28th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival

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ACROSS
This autobiographical film, standing on the borderline between reality and fiction, explores diverse forms of faith and spirituality. Director Irene Dorigotti guides the film dressed in a Boy Scout uniform – a reminder of her family heritage – as she travels through her native Italy and remote areas, meeting spiritual leaders and ordinary people. For her, these encounters mark decisive moments in her spiritual journey and in her discovery of the role that religion can play in the life of contemporary man. Poetic images of landscapes, dreamlike passages and fragments of personal history, together with poignant music, create a powerful statement about the nature of humanity.“I spent most of my childhood walking in the woods and sharing the path with other children, seeking a God in falling stars – a God who could answer the big questions of a little life.” (Source)

ACROSS

Irene Dorigotti
Switzerland, Italy / 2023 / 77 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Opus Bonum
International Premiere
Atirkül in the Land of Real Men
In the vast plains of Kyrgyzstan, men have been cultivating a group sport with a long tradition. The aim of the game buzkashi is to steal the trophy of a dead goat from the rival team of riders, all while staying on horseback. Into this tough masculine world enters Atirkül, a woman with an enterprising spirit and a sense of humour. The film follows the everyday life of the headstrong horse lover Atirkül, whose ambition is to build her own buzkashi team of local young men to preserve the heritage of her native region. The ethnographic perspective alternates with a purely personal one, gradually revealing the possibilities of overcoming gender roles“They say it’s not for women! This makes me feel insecure. But I don’t care, I just follow my heart.”

Atirkül in the Land of Real Men

Janyl Jusupjan
Kyrgyzstan, Czech Republic, France / 2023 / 65 min.
section: Czech Joy, Ji.hlava Online
World Premiere
Bergen - A City West of Reason
Norway's second-largest city is not just an ordinary settlement with an inferiority complex and big ambitions. Surrounded by the sea on one side and mountains on the other and slightly detached from the outside world, Bergen lives its own distinctive story. This cinematic tribute to the town and its people is conceived as a series of micro-stories told against the backdrop of film footage taken over more than a century. In it, we learn what gave Bergen its modernist architectural appearance, why it is still a welcoming place to newcomers and, above all, what underlies the undying pride of the inhabitants of this perennially rain-drenched city. “The rain, the humour, the passion, the arguments, the disasters, the complexes, the parties and the extravagance are some of the ingredients in this declaration of love for Bergen.” Source: VERDENSTEATRET

Bergen - A City West of Reason

Frode Fimland
Norway / 2020 / 76 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Special Event
International Premiere
Broken Sky
The last earthquake that struck Popayán in 1983 not only destroyed the Colombian city itself, but left lasting scars on the lives of its men and women that have been inherited by younger generations. Friends María José and Alejandra deal with the traumas of the past and the pain in their own way – through sunsets, art, poetry and cinema itself. “The most important thing for a house not to fall down is to have a good foundation, and I think it’s also like that with humans, isn’t it?” — Alejandra

Broken Sky

María José Alarcón Ardila
Colombia / 2022 / 24 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Short Joy
European Premiere
BULUNKUL
High in the mountains of the Pamirs lies Lake Bulunkul and the village of the same name, one of the coldest inhabited places in the former Soviet Union. Mountains, a plain, a herd of yaks. Time has seemingly stood still here. Survival in this inhospitable landscape indeed depends on sensitivity to weather fluctuations and changes in nature.

BULUNKUL

Marie-Violaine Brincard, Olivier Dury
France / 2023 / 30 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Short Joy
World Premiere
Drifting Woods
Danish artist Pia Rönicke has been exploring Scandinavian forests as a changing historical and phenomenological space for several years. She draws inspiration from the concepts of ecologist Suzanne Simard, who sees the forest ecosystem as an arena where human and non-human life forms collide. Like the subterranean mycelium, this polyphonic film is not arranged hierarchically but in a network. In addition to the people connected to the forest and the land, it lets the trees themselves tell the story. Their non-linearly presented story begins at the end of the Ice Age and continues to the present day, when man has ripped the wood from its natural habitat and reduced it to an industrial commodity."The forest is dynamic. Clearings appear and new trees grow. Just like the cells in our body are not the same as last year, the forest is always changing." – Pia Rönicke Source: BLOOM

