Ingrid (Aňa Geislerová), a successful gynaecologist at a district hospital in late-1980s Czechoslovakia, lives a comfortable life with her music-teacher husband Maroš in a beautiful house in the countryside. At work, she delivers babies, performs abortions and takes part in sterilisation procedures, often without her Roma patients’ informed consent, believing she is acting in their best interests. But when Agáta, a young Romany woman, joins the hospital staff, Ingrid’s carefully ordered world begins to shift. As the two form an unexpected bond, Ingrid is forced to confront the unsettling truth that even the noblest intentions cannot justify the means.
Winner of the FIPRESCI Award at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Ostrochovský’s beguiling, intimate drama confronts a suppressed chapter of Czechoslovak history, when the state sought to control women’s reproductive choices and Roma women were subjected to forced sterilisation under the guise of modernisation, care and medical progress.
Ivan Ostrochovský, Slovak Republic, Czech Republic, Hungary 2026, 88´, English subtitles
Cast: Aňa Geislerová, Simona Boledovičová, Eva Mores, Vlad Ivanov, Éva Bandor, Attila Mokos
Responses