Inspiration Forum

October 26

10:00–11:00 AM
War in memes
The inner world of Marie Iljašenko

Ukrainians are defending their cities, taking care of their soldiers and helping those who had to leave their homes. They live amidst the war and often directly in war zones. How to cope under such difficult circumstances? Is it possible to respond to war with humour and creativity? Who are Patron, Crimea and Box? How did the painted majolica rooster become a symbol of bravery? And why did the people of Kiev agree to have an orgy on Mount Shchekavitsa in the event of a nuclear explosion? Ten moments of war that became symbols and memes. Some of them, e.g. the Ukrainian ship, will be familiar since they have made it into our information space, and others may surprise you.

Guest: Marie Iljašenko
 

This program will be available in Czech only.

12:00–1:30 PM
Two wars at once
Panel discussion on dealing with the impact of the war in Ukraine

Russia is waging two wars in Europe. The more terrible one is taking place in Ukraine. And in addition to human lives and livelihoods, it is devastating the countryside. The impact on human health and the ecosystems here is enormous. And Vladimir Putin is also waging an energy war on Europe. High electricity and gas prices are driving people into poverty, threatening our social harmony and the stability of democratic regimes. What does a conflict-torn landscape look like, and what is the most effective way of helping? How is Europe dealing with the emergency shortage of raw materials from Russia? Which course will Europe and Ukraine take in the upcoming years?

Guests: Anna Ackermann, Martin Jirušek, Miriam Macurová
Moderator: Helena Truchlá

In collaboration with Aktuálně.cz.

2:30–4:00 PM
Experience of cruelty
Discussion about the experiences of a family active in the epicenter of the war

She was helping in Mariupol during the war, while her husband was fighting in Azovstal and then fell into captivity. She eventually escaped from the most tragic place of the war and is one of the survivors, who can bear witness to the horrific events. About what modern war technologies, but also means of communication, do to a life exposed to violence coming suddenly from all sides, about the possibilities of cooperation and solidarity of the survivors, and about the new world that emerges from these experiences. Whom and what has the war taken from us, and what has it taught us about ourselves?

Guest: Oksana Stomina
Moderator: Filip Remunda

5:00–6:30 PM
Stories behind the headlines
Discussion on reporting from the frontline

Guest: Illia Ponomarenko*
Moderator: Vojtěch Boháč

While many are understandably fleeing war zones, they are heading there – to record events that no one should have to witness. Since most of us are lucky enough to have only a passing knowledge of war, we owe the information about what is happening in the conflict zone primarily to them. What does the work of war reporters entail? And how do they perceive the situation as direct witnesses to the horrors of war?

*Illia Ponomarenko will join live from Amsterdam.

In collaboration with Voxpot.

7:30–9:00 PM
Testimony from the trenches
Discussion with a documentarian who was fighting in the war

It is usually men with arms in their hands who are defending their war-torn country. But how does war affect the lives of Ukrainian women? Some are forced to flee, others are kept busy by running the state, and others have decided to join the armed forces and fight for their country. Currently, there are more than 30,000 women in the Ukrainian army (15% of all servicepeople). This is one of the highest rates of women serving in any army. What is life like for a woman at the front?

Guest: Alisa Kovalenko
Moderator: Petra Procházková

With the support of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom.

GUESTS

Anna Ackermann

Political analyst at the International Institute for Sustainable Development and a founding member of the Ukrainian NGO “Ecoaction” – Center for Environmental Initiatives. Since the outbreak of the Russian aggression, she has been working on the green reconstruction of post-war Ukraine and coordinating cooperation between Ukrainian and EU organizations on this issue.

Vojtěch Boháč

War reporter, political analyst, journalist and a founder and editor-in-chief of the online news server Voxpot. As a freelance journalist he has contributed to Právo daily, Reporter magazine, Deník Referendum daily and A2larm journal. He studied political sciences at the Faculty of Social Studies of Masaryk University in Brno and also studied at several universities in Russia and Ukraine. He gained experience working at The Moscow Times and the Ukrainian Segodnya. He has for a long time been following the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, and this year covered in detail the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He is the winner of the 2021 Novinářská křepelka Award and is currently preparing a book of reports chronicling Russia and Ukraine‘s decade-long journey to the current war.

Marie Iljašenko

Poet, writer, book editor and translator. She was born in Kiev and grew up in Police nad Metují. She studied Comparative and East European Studies at Charles University. Her poetry collection Osip míří na jih (Osip Is Heading South) was nominated for the 2016 Magnesia Litera Award in the Discovery of the Year category. Marie Iljašenko was also nominated for the Dresden Lyric Prize (2014) and the Václav Burian Prize (2016). In 2018, she published her second collection, Sv. Outdoor (St. Outdoor), which focuses on the contrasting motifs of home and having to leave home.

