Slovak Public Television Drops Coverage of National Film Awards

Slovak public television STVR has ended its partnership with the national film awards ceremony Slnko v sieti (Sun in the Net), marking the second consecutive year the gala will not be broadcast on the public broadcaster. The awards ceremony, which celebrates Slovak cinema, is scheduled for Thursday. Despite Slovak films attracting one million cinema viewers last year, STVR completely terminated its collaboration with the awards this year. The Slovak Film and Television Academy offered the broadcast rights to commercial networks Markíza and TV JOJ, but neither station agreed to air the ceremony. The decision has drawn criticism from the film industry, with the academy's president suggesting that while STVR can remove films from television screens, it cannot silence Slovak artists and filmmakers.