Ji.hlava Online

What can a refugee in a foreign country do to help his country win a war? And what must he go through in doing so? In this film, you will walk from Old Town Square in Prague to Wenceslas Square and you will see. Or will you hear?

Romanian senior Constantin Reliu has no documents, personal or pension rights. He worked in Turkey for 25 years. He was then deported from the country. On his return to his homeland, he finds that he was presumed dead. The system refuses to formally recognise that he is still alive but he still has the strength to fight the bureaucratic apparatus. With dry humour, documentary filmmaker Ilinca Calugareanu chronicles his lonely and harrowing quest to reclaim his lost identity. The story, reminiscent of the absurd starting point of Romanian New Wave films, is darker and more convoluted than it first appears, and the author becomes more and more involved in it. “A 63-year-old man declared dead in 2016 is invisible to the state.”

Freezing eggs today allows women to delay the ticking of the biological clock. In the Czech Republic, we already have almost fifty centres where these procedures are carried out. Moreover, after the pandemic wave, the number of women who have undergone this procedure has multiplied. It is therefore currently an unmissable demographic phenomenon that is making a significant contribution to population growth. In the long term, however, the statistics do not inspire much optimism.

The documentary follows in the footsteps of the controversial personality of František Kriegel, M.D., who was born into a Jewish family in Halych, saved lives as a frontline doctor in Spain, China, Burma and India, and after World War II joined the service of the Communist Party and the People's Militia. In 1968, he became one of the main representatives of our state and was the only member of the kidnapped delegation to save face and not officially condemn "fraternal aid," which had significant professional and social consequences for him.

Life is like a pub, a grotesque microcosm in front of which a pram and a coffin are parked. The parade of human destinies in the expressive detail of eyes, faces and bodies, intimate hugs, fleeting kisses, toothless mouths and wrinkled faces shows that we are all on a journey.

Singer Eva Pilarová, lyricist Jan Schneider and composer Bohuslav Ondráček search for the right melody, word and tone in the magical space between silence and sound. The intimacy of their creative process is reminiscent of alchemy, where notes, lyrics and recording equipment give birth to a bitterly swinging love song, It Happens.

The Molly Maguires, a secret organization of Irish immigrants, were responsible for numerous murders in the mining region of Pennsylvania in the 1860s and 1870s. A one-sided historical narrative about the clash of different immigration groups is reconstructed in a film composed of contemporary written records and images of the sites exposed in the text. It views the tragic events as the result of a much more complicated context, involving issues of racism as well as growing social oppression and the slowly forming resistance to it. The long shadow of the painful events unfortunately still falls on the region today. “A Vague Dread Seems to Silence the Tongue attempts to conjure the spectre of violence that emerged out of the racial animus and labour struggles of the Civil War in the present day, setting the bloody events of the late 19th century against the contemporary landscape of a fading coal economy.” Source: Edward Kinh

This autobiographical film, standing on the borderline between reality and fiction, explores diverse forms of faith and spirituality. Director Irene Dorigotti guides the film dressed in a Boy Scout uniform – a reminder of her family heritage – as she travels through her native Italy and remote areas, meeting spiritual leaders and ordinary people. For her, these encounters mark decisive moments in her spiritual journey and in her discovery of the role that religion can play in the life of contemporary man. Poetic images of landscapes, dreamlike passages and fragments of personal history, together with poignant music, create a powerful statement about the nature of humanity.“I spent most of my childhood walking in the woods and sharing the path with other children, seeking a God in falling stars – a God who could answer the big questions of a little life.” (Source)

This animated documentary, created using puppets made from newspaper clippings, is about a Kurdish-Iranian family of four who died in the sinking of a migrant boat in the English Channel in 2020. At the time of the tragedy, there were ten more people on board than the vessel could hold. One of the victims was nine-year-old Anita, from whose perspective we follow the story. But did strict laws restricting safe border crossings change her fate? And how many more victims will they claim? “A person who longs to leave the place where he lives is an unhappy person.” — Milan Kundera

In the vast plains of Kyrgyzstan, men have been cultivating a group sport with a long tradition. The aim of the game buzkashi is to steal the trophy of a dead goat from the rival team of riders, all while staying on horseback. Into this tough masculine world enters Atirkül, a woman with an enterprising spirit and a sense of humour. The film follows the everyday life of the headstrong horse lover Atirkül, whose ambition is to build her own buzkashi team of local young men to preserve the heritage of her native region. The ethnographic perspective alternates with a purely personal one, gradually revealing the possibilities of overcoming gender roles“They say it’s not for women! This makes me feel insecure. But I don’t care, I just follow my heart.”

This film is an intimate exploration of the male territory of the Red Star Rugby Club of Saint-Ouen. Between two winter matches, the inner life of this amateur group takes us from the showers before warm-up to a pre-match speech, then to the “third half” and a song-filled coach ride home.

There are many doors in Barcelona, Spain. It’s up to you which ones you enter. This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

Men still have a privileged position. Yet the concept of a “crisis of masculinity” is increasingly permeating the media, with a loosening of roles and a growing uncertainty about what it means to be a man today. The director Jan Hušek also asks this question. He was still wetting himself by the age of thirteen, which earned him the unflattering nickname that is the film's title. In his open video diary, he captures the physical and spiritual transformation of his journey from boy to man. He returns to the woods and the roots of his childhood trauma. In doing so, he turns the camera on himself as well as on various teachers or his father. Perhaps the mark of adulthood, after all, is not overwrought masculinity, but the acceptance of his inner “pisspants”.“I ran away from home at night, and while walking through the woods I realized that becoming a man was up to me alone.”

