KOZA

After representing his native Slovakia at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, Peter “Koza” Baláž had no choice but to hang up his boxing gloves. Like many Olympic athletes who never reached the podium, he now languishes in obscurity. Forced to take menial jobs to support his family, Koza learns that his wife is expecting their second child. He decides to return to the ring to make enough money to pay for an abortion. With an inept trainer in his corner, he embarks on a dangerous countrywide tour. Unable to be the fighter he was, he persists despite taking repeated beatings and enduring repeated concussions. In his second work of fiction, director Ivan Ostrochovský shuns the standard boxing film stereotypes where the road to glory is paved with determination and self-sacrifice. Ostrochovský, who cut his teeth in documentaries, meticulously details the aching, muffled cry of a misguided pugilist who sacrifices his battered body to provide his family with a decent life. Screened in the Forum section of the 2015 Berlin Film Festival, this stunningly authentic work gives new meaning to the credo that you have to fight to survive.