2012), The State Capture (2019), and Scent Evidence (2024), she focuses on the limits of law and democracy in the post- socialist bloc. In 2022, she presented her feature debut, Unbalanced.

film details

director:	Zuzana Piussi
producer:	Vít Janeček, Ondrej Starinský, Zuzana Piussi

contact

Vít Janeček / D1 Film
info@D1film.com