Martin Jirušek

Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations and European Studies at Masaryk University. He specializes in geopolitics and energy security with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and the United States. He is also the editor of the Czech Journal of Political Science.

Alisa Kovalenko

A Ukrainian filmmaker, who put down her camera and signed up to fight for Ukraine driven by the outrage over Russia's invasion of her home and memories of a sexual assault she survived during fighting with Moscow-backed separatists eight years ago. After making her first feature documentary Sister Zo in her final year at university, Alisa made her feature debut Alisa in Warland about the war in eastern Ukraine, which premiered at IDFA in Amsterdam in 2015 as part of the First Appearance competition. Alisa's second documentary film, Home Games, had its world premiere at Sheffield Doc/Fest and was nominated at sixty-five festivals (8 awards). Home Games was also nominated for Best Ukrainian Documentary of 2019 by the Ukrainian Film Academy. In 2019, Alisa Kovalenko became a member of the European Film Academy (EFA).

Miriam Macurová

Climate campaigner at Greenpeace, where she focuses on European climate policy at an expert level. She focuses in particular on the Green Deal for Europe, the Fit for 55 legislative package and the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union and its impact on EU climate policy. Last year she completed her Master's degree in Social and Cultural Ecology at Charles University in Prague.

Illia Ponomarenko

Reporter at Kyiv Independent. He has been reporting on the war in eastern Ukraine since the first days of the conflict. He covers national security issues, military technology and Ukrainian defence reforms. He has been deployed with Ukrainian combat troops in the Donbas war zone and previously also as a UN peacekeeping reporter in Palestine and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In 2020, he received an Alfred Friendly Press Partners fellowship and was selected to serve as a guest reporter for USA Today at the U.S. Department of Defense.

Petra Procházková

Czech journalist and humanitarian worker. Since 1989 she worked for the Lidové noviny daily, in 1992 she went to Moscow as its correspondent and worked in the territories of former USSR until 2001. She covered a number of war conflicts in Asia and Africa, and was involved in crisis reporting. She was expelled from Russia in 2001. She worked in Afghanistan until 2006. After returning to the Czech Republic, she covered the former USSR, Central Asia, and Afghanistan. She is currently working in the editorial office of Deník N.

Filip Remunda

Czech director, cinematographer and producer. He graduated from the Department of Documentary Film at FAMU. He is a co-founder of the Institute of Documentary Film, which helps to promote Czech films abroad. Together with Vít Klusák, he gained renown with his controversial reality film show about a fictitious hypermarket called Czech Dream. He is the winner of the Pavel Koutecký Award for The Tadpole, the Rabbit and the Holy Spirit. He is one of the main authors of the television series Czech Journal.

Oksana Stomina

Writer, poet, activist and volunteer. She comes from Mariupol, where she survived several weeks of intense Russian shilling and humanitarian crisis. She is the author of a collection of poems, Mariupol on the Front Lines, in which she reflects on the beginning of the Russian invasion and the events of Mariupol in 2014. She is currently working on a book about the ongoing war, and about “medieval cruelty enhanced by modern technology”, and its impact on the lives of individual men and women in the city.

Helena Truchlá

Czech journalist, author of the Středoevropanka podcast, and analyst at the STEM research institute. Sis involved in the Czech Interests project on the EU level. From 2018 to 2022 she was the foreign editor of Aktuálně.cz. She focuses on European affairs and events in Germany. She writes about the future of Czech and European energy management and environmental issues. In the past, she contributed to Hospodářské noviny daily and selected German media. She studied economics and political science in Brno, Berlin, Bordeaux and Edinburgh. She has contributed to Aktuálně.cz’s Chudé Česko 2021 (Poor Czechia 2021) project – a series of reports, interviews and analyses focusing on social inequality and hidden poverty.

FILM SELECTION

Images can speak louder than words. Check out our selection of films from the Ji.hlava IDFF’s festival programme.

8TH DAY OF THE WAR (Czech Republic, 2022, Oksana Moiseniuk)
BANDITS OF THE BALLAD (Czech Republic, Slovakia, 2022, Vladimír Morávek)
FREEDOM ON FIRE: UKRAINE’S FIGHT FOR FREEDOM (Ukraine, United States, United Kingdom, 2022, Evgeny Afineevsky)
ROSES. FILM-CABARET (Ukraine, 2021, Irena Stetsenko)
THE INVESTIGATOR (Czech Republic, Croatia, 2022, Viktor Portel)
THE KIEV TRIAL (Netherlands, Ukraine, 2022, Sergei Loznitsa)