Since his breakout with Victim, a taut social thriller that premiered in Venice’s Orizzonti section in 2022 and became Slovakia’s Oscar submission, Slovak-born Czech-based director Michal Blaško has emerged as one of Central Europe’s intriguing talents on the rise. He first gained attention with his award-winning short Atlantis, 2003, which screened at Cannes Cinéfondation and hinted at his interest in morally ambiguous situations shaped by larger socio-political forces. His debut feature, Victim, explored the media-fueled distortion of a hate crime case in a small Czech town, blending restrained formalism with a cold, procedural tone to probe themes of justice, systemic bias, and individual complicity. He employed a similar approach in the miniseries Suspicion, which became the first Central European series to premiere at the Berlinale Film Festival.

Currently, Blaško is working on his sophomore feature, Cowgirl, set amid a rural landscape of horse ranches and family farms, in contrast to the courtrooms, municipal offices, and police stations of Victim. Similarly, Blaško’s second feature trades overt sociopolitical critique for a more intimate register, focusing on the psychological journey of a 14-year-old girl confronting her youthful idealism with the real world.

Yet, despite this pivot in setting and style, the director’s thematic concerns remain intact. Like his earlier works, Cowgirl interrogates the space where personal ethics collide with social expectations, only now the conflict is embedded in the fabric of everyday rural life. Blaško continues to explore how individuals, especially those on the margins or in transitional stages of life, respond when faced with moral ambiguity.

A girl with a horse in a corrupted land

Set against the sweeping rural landscapes of Liptov and Orava in northern Slovakia, Cowgirl tells the story of Barbora, a horse-riding 14-year-old raised by her widowed father, a respected local policeman. Barbora is immersed in the world of horse cutting, a Western-style equestrian competition, and shares a profound bond with her horse, Indy. For her, horse cutting is more than a pastime, it’s a way of life, rooted in discipline, care, and emotional connection. As producer Jakub Viktorín notes, the idea for the film emerged from the personal experiences of screenwriter Jakub Medvecký, who also penned the script for Victim. Medvecký’s family runs a working ranch and his brother is a professional trainer. This insider perspective lends the film a rare level of authenticity, in its depiction of both equestrian sport and rural life.

At the outset, Barbora’s world appears close-knit and stable, governed by the quiet rituals of animal grooming and structured by a seemingly trustworthy web of relationships: her father, Ľuboš; her trainer, Lucia; and the small community around her. But this sense of security begins to unravel when Lucia becomes embroiled in a local land dispute involving a farmer close to Barbora’s father. The central tension in Cowgirl lies in the erosion of belief, particularly the painful realization that those once seen as protectors may be complicit in maintaining systems of silence and injustice. Barbora’s relationship with Lucia, who serves as both mentor and surrogate maternal figure, also becomes more complicated as Barbora discovers that adults she idealized are more morally compromised than they appear. According to Viktorín, Cowgirl is a story of a generational shift, about how a young person, confronted with corruption and moral fatigue, begins to forge her own path.

The casting of Cowgirl continues Blaško’s ongoing interest in combining professional and nonprofessional actors. The role of Barbora is played by the debuting nonprofessional actress Ela Kastély, who has a background in horse training and competitive riding, a crucial requirement given the physical demands of the character and the significance of her bond with the horse. The casting process was extensive, with a strong response from young women across Slovakia who not only met the age and performance criteria but also had experience with horses.

Slovak actor Juraj Loj takes on the role of Ľuboš, Barbora’s father, a local policeman whose quiet demeanor masks a growing internal conflict. Loj recently starred in Ondřej Provazník’s psychological drama Broken Voices and Agnieszka Holland’s Charlatan. Juliana Brutovská, who appeared in Zuzana Kirchnerová’s Caravan, stars as Barbora’s coach, mentor, and emotional anchor, Lucia–a woman who provides support yet harbors secrets of her own. The director and occasional actor Peter Bebjak plays a farmer who is close to Barbora’s father.

Rural realism with Western echoes

While firmly rooted in the landscapes and textures of rural Slovakia, Cowgirl draws on the thematic and visual language of the Western genre. Even as the dusty fields, ranch structures, and horse-training arenas evoke the iconography of Americana, however, the director’s aim is not to replicate genre tropes, but to translate them into the reality of a girl coming of age in a rural environment. Blaško here reteams with DoP Adam Mach, who previously lensed Victim and Suspicion.

The film’s formal approach recalls Blaško’s earlier work Atlantis, 2003, maintaining a close connection to the main character while giving equal narrative weight to the environment she inhabits. The rural setting is treated as a second protagonist, reflecting Barbora’s bond with nature and the agricultural world that continues to shape her.

Complementing the film’s visual language is the soundscape by Ádám Balázs (Tony, Shelly and the Magic Light), whose work with Ildikó Enyedi and others has established him as a skilled composer. In Cowgirl, Balázs creates a score that interweaves folk, ambient textures, and subtle Western inflections into a regional sound world. Editor Wanda Kiss, meanwhile, guides these shifts through a rhythm-based editing style, reinforcing the film’s delicate balance between stillness and movement, innocence and disillusionment. Production design is led by Stella Šonková (Victim, A Sensitive Person), with Jan Šulcek (After Party, Restore Point) overseeing on-set sound. In addition to these key creatives, the film’s postproduction and VFX work is taking place in the Czech Republic’s Moravian-Silesian region.

Regional story with international reach

Principal photography on Cowgirl began in late July 2025 and is scheduled to conclude in mid-September 2025, with shooting locations spread across Slovakia and the Czech Republic. The production strategically mirrors the film’s summer setting, allowing the natural environment to reflect the protagonist’s story arc. Filming has taken place in the Slovak regions of Liptov, Trenčín, and Orava, as well as selected areas in the Moravian-Silesian region. Postproduction is set to continue into early 2026, with the team aiming for a festival premiere later that year.

Cowgirl is produced by Jakub Viktorín of nutprodukcia (Slovakia), who worked on Blaško’s previous projects, and Tomáš Hrubý of the Czech nutprodukce, in collaboration with Gábor Osváth of Filmfabriq (Hungary), and Czech Television as a key coproducer. The project has secured support from multiple national and supranational institutions, including the Slovak Audiovisual Fund, the Czech Audiovisual Fund, the Hungarian National Film Institute, Eurimages, and Creative Europe MEDIA. World sales rights remain available outside the Czech Republic, with Slovakia and Hungary presenting potential openings for boutique sales agents and international festival programmers seeking distinctive Central European cinema.