Rudolf Ferko (Slovakia)

Slovak film director and cinematographer. In 1954 he graduated from the Advanced School of Film in Čimelice. He started his professional career as a camera assistant at the Report Film Studios in Bratislava and contributed to the making of The Week in Film newsreels. In 1957 he moved up to the position of director of photography on various films, such as Mardi Gras at Búry, Beautiful Places of Slovakia, Water Rafting on the Danube, The Construction of the Krpeľany Hydropower Station. In 1959 he was invited to make his first documentary with film director Rudolf Urc entitled Man from Littletown. This was followed by his collaborations with a number of Slovak filmmakers: Milan Černák – Closer to the Stars (1960), Miloslav Kubík – Monologues (1964), Ladislav Kudelka – How Many? (1965), Štefan Kamenický – Ján Cikker (1966), Vlado Kubenko – Naive Art (1966) and others. In 1968 he was one of the cinematographers shooting feature documentaries about the dramatic events in and after August 1968 – The Time We Live (1968) and Black Days (1968). He was the director, cinematographer and screenwriter for the films A Day in Almaty (1971), Africa 77 (1977), An Invitation to the Archives (1978), Sahara Memento (1981), for the report coverage program Sonda he made the films Breaking of the Seals (1985), „...Good Times Are Coming...“ (1987), How About Our Architecture? (1987), A Life with Music (1988) and more. After the Report Film Studios were closed, Ferko worked as editor-in-chief of the Department of Documentary Film Production of the Slovak Television studios in Bratislava. In 2002, as a cinematographer he worked on Dream and Reality (d. Ivan Húšťava). He wrote a book about Slovak reportage cinema entitled Almost Ten, Maybe Even More Million... (2004).