Drifting Woods

Pia Rönicke
Denmark, Sweden / 2023 / 100 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Testimonies
European Premiere
Dust is a whale, is sunlight
Mark Bosselaers is a marine paleontologist for whom the skeletal fragments of whales are nearly his whole life. In this minimalist portrait, we learn about his sometimes almost detective-like work and his distinctive theories. Everything is connected in Mark's vision – the sunlight, the whales and the dust we eventually turn into.“Ideally, I would love to spend all day working on whale fossils, but of course I also have to do the occasional chores around the house for my wife.” — Mark BosselaersSource: KZGW

Dust is a whale, is sunlight

María Casas Castillo
Portugal, Hungary, Belgium / 2023 / 20 min.
section: First Lights, Ji.hlava Online
World Premiere
Dusty Snare and Islands
An amateur female musician accidentally finds a set of drums on a deserted Thai island. The very unlikely situation launches the minimalist story of a film labyrinth, which turns into a journey from rehearsal to public performance. The conceptual film weaves images and sounds, often returning in reframing or recontextualisation, into the equivalent of a rhythmic piece of music. The audio-visual medium conveys intense emotions that defy superficial rational interpretation behind the recurring leitmotif of beating drums. A film unfolds on the screen before your eyes that you literally have to tune in to.

Dusty Snare and Islands

Chae Yu
Thailand, Republic of Korea (South Korea) / 2023 / 50 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Opus Bonum
International Premiere
Gutwasser
Gutwasser as a former military retreat and pilgrimage site with healing springs. The story of a place captured in a single house, a single name, a single drop of water.

Gutwasser

Kateřina Konrádová
Czech Republic / 2023 / 10 min.
section: FAMU Presents, Ji.hlava Online
World Premiere
Handful of Dirt
Halina is one of the last singers of mourning songs from Podlasie in eastern Poland. Her son Andrzej works as a gravedigger. For many years, they have accompanied others on their final journey. Death, before which modern society closes its eyes, is for them a natural part of life in which they find security and peace. “When you’ve dealt with funerals for over ten years, then well, everything happens.”

Handful of Dirt

Izabela Zubrycka
Poland / 2023 / 13 min.
section: First Lights, Ji.hlava Online
Czech Premiere
Holiday
Being somewhere else is the essence of Czech camping. Fleeting glances, the charms of passing women, queues for food, skirmishes between human males, the territoriality of tent stakes and the erotica of swing music personify the subversive summer illusion of a touchingly petty and collective escape into sameness.

Holiday

Václav Táborský
Czechoslovakia / 1963 / 8 min.
section: Czechoslovak Film Feuilleton, Ji.hlava Online
The film already had its Czech Premiere
Hovering Over Us
Big events in our lives and on the planet often start with something small. The author therefore puts different species of mosquitoes and glimpses of a childhood under the microscope. Scientific facts about the tiny bloodsucking creatures are mixed with fragmented memories in a ghostly narrative. To understand the past and prepare for the future, both require equal attention. “Every time that you think we're now living in some final, confusing battle arena, and that it will all end badly, you then realize that nothing truly ends.”

Hovering Over Us

Hanna Kaihlanen
Finland / 2023 / 16 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Short Joy
World Premiere
If I Ever Want to Learn How to Fall Down
I heard about a man who trains pigeons to fall to the ground. He lets them out of the cage, the pigeons circle high in the sky. Then the man gives the signal and the pigeons start to fall. I was terrified and fascinated by the idea at the same time. I don't understand how it's possible and I'd like to find out. (author's text)

If I Ever Want to Learn How to Fall Down

Hana Slaninová
Czech Republic / 2023 / 7 min.
section: FAMU Presents, Ji.hlava Online
World Premiere
Iron Cow
The film depicts the relationship between a farmer and his cattle. The protagonist is Milan Kazda, the mayor of the only energy self-sufficient municipality in the Czech Republic - Kněžice. The second character is his cow, which is constantly hungry and requires attention and care. Since she is a constant burden, she is figuratively an iron cow for the farmer.

Iron Cow

Barbora Aradská
Czech Republic / 2023 / 8 min.
section: FAMU Presents, Ji.hlava Online
World Premiere
La Reine
Drugs have been with 73-year-old non-conformist Ian all his life, but times have changed. Whereas in the 1960s they were part of the counterculture, today the lavender farm is a place far from the outside world where addicts flock, not looking for different or better company, but to bring their own traumas. Nikola Klinger used Super 16 to film not only Ian's memories, but also a nostalgic chronicle of social processes. His portrait of individual and collective memory shows that there are two ways to enjoy freedom, either as a medicinal herb or a poison drug. “Today we are taught to be individualists, but I think we are more dependent than ever.”The first screening is simultaneously translated into English.

