I spent more than three quarters of an hour in the cab. While I was getting to Botafogo, trying to decipher what the driver was saying in Portuguese about his eleven-year-old filhinha Beatris and shutting my eyes whenever he drove through red lights at 50 mph, I kept asking myself why on earth I had decided, on my first stay in Rio, to see Soul at Peace (Pokoj v duši), a feature made by my compatriot and premiered earlier this year, instead of some Brazilian flick that might never be shown in my country.

When I finally arrived, the screening hall was so crammed I had to sit on the floor. Then, after a while, beside the excruciating pain in my back, I experienced a strange emotion I would probably never have felt back in Slovakia. It was genuine pride.

I actually didn’t like the movie, but I didn’t care. What I was really thinking about all the time was whether my fellow viewers, mostly Brazilian I guessed, would appreciate the Slovak landscape, language, lifestyle… In short, things they probably don’t come across very often.

I enjoyed the final applause as if it had been meant for myself. This is when I realised that the festival, as well as the workshop I am taking part in, is above all a cultural exchange.

So next time you attend a screening, don’t just hurry to the cinema like a fool. Talk to the taxi driver, talk to the people at the box office, talk to anybody you meet. And don’t forget to keep your memories; they can come in handy for an original novel, a movie, or simply an editorial like the one you just read.

Dominika Uhrikova