Programme sections

Opus Bonum is a competition section for the best world documentary films presented in world, international or European premieres. → USD 10,000 for the winning film → EUR 3,000 for the best film from V4 countries** (in cooperation with the International Visegrad Fund) → award for the best Central and East European film* → awards for the best cinematography, editing, sound design, film essay, etc. * Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia (only for films not supported by the Russian state institutions), Slovakia, Slovenia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan ** Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia

First Lights is a competition section for the best world documentary feature debuts and second features presented in world, international or European premieres.

Testimonies is a competition section dedicated to powerful documentary films which deal with important social, economic, environmental, and political phenomena.

Czech Joy is a competition section for the best Czech documentary, celebrating diversity of themes and cinematic expression. → 200.000 CZK for the winning film → Professional Nikon camera for the Special mention

Fascinations is a prestigious competition section for best world experimental documentary films. Unexpected representations of the lived world through exploratory work with film language in an atlas of contemporary experimental cinema from every continent.

Exprmntl.cz is a competition of the latest Czech experiments that relate to reality and never stop searching for a new audiovisual expression.

Short Joy is a competition section for the most remarkable world documentary shorts. All films are made available online and free for two weeks prior to the festival. The public, anywhere in the world, is the jury of the section. You can watch and vote here. → Free distribution on DAFilms.com platform for one year & additional support for the winning film

Virtual Reality competition gives viewers the chance to enter into 360° films and spatial installations. Here, you can find 360° documentary films, VR installations and works on the boundary between film and art that make use of virtual spaces to create autonomous worlds whose own rules are determined by visuality. We are interested in works that take advantage of the characteristics of virtuality in an innovative and contemplative manner, that experiment with the audiovisual representation of reality and real stories, or that build an entertaining and instructive world of knowledge and learning.

A comprehensive look at the documentary methods, creative decisions, styles, and cinematic thinking of exceptional documentary filmmakers.

The Constellations section presents films, that recently shone on world documentary skies. We introduce carefully selected remarkable titles from other film festivals. This selection features the best films screened at Doc Alliance festivals, including a 2024 Doc Alliance Award winners. Ji.hlava IDFF is part of the alliance, which together consists of 7 key European documentary film festivals. Representatives from each festival nominate both a short and feature film from their program each year, from which European journalists select two Doc Alliance Award winners.

Exceptional cinema events that offer a unique and profound perspective on the complexities of human experience.

Docu.Reality opens viewers’ eyes to new television formats and presents the full range of current forms of crossover genres such as docudrama, docusoap, reality show, and mockumentary.

The section dedicated to music/sound in contemporary progressive cinematography.

The selection of student films from Czech film schools.

Czech Television continues with screenings of its documentary films that have proved highly popular at previous editions of the festival, offering not just its co-production films included in competition sections but also 21 films from current production.

Presentation of the films produced for the Memory of Nations. "It's easy to forget. That's why we record and share testimonies that mustn't fade away." - Memory of Nations

In its eleven years of existence, My Street Films has established itself as a vital educational project that inspires interested members of the general public to make short films about issues they feel are important. The uniqueness of the project lies in its openness - it connects a year-round community of people who are actively with professionals from the media industry. In addition to the national competition for the best film, it organises workshops for selected candidates on documentary filmmaking, open seminars for the public, intensive workshops or film screenings combined with lectures and discussions. In the online edition of IDFF Ji.hlava we will present the films produced at this year's workshops in Prague, Brno and Ostrava, including the winning films of the My Street Films Award competition.

FAMU presents a selection of the most remarkable documentary films made in the 1st year of the Department of Documentary Filmmaking.

Anne-Marie Miéville, Jean-Luc Godard's (non)transparent partner "It was the idea that you have to try to love in a different way, to continue and develop the relationship." AMM They met in Paris in 1970. Godard as a successful director, she as a budding photographer. From that moment on, they lived and worked together. She is a filmmaker, editor, writer and photographer. Her multimedia work goes beyond documentary and expands the perception of fictional film.

"My films are based on real life. I really care about authenticity, which is one of my most important goals." Tsai Ming Liang is a Malaysian-born director who developed his work in Taiwan, and has won festival awards all over the world. His silent films composed of long takes fulfill one of the most important concepts of the Buddha's teaching of sati, mindfulness, alertness, spirit-presence. Ji.hlava will present his fantasy VR project The Deserted, but above all five realistically poetic films, which will be shown for the first time ever in the Czech Republic with the director's personal participation. The Tsai Ming-liang retrospective was supported by the Ministry of Culture Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Prague.

"Don't go! Don't push! Don't shop!" Twenty years ago, nearly five thousand people gathered in a parking lot outside of Prague. They were greeted by a moderator and given flags and pencils. Hypermarket managers Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda cut the ribbon.... A social experiment and the first Czech reality-show was at the beginning of the production company Hypermarket Film, which changed the Czech documentary. The festival program will reveal the comprehensive offer of "Hypermarket" - from different formats and genres to successful collaborations with other directors.

"Although for decades it has been traditionally said that Slovak film was made in the atmosphere of the rebellion, it was a fabrication and an attempt to rewrite history. In reality, it was made under a totalitarian war regime, subject to the chauvinist policies of the government and overseen by the Propaganda Bureau." Petra Hanáková, film historian and curator, is the co-author of a retrospective of Slovak documentaries made in 1939-1945.

This year's retrospective program of the Fascination section explores the "forerunners" of artificial intelligence in filmmaking. There is computational cinema, that is, machine "collaboration" in filmmaking. In a selection of short experimental films from different historical periods, you will see generated animation, "computer" patterns of image or sound, as well as films from the avant-garde of the 1920s.

Serious games, simulations, adventure games, RPG – we explore the ways different genres highlight serious topics: for instance the life in a totalitarian society, the construction of a sustainable environment, the sources and spreading of false news.