La Reine

Nikola Klinger
Czech Republic / 2023 / 61 min.
section: Czech Joy, Ji.hlava Online, Opus Bonum
World Premiere
LAST THINGS
Billions of years before the origin of life, our planet was an active, evolving entity. Rocks, crystals and minerals could tell stories, and in Deborah Stratman's meditative essay, they get the chance. Before and after does not exist for them. Also, in their story of Earth's evolution, the lines between past and future blur. Images of sublime rock formations are accompanied by commentary by renowned geologist Marcia Bjornerud as well as excerpts from philosophical texts and speculative fiction. To see the world from the perspective of minerals may be to admit one's own transience. And perhaps, in doing so, to understand our place in the universe. “I fell in love with the idea that storytelling and rhythm are a sort of genetic memory of our species. The land as tape recorder. Every rock as a text.” — Deborah Stratman Source: MUBI

LAST THINGS

Deborah Stratman
France, Portugal, United States / 2022 / 49 min.
section: Constellations, Ji.hlava Online
Czech Premiere
MIGHTY AFRIN: in the time of floods
This time-lapse film follows five years in the life of Afrin, an orphaned girl who lives with her foster parents on an island in the Brahmaputra River. For the past few years, the area has been plagued by heavy rains, and devastating floods caused by climate change have taken the homes and lives of its inhabitants. Survivors are moving to the cities, leaving behind a devastated wilderness. Through her pride and courage, Afrin also manages to make it to civilization, where she tries to find a better life and her missing father. The visually captivating shots of the waterlogged landscape and the story of a girl who doesn't want to be a victim of circumstance speak volumes about the current conflict between humanity and nature. “The Brahmaputra tells new stories over and over again.”

MIGHTY AFRIN: in the time of floods

Angelos Rallis
Greece, France / 2023 / 91 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Testimonies
Czech Premiere
Nomad Solitude
Nomadism today is no longer just an expression of a traditional way of life or a free choice for young people, but an imposed necessity for many seniors in the US. For them, a house on four wheels remains the only economically affordable option. In this time-lapse documentary, we follow the lives of three women on a long journey across the United States as their lives have been transformed. How do they cope with radical change? And what do loved-ones and friends have to say about their decision? These questions are also answered in the film, which anchors the philosophy of desolation in a broader political and social context.“Each fleeing a part of their past, these three reckless women criss-cross the roads in the hope of rebuilding their lives.” Source: Grizzly Films

Nomad Solitude

Sebastien Wielemans
Belgium, France / 2023 / 87 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Opus Bonum
International Premiere
Nothing Runs Like a Deere
A run-down Swedish small town. A hot summer evening. A group of young people meet in the parking lot of a local supermarket. The location doesn't offer much in the way of leisure activities. That’s why they’ve found their own hobby: cars. In their specially modified vehicles, they listen to music, date, race, try to outwit the police… Their cars are a source of pride and their main topic of conversation. An anthropological study of the car subculture slowly turns into a magical-realistic probe into the depths of the night, where hormones and phantom creatures awaken to the sound of revving engines. “When everyone else drives illegally, you can't keep up. If you are going to the city, and everyone drives 90, if you drive 30 you'll arrive an hour later.”

Nothing Runs Like a Deere

Max Göran
Sweden / 2023 / 17 min.
section: Doc Alliance Selection, Ji.hlava Online
Czech Premiere
Of Fences and Men
The iconography of garden communities, which also includes fences, is spread out before us in a pictorial-sound study of a Czech phenomenon. All those swings, cottages, rusting gates and weed-ridden concrete panel walkways are monuments to human attempts to tame nature within reasonable limits.

