LIŠTIČKY

This film tells the story of two sisters, Alzbeta and Martina, who leave their homeland of Slovakia in order to try their luck in Ireland. Martina is engaged to an Irish businessman with whom she's managed to build up her own little piece of middle-class, domestic bliss. She appears to be the stronger and more prosperous of the two and soon has to look after the less successful Alzbeta. The latter initially trys her luck as an au-pair, but soon finds herself staggering from one difficulty to the next. She loses her job, gets involved with some shady characters and ultimately finds herself being exploited as cheap foreign labour.

Having the hit the depths, she nonetheless categorically rejects the help of her sister. In fact she appears to be rather envious and jealous of her sister's success. Alzbeta tries to take her mind off her frustration with a series of romantic forays. The tale takes a tragic turn however when she one day finds out that her otherwise so exemplary sister of all people is having an affair behind her fiancé's back. This has the additional effect of exposing a terrible event from Alzbeta's not so distant past.

This story of two women in exile is told in an unemotive, down-to-earth fashion. Thus is the perspective of strangers in a foreign land provided with an interesting aesthetic and narrative counterpart.