27th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival
competition sections
Opus Bonum
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 5,000 for the best film from V4+ countries* (in cooperation with the International Visegrad Fund)
→ EUR 3,000 for the best debut (in cooperation with ARRI)
→ awards for the best cinematography, editing, sound design, film essay, etc.
* Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Kosovo, Moldova, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Serbia, Slovakia, and Ukraine).
Testimonies
Testimonies is a competition section dedicated to powerful documentary films which deal with important social, economic, environmental, and political phenomena.
Czech Joy
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
Short Joy
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.
→ Free distribution on DAFilms.com platform for one year & additional support for the
winning film
Fascinations
Fascinations is a prestigious competition section for best world experimental documentary films. Exploration of new forms, approaches, and film language.
Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz
Exprmntl.cz is a competition section representing the latest Czech experimental films that search for new ways of expressing reality using both classical and digital film formats.
Virtual Reality
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.
non-competition sections
Constellations
The Constellations section presents films, that recently shone on world documentary skies. We introduce carefully selected remarkable titles from other film festivals.
Special Event
Exceptional cinema events that offer a unique and profound perspective on the complexities of human experience.
Siren Test
The section dedicated to music/sound in contemporary progressive cinematography.
Reality TV
Reality TV 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.
Doc Alliance Selection
Featuring the best films screened at Doc Alliance festivals, including two 2022 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.
FAMU Presents
FAMU presents a selection of the most remarkable documentaries that have been produced over the past year in various academy departments.
Czech Television Documentaries
A selection of Czech Television's documentary productions over the past year, from television documentary series, such as "Soul Care" or "Chronicle of Orgasm" prepared for Czech Television's on-line iVysílání segment, through documentary portraits "The Eternal Smile of Dana Němcová" or "Toyen, Baroness of Surrealism" to feature-length distribution titles. The successful films "Wild Prague", "Mara Goes to Heaven" and "PSH The Neverending Story" will have Sunday reruns again this year.
UTB: Zlín Block
UTB – Faculty of Multimedia Communication presents a selection of the most remarkable documentaries that have been produced over the past years.
My Street Films
During the nine years of its existence, My Street Films has established itself as a major educational project that encourages interested members of the general public to shoot short films on topics that they consider to be personally relevant. The project’s uniqueness lies in its openness – throughout the year it connects people who are actively involved in their communities with professionals in the media industry. In addition to national competitions for the best film, it holds workshops for selected participants devoted to documentary filmmaking, open seminars for the public, intensive practical workshops, and film screenings accompanied by a lecture and discussion. At the Ji.hlava IDFF online edition, we present all the films from the Czech competitions entered in the My Street Films Awards.
Masterclass
A comprehensive look at the documentary methods, creative decisions, styles, and cinematic thinking of exceptional documentary filmmakers.
transparent landscapes / retrospectives
Transparent Landscape: Philippines
Reaching back to the very beginning when motion pictures were made in and about the country (1899), the curatorial program digs deep into the historical past and extends the arc to the latest digital works of today. This has never been done before in such a breathtaking attempt to survey the landmark works of the Philippine motion picture history—a history that intersects with that of world cinema. History provides a curatorial armature which allows for an expansive view of the country’s century-old cinematic production.
The Transparent Landscape: Philippines section is organised in cooperation with the Film Development Council of the Philippines.
Notes on War
These iconic post-1945 documentary films challenge us to look at them and our world in a different light.
Fascinations: Progress
This year, in the ongoing series of retrospectives devoted to the history of avant-garde film through the ways of representation of certain topic or motive, we want to map the representation of "progress". Something inscribed in the nature of the avant-garde itself, the topic was also widely represented - typically with enthusiasm and admiration, but sometimes also critically. We are interested in films from the beginning of cinema until today. The works from the beginning of cinema and between-the-war period. The "classical" works and "big" names, but also not so well-known films and authors.
Fascinations: Michael Bielický
Michael Bielický is a Prague native who has lived in Germany since 1969. He belongs to the generation of visual artists from the 1980s who adopted video as their medium. He has created single-channel works, installations, and video sculptures that make use of a television signal. His artistic conception combines information technology with magic, Kabbalah, and the history of cinema. In 1991 he co-founded the School of New Media at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, which he led until 2006. He is now a professor and the head of the Department of New Media at HfG Karlsruhe.
Translucent Being: Shirley Clarke
Shirley Clarke (1919-1997) was an American film director and academic. Originally a dancer and choreographer, she made short films in the 1950s , and later documentaries and feature films. She was active in the feminist movement and her work is often included in the New American Cinema.
Translucent Being: Lionel Rogosin
Lionel Rogosin (1924–2000) was an American independent documentary filmmaker for whom filmmaking became part of a broader concept of political activism. In New York, he ran the Bleecker Street Cinema and was a founding and active member of the New American Cinema movement alongside the likes of Jonas Mekas. We are honored to present the best of his documentary filmmaking along with a film made by his son - Michael Rogosin.