Of Fences and Men

Petr Michal
Czech Republic / 2023 / 12 min.
section: First Lights, Ji.hlava Online
World Premiere
Places of the Soul
The death of the film director’s mother hit her very hard. She was just a child when this happened, and memories fade with the passage of time. Thus, the home videos that the most important woman in her life extensively shot begin to enter the picture. The documentary, with the poetic diction of the author's haunting voice, chronicles her journey from the sands of Arabia to the icy Antarctic, where she participated in a popular-science expedition. It is the contrast of two worlds, two completely different places, that brings her to question the titular places of the soul. Where do our memories remain? Where do we really belong at home? And where do we keep those who have already left us? “I'm the first Qatari woman in history to go to Antarctica, so this journey is a spiritual one and an exploration into matters of tradition, the environment, and the greater question of loss.” Source: Khaleejesque

Places of the Soul

Hamida Issa
Qatar / 2023 / 73 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Opus Bonum
World Premiere
Project 02
Google's data centres are renowned for their size and efficiency, but are also fraught with many questions. Adam Diller tried to penetrate the security fence and answer some of them. In his multimedia project, which in addition to this film includes a book and exhibition, he focused on a data centre in The Dalles, Oregon, built in 2006. Using both his own and archival footage, he uncovers the various layers of power, media and ecology to understand the history of the site and the material and discursive practices we come into contact with daily in our use of the internet. “The internet that this data center helps produce is changing our relationship with ourselves and everything around us.”

Project 02

Adam Diller
United States / 2023 / 65 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Testimonies
World Premiere
Summer and Winter
Families on a trip, people at work, festive parades, city streets, apartment interiors. Slides depicting everyday life in the former GDR serve as a visual basis for a reflective lyrical commentary consisting of excerpts from prose and essay works by James Joyce, George Orwell, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Virginia Woolf. Images of specific people, places and rituals – which we learn nothing of in greater detail – acquire timeless qualities thanks to extravisual reflections on mortality, fate or the imprint that we leave behind on this world, for example through photographs. “Apparently one grows more carnal and more mortal. As one grows older, only youth has a taste of immortality.”

Summer and Winter

Robert Manson
Ireland, Germany / 2023 / 40 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Opus Bonum
World Premiere
The Grief of the Forest
Children in the Vysočina region miss the forests that climate change and the bark beetle calamity have taken away. How do they cope with this loss and how does the School Forest project help? Environmentalist Barbora Klocová sought answers to these and many other questions. She filmed a total of 31 personal interviews with children and adolescents from the Highlands aged 8 to 18.

The Grief of the Forest

Barbora Klocová
Czech Republic / 2023 / 26 min.
section: Czech Television Documentaries, Ji.hlava Online
The film already had its Czech Premiere
The Květná Farm
The documentary Farma Květná follows the fate of three young men who have hit rock bottom, living in orphanages, in detention centres, on the streets. Now they have found work, and with it an unrecognised sense of meaning and self-worth, at Farm Květná, founded by former Interior Ministry official Ferdinand Raditsch. In it, he offers unorthodox support to those whose circumstances have destined them for an unfavourable starting line.

The Květná Farm

Jan Gebert
Czech Republic / 2023 / 26 min.
section: Czech Television Documentaries, Ji.hlava Online
The film already had its Czech Premiere
The Scyther
David Vostrovský is a professional reaper. With his sharpened scythe and years of experience, he participates in international grass cutting tournaments and teaches his craft to others. The film is a probe into this unusual hobby and an alternative lifestyle in the bosom of nature, which the reaper shares with his two adult children. “The relationship between humankind and nature is fading; it's becoming a cliché.” Source: Český rozhlas

The Scyther

Mikoláš Arsenjev
Czech Republic / 2023 / 27 min.
section: First Lights, Ji.hlava Online
World Premiere
We Used to Have a Garden
In this meditative and playful time-lapse documentary, the author observes a gardener and a garden gnome searching for a lost garden in a concrete backyard.

We Used to Have a Garden

Hana Slaninová
Czech Republic / 2023 / 8 min.
section: FAMU Presents, Ji.hlava Online
World Premiere
White Grass
In Mongolia, the word dzud refers to extremely cold winters that make it impossible for cattle to dig food out from under the snow. The fundamental transformation of pastoralists' lives caused by climate change is captured in this documentary portrait of a multi-generational family threatened with the loss of their traditional livelihood due to more frequent dzuds.“I discovered film as this really wonderful visual language that helps transport us to different places and introduce us to different characters and emotions that we might not have felt otherwise.” – Justin Kim WooSŏk

White Grass

Justin Kim WooSŏk
Mongolia / 2022 / 16 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Short Joy
European Premiere
Ministerstvo kultury
Fond kinematografie
Creative Europe Media
Město Jihlava
Kraj Vysočina
GEMO
Česká televize
Český rozhlas
Aktuálně.cz
Respekt
Dafilms