EVA NOVÁ

After another one of her countless attempts to get off the sauce in rehab, Eva, once a celebrated film star, returns to the hometown in the Slovak countryside she left so long ago. Her triumphant heyday’s long past, her agent never calls – 62, sober and faced with grim reality, she now becomes aware of what things really mean to her and is filled with the firm resolve to get her life back on track again. She sets out to visit her son Dodo, who she abandoned while he was still a child. Dodo’s 40 now, married, with kids of his own. When Eva shows up on his doorstep, she’s forced to concede that time hasn’t healed his wounds and the pain of the past seems insurmountable. Is it possible to make a fresh start after so many years? In his first fiction feature, documentary filmmaker Marko Škop realistically but unsparingly depicts the attempts of an alcoholic – in an impressive performance by Emília Vášáryová – to dare to start a new chapter. The long road out of addiction is at the same time the path to self-determination. The film examines humanity’s longing to maintain hope in absolution and in second chances in life, which are only made possible through the compassion of others.