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 also the best films screened at Doc Alliance festivals. 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.

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.

The Inspiration Forum discussion platform is an opportunity for us to discover new perspectives, intensify dialogue and raise new questions about the contemporary world in the public space.

The selection of films reflects both the history of cinema across genres and the history within cinema across the world.

Food is a mirror of the times, and touches on many aspects of society, from politics, technology, and industry to ecology, ethics, and culture. This is evident in a collection of films from 1948–1989. It includes propaganda films, film surveys, satires, and feature films, as well as popular educational and instructional films about the influence of technological progress on women’s emancipation.

Film collectives are transforming the language of cinema, the concept of authorship, and the boundaries of political imagination. The exhibition presents a selection of collective works from the 1950s to the present day, across Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

Experimental cinematography not only depicted and problematised food, but also allowed it to come into direct contact with film material. Audiovisual delicacies from around the world, from baking film, to vegan emulsion. Food as a metaphor, an object of analysis, decomposition, criticism, nostalgia, and visual gourmandise.