Slovak director Ivan Ostrochovský is planning an American remake of “Only Beautiful Things to Look At.”

Her latest drama, premiering at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, is set in the 1980s and follows a doctor (Aňa Geislerová) who begins to question the forced sterilization of Romani women in the former Czechoslovakia.

“This was happening all over the world,” he says. Variety.

His frequent collaborator Katarína Tomková, who produced the film alongside Ostrochovský, Albert Malinovský, Pavel Strnad and Petr Oukropec for Punkchart Films and Negativ, has signed up for the Global Media Makers residency with Film Independent, which focuses on the film business in the United States.

“We have already conducted research and location searches on Navajo Nation lands in New Mexico, and we are currently adapting the story to fit the local context. Between the 1970s and 1980s, the birth rate among Native Americans decreased by approximately 60%, and it is believed that approximately 40% of Native American women were subjected to forced sterilization,” says Ostrochovský.

“The response we got was that they didn’t want to see another movie that portrayed them as victims. They want to meet in the middle and start a dialogue.”

Before that happens, he hopes to start a dialogue also in Slovakia, a country that has yet to acknowledge its problematic past and the treatment of the Roma community. Forced sterilizations continued well into the 2000s.

“A few years ago, these women started going to court, but the Slovak government does not want to pay them compensation for these procedures. There has been an official apology, that’s all. We are a small country and there are not many films, so people are probably talking about this one.”

Ostrochovský, who co-wrote the film with Marek Leščák, is already behind the Slovak Oscar nomination “Servants.” In Karlovy Vary he also screens the new documentaries “Igor and After” and “33 Steps”, which he produced himself.

He approached some doctors responsible for the sterilizations.

“We talked to them and they understand why we’re doing this. But a lot of them really wanted to help.” [back then]particularly those who live in really terrible conditions with seven or eight children. That’s the main issue here: when you have all these logical and rational arguments, you can forget about what is moral.”

Despite its relatively dark subject matter, “Only Beautiful Things to Look At” might be his most accessible film yet, with star Aňa Geislerová at the helm. One of the best-known Czech actresses, she was recently seen at the premiere of “Caravan” in Cannes.

“We wanted to reach the widest audience possible, especially because we knew we were dealing with a difficult subject. We also believed that Aňa attracts a different type of audience to cinemas than the one that would normally come to see our films,” he says.

“We needed someone who could convincingly play a character who initially seems cold and rational, but who is able to undergo a profound transformation in a way that is believable and without pathos. Furthermore, very few actors can convincingly share the screen with a non-professional actor without overshadowing them. Aňa is one of them.”

She is joined by Simona Boledovičová, Eva Mores, Vlad Ivanov, Éva Bandor and Attila Mokos.

With the help of cinematographer Juraj Chlpík, he attempted to reflect the dilemmas of his characters in a visually creative way.

“I was thinking about nature documentaries and all those macro shots of insects or animals. After all, this film is a study of human behavior,” he says.

“I wanted it to be nice to look at, also because it served as a metaphor for the so-called ‘nice life’. It means different things to different people. For this doctor, it means being comfortable. For another person, it might mean having many children.”

He adds: “I didn’t want to make another depressing Eastern European movie and scare viewers.”