Special Event

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

Q&A with Hans BlixThe former head of the UN Security Council's weapons inspectorate, Swedish diplomat Hans Blix, is currently enjoying a peaceful retirement; nonetheless, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 sent tremors through his life and career. In the wake of the tragedy, he was entrusted with the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the accompanying role of supposed peacemaker who had the ability to influence the future fate of the country. Without any proof of the existence of the weapons, a year and a half later they served as a pretext for the invasion of Iraq by US troops. In her documentary, Greta Stocklassa asks where the limits of diplomacy, human empathy or personal responsibility for political decisions that have an impact on world history begin and end. “The world has gradually become hostile. Is it just the way one grows up? Why can't we live in peace?” — Greta Stocklassa

At the time of the film's shooting, the eighty-six-year-old Chinese composer Wang Xilin was one of the most prominent representatives of contemporary classical music. However, the history of his life is painfully intertwined with that of the Chinese Communist regime and concludes with his exile. In a minimalist arrangement, where the setting is an empty Parisian theatre and the means of expression are only the artist's naked body, spoken word and piano excerpts, the documentary performance presents us with a balance sheet of one person’s fate. A self-portrait of a man who senses the movements of great history on a physical level and inscribes them in musical compositions. “I decided to film him in a kind of theater set. If you go to Beijing, the emperors’ tombs are a tourist site. This theater reminded me of that: the view from above of a deep and dark emperor’s tomb.” — Wang Bing Source: Film Comment.com

Four early black and white films by avant-garde filmmaker Man Ray experiment with the possibilities of cinematography. They combine live-action sequences with almost psychedelic animations, translate literary poems onto the screen and blur the line between abstraction and reality. A live soundtrack rock by duo SQÜRL from Centre Pompidou adds a new dimension to these century-old cinematic experiments. Ambient noise, slow beats and an electric guitar stand in dynamic dialogue with Ray's visual language, sometimes through contrast and sometimes through juxtaposition. A bridge between the past and the present that evokes a powerful visual-acoustic experience. “If you see a train, Man Ray probably would rather you hear the ocean. So, it’s very dreamlike, and we have a lot of freedom in there.” — Jim Jarmusch Source: Interview.com

Dogs, incredible companions, can be trained to possess abilities such as illness detection, seizure alerts, and even scent identification for crime-solving. In the Czech Republic, scent evidence, collected using absorbent materials, is pivotal in convictions. Unlike some countries where it's supplementary, here it's often the sole proof, lacking collaboration with scientists and leading to significant consequences – scent evidence often becomes the crucial or even sole piece of evidence leading to the conviction of the accused, carrying catastrophic consequences… Participants in the debate: director Zuzana Piussi, civil activist and ex-dissident John Bok, chair of the Solomon Association Václav Peričevič, lawyer Šimon Mach and others.

The travelogue The Wonders of the Amazon (1918) is a key film for the history of South American documentary film, but also a colonial testimony that indirectly speaks about what it conceals. At the same time, it is a film that was considered lost until only recently. Curator Jay Weissberg identified it during his research visit to the National Film Archive, and Cinemateca Brasileira, among others, was instrumental in confirming the extraordinary finding. This world-renowned institution is currently emerging from the near-perfect liquidation sought by the previous Bolsonaro administration. This is why it is necessary for this film to be symbolically returned to its country of origin and for Cinemateca Brasileira to undertake its further screening, which will certainly be accompanied by the necessary contextualisation and critical reading. Ji.hlava and the National Film Archive are presenting the film as part of UNESCO's World Audiovisual Heritage Day. “Writing his memoir from Manaus in 1969, Silvino expressed his sadness that the film had vanished: “It is still in the orbit of the planets.” In February 2023, the National Film Archive sent a link of the film to Jay Weissberg, who then contacted me to confirm his suspicion that the documentary was indeed Santos’ lost work. The print housed at the archive comes from a B&W duplicate negative made in the 1980s from a now lost nitrate print.” Source: Catalogue Note, Sávio Luis Stoco