DANAE Production - life in illumination -
In 2020 Veronika Paštéková with Michal Čerňanský founded DANAE Production, a film production company with the main objective to develop and produce fiction and documentaries for national and international markets and audiences.
DANAE Production focuses its creative and production interest on powerful, profound, and ambiguous stories. The stories that disrupt the status quo. The stories that shout, cry, laugh… The stories that bring hope. The stories to which you will return to.
The guarantee of quality we consider to be crucial, and international coproduction we find inevitable.
Veronika Paštéková – producer, founder, and owner of DANAE Production
Veronika Paštéková is a graduate of Production dep. of the Film and Television Faculty at the Academy of Performing Arts (VŠMÚ) in Bratislava, Slovakia. She worked in the Central European House of Photography as production manager responsible for co-organizing the Month of Photography festival and pitching forum Portfolio review. She has been cooperating with many production companies in Slovakia, Czech republic, Germany and Netherlands in the production department and as the development scout and manager, she has created distribution strategies and coordinated festival traffic for different films.
Filmography:
THE AUSCHWITZ REPORT, director Peter Bebjak, 2021 (SK/CZ/PL) – delegate producer for Development
DEZO HOFFMANN – PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE BEATLES, director Patrik Lančarič, 2022, (SK/CZ) – head of international archive research
Michal Čerňanský – producer / executive
Michal is an erudite lawyer and a specialist in contracts and commercial law.
DANAE Production’s debut The Father demonstrates the fundamental focus of our creative and production interest – powerful, profound and ambiguous stories.
Characteristics:
On the hottest day of the year, a loving father forgets his baby daughter in a locked car, causing her to die. Although he received a suspended sentence for manslaughter, this was not enough for the people of Slovakia, who wanted to take justice into their own hands. A year later, overwhelmed by guilt, father died of a heart attack.
Every year, all around the world, dozens of children die in exactly this way. Experts call this phenomenon ‘Forgotten Baby Syndrome’. It is a legally recognized condition across the world (not in Slovakia, however).
Inspired by real events and the book ‘My life with Jojo” by Dušan Budzak
Screenplay: Tereza Nvotová, Dušan Budzak
Director: Tereza Nvotová
Director of photography: Adam Suzin
Main cast: Milan Ondrík (Michal) and Dominika Morávková (Zuzka)
Places of Shooting: Slovakia
Length: 90 min.
Language versions: Slovak / English and Polish subtitles
Co-producers: moloko film (CZ) and LAVA FILMS (PL)
Shooting started in June 2023. Released in 2025.
The Father has been selected for When East Meets West (IT, 2020), Baltic Event (EE, 2021) and Sofia Meetings (BG, 2022). Nowadays DANAE Production is in pre-production stage of the project Father and has secured financing from Slovakia and Czech republic and Poland.
On May 18, 2024, "The Father" was featured at Cannes as one of the five projects in the Marché du Film's Works in Progress.
Characteristics:
"Dilemma" aims to captivate audiences with its starting puzzle, hidden under the neutral label of "consensual sex." The solution to a practical life situation is not approached by trained experts but by those who unexpectedly find themselves in it.
Slovakia faces conservative attitudes, including the removal of contraception from school curriculum and ongoing debates about women´s autonomy. Our Slovak society is not yet as proficient in this topic, and we believe that a film on this subject would educate people on how non-consensual sex can look like. It is not just about brutal and violent rape by a stranger, but also about taking advantage of a situation when a person is unable to give consent or is afraid to say no.
Screenplay: Hana Lasicová, Jozef Paštéka
Director: Jonáš Karásek
Places of Shooting: Slovakia
Length: 90 min.
Language versions: Slovak / Czech
Co-producers: Radio and television of Slovakia
Shooting: 2025
Release: 2026
Inspired by real events
Characteristics:
Ľubica is a young woman who, on one hand, tries to prevent an apocalypse and, on the other hand, deals with the loss of her father. We live in an age of internet, conspiracy theories, fake news and unchecked sources. Our film will be visually captivating and hyperbolized satire of this era, combining science fiction elements and dark humour.
Screenplay: Džian Baban, Vojtěch Mašek
Director: Michal Kollár
Places of Shooting: Slovakia
Length: 100 min.
Language versions: Slovak / Czech
Co-producers: MasterFilm (CZ)
Shooting: 2025
Release: 2026
Inspired by real life
