>>> Polystyrene (Slovakia)
The town is not grey and sad as it used to be, it is now full of colour. The shabby walls are hidden under a layer of polystyrene and the colourful layers will fade away in several years. The story of three children unfolds in this town.
Gabo (13) He grows fatter and fatter. He is sacked from the ice hockey training, but he doesn’t confess to his parents. During the time when he should be training he tries to gain the respect of the junior skinheads on the polystyrene estate. It’s hard, but he makes it. He becomes a king in playing darts in his local pub and he becomes a skinhead without a reason. He carries his nickname with pride he wears it as a tattoo on his FAT belly.
Gabos’ sister Martina (11) she loves motion and she loves dance. Her love for dance is a lot greater than her talent for it. The talent is not replaced by her tireless trying at many auditions either. Motion is dominant despite not being perfect. Martina has got one more passion. Dogs. And one big problem.
Her mother hates dogs and so there’s no dog allowed in their home. Martina is inventive. She creates dogs in her fantasy, she turns to them on the street, talks to them and saves them.
Heno (12), Romani son of Jennifer Lopez put away in an orphanage, because his mum is making music videos in America. He dances like a God. His street performance of break dance keeps attracting large audience. Everything would be different if only he could do what he likes to. In the orphanage, there’s a timetable for every single thing and dancing on the street is forbidden activity. Yet, it doesn’t stop him from performing at least on his way back from the school. He tries to earn some money to buy a flight ticket to America by dancing on the street. He wants go to his mother. He takes Martina under his wing and tries the impossible, to teach he to dance.
Gabo gets an ultimatum from his family. If he doesn’t slim down until the summer he is going to go to a camp for obese children – for the whole of summer holiday. The slimming down is difficult, almost impossible and so he tells himself that he should have fun before he goes to hell. He pretends to his parents that he is trying to slim down, but instead of it he leads his secret life of a darts champion in his local pub. With the leader of the skinheads Dano (13), he creates a friendship, especially because of the revolver that borrows from his father from time to time.
Martina doesn’t like the secret life of her brother. Her beloved Heno has to defend himself from the attacks of Gabos’ junior skinheads friends. After an incident when Gabo points a gun at Heno from the solidarity to Dano, the good relationship between the siblings ends.
Heno cannot understand the hater of the head shaved boys and he misses his mother in these hard moments. But Jennifer Lopez is in America. The true about Heno’s mum comes out when Martina finally investigates. Heno’s mum is in prison and Heno cannot find the courage to visit her. He prefers to live in a fantasy and to earn money for the pointless trip to America. When the hour of true comes, everything bursts out. But Heno has got one true for Martina. That she will never learn to dance and that her brother will grew up into a killer.
Martina wants to save Gabo from the future of a criminal. She wants to lure him away from the neonazi pub. She doesn’t succeed in doing that, but at least she hounds Gabo and Dano against each other and weakens Gabo’s concentration on the darts competition.
Suddenly, Gabo is just a fat boy whose sister slacks around with a gay gypsy boy. He looses the revolver and fails at the darts competition. He doesn’t have any attractive activity and so he looses his interest in everyone. He didn’t loose weight, lost the love of his sister and he is back to where he started. He stands before a mirror fatter then before, without friends, one huge obese nothing with the tattoo that says PUDDING around his belly button. Everything was one big mistake. Her finally understands that thanks to his sister. Martina forgives him and they try to do the final thing that makes sense. Join Heno and his real mother together.
Zuzana Belková
Scriptwriter, working for film and TV, winner of Tibor Vichta, the biggest scriptwriting contest in Slovakia
