Mgr. Jozef Banyák

"By the way, my childhood was very affected by the fact that I had relatives in Austria. In the sixties, two or three cars came here regularly, almost every week. They went to the party. Omama always prepared a feast for them. They brought us southern fruits, chewing gum and chocolates. Gradually also clothes, which is very important for a young person. The Austrian television that I watched quite saturated the freedom. As if we could cut ourselves off at home. As a result, I was not bothered by Slovak television at all. To be honest, I watched Hungarian or Viennese television most of my childhood. "

"It was a thrill and it was a positive thrill for the kids. It is interesting that in the following days I met Russian soldiers right on the street in Biskupice. They went there to pump water into the tank. There was a street water valve on the street, and they probably had an agreement to take water from there. While they drank water, we ran there and talked to them. Such bigger and bolder guys carried fruit peaches for their cigarettes. They were nineteen - twenty year old boys. I don't know how many months they could have been there. But after a few months, Soviet troops gradually withdrew to the barracks. Just with that teacher Duchoň - a sadist who was in a good mood when he went to play spring hockey. He allowed us to listen to the legendary hockey championships in the classroom. Someone brought the radio. And when we won over the Russians, he brought twenty five popsicles, so we celebrated the victory like this. "

"Unfortunately, in the years that we are talking about, slovak film has almost disappeared. It wasn't even filmed there. You can find it there when you look at an encyclopedia. There you see that there are empty boxes. Those were the years when Koliba was privatized. So Mečiar's children actually stole it. Remarkably, these years have not been lost for me. Because at that time, foreign staff came here - Americans, the so-called Hollywood. At that time, I was filming with them as an assistant director. It was an excellent experience. Dragon Heart, Sludge Conqueror, Dragon Heart Two, Uprising. These were huge Hollywood projects, on which many slovak film craftsmen, learned a lot. In practice, some of those processes have changed radically and remain here. That's a paradox. "

"The lectures were very informal. However, there were four of us that year. Sometimes it connected with documentary filmmakers. There were acting exercises, they were interesting. The seminars connected with film screenings, were very interesting. Because this video library - an archive that was at school - contained many movies that were banned. They didn't even watch TV. It was enough for one of the creators to emigrate. Vojtěch Jasný - director or Nemec and even Forman was already emigrated at that time. I've seen a lot of rare movies out there that shaped that taste. "