Abstrakt
Although Czech and Slovak cinema are commonly thought of as different sides of the same coin, what is termed "Slovak cinema" possesses a unique aesthetic completely removed from its more urban Czech brother. Although what exactly constituted a "Slovak" film was a fairly fluid concept for much of its early history, a significant portion of films by and for Slovaks shared an aesthetic that drew its formative influences from the indigenous folk traditions of Slovakia, as well as from the avant-garde photographic and painting traditions propagated in Prague and Bratislava.
This article traces how these elements coalesced into the aesthetic movement known as the Slovak New Wave.