I'll throw you in a pit, cover you up with sand and you'll be gone, sighs the driver of a Tatra truck who has to drive eighteen times in one shift from the sandpit to the embankment in Veltrusy and back. Driving, dumping, loading and driving again; dust, heat and wind-battered, suntanned cheeks are the attributes of inadvertent heroism.

A young woman in love embarks on a dangerous journey to find a man she met on the internet and doesn't know much about. Her stubbornness goes so far that the director is forced to stop her. The film thus opens up questions about the author's responsibility for the subjects she is following in documentary filmmaking. “Bingru met Cai Jinlong, a guy from Guangdong, on QQ blog.”

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

The eternal question of the digital age: how to rid analogue film of the traces of nostalgia? The answer here is a fast-paced stream of sharp photographs and blurred or disturbed shots of Prague's transport vehicles, anchored in the present by passengers holding mobile phones. The music for the film was created by Bratislava-based producer Sofia Nøt, and the film's co-writers include the generative realistic image creation system DALL-E 2.“What happens when the technology of the past meets the present? Can it create some new level of meaning? The analogue camera [in the film] explores and attempts to transcend the boundaries between the analogue and digital; human and artificial; reality and imagination; genuine and fake.”

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

With the same intensity with which the flashing blue light illuminates its surroundings, fatal experiences are burned into the memory of an ambulance paramedic. The traumatic dimension of carrying out a profession that is essential for society is brought closer by the documentary confession of a man who sometimes unfortunately cannot save the lives of others.“In recent years, I have often been surprised at how we move the suffering in our society to the edges. Preferably out of sight.” Source: Jaap van Heusden's blog

The medical profession requires not only detailed knowledge of diagnostic and treatment procedures, but also personal qualities or communication skills. Can these be taught? Jindřich Andrš' observational film shows new ways of teaching at the Second Faculty of Medicine of Charles University. We follow medics who find themselves in challenging simulated and real situations - for the first time in the role of a doctor. "I must say that this is a style of teaching that we have not had the chance to encounter before, and the actual experience is absolutely irreplaceable. The emotions are real and you don't feel comfortable at all."

This film is a mother-daughter collaboration. It captures the feelings, problems and the world of a child with learning difficulties that pigeonhole her into a category of students who need an individualized education plan (IEP). How to deal with the school system when you have a pixie inside your head?This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

At the bus stop where the author lives, the railings are added every time she is not looking. In many ways, the absurd space of the bus stop offers her a space to explore the metaphor carried by graffiti, muttering salinas and pixels in different shades of grey. “Brno-Railings is a carefully controlled fumbling through one’s soul. With its surgical precision, this pastel-hued audiovisual piece shows that the exploration of one’s mind and of urban infrastructure can encompass one and the same spacetime.” – the expert jury of the My Street Films Award 2023 (Viola Ježková, Tereza Tara, Martin Horyna)

The last earthquake that struck Popayán in 1983 not only destroyed the Colombian city itself, but left lasting scars on the lives of its men and women that have been inherited by younger generations. Friends María José and Alejandra deal with the traumas of the past and the pain in their own way – through sunsets, art, poetry and cinema itself. “The most important thing for a house not to fall down is to have a good foundation, and I think it’s also like that with humans, isn’t it?” — Alejandra

High in the mountains of the Pamirs lies Lake Bulunkul and the village of the same name, one of the coldest inhabited places in the former Soviet Union. Mountains, a plain, a herd of yaks. Time has seemingly stood still here. Survival in this inhospitable landscape indeed depends on sensitivity to weather fluctuations and changes in nature.

The combination of archival footage from the African island of São Tomé, a former Portuguese colony with a slave system, and contemporary shots of Lisbon's decaying greenhouses, among which busts by Manuel de Oliveira hide in the lush vegetation, is complemented by urgent, poignant verses by São Tomé’s poets Alda Espírito Santo and Conceição Lima, recited by musician Gerson Marta. The images are linked by the image of the cocoa bean, a symbol of oppression – but not forever.“…each coffee bush now exhales a dead slave…”

The carrot rhyme that is the focus of the video belongs to the genre of đồng dao, traditional Vietnamese oral folk poetry for children. The preservation of rhyme and rhythm is more important to her than semantic continuity and comprehensibility. The author underlines the leaps and detours in content using animated collages, which she created using photos from the family archive, in which Czech and Vietnamese realities connect with a similar ease. “The saying about the carrot is very close to me because it reminds me of my childhood and my mother when she was teaching me to speak. I don't remember exactly when I learned the rhyme, but I still remember it, even if I don't remember all of it. In the same way, my mother, who once taught me the nursery rhyme herself, only remembers the first four sentences. The voice in the recording belongs to my two-year-old nephew.” – Lenka Tam Nguyen

The static view of the sea bay and the urban skyline is the same every day during the coronavirus pandemic. Radio broadcasts, film clips and the sounds of washing dishes can be heard in the background. Meanwhile, the author's voice shares his intimate feelings and philosophical reflections on the changes that emerge in this apparent constancy. “This isn’t a weather diary. It is a climate diary. The changes are very subtle. You can barely feel them.”

One of the most prominent institutions of higher learning in Nigeria is the University of Ibadan, founded during the era of British colonial rule. It now has over 30,000 students. A handful of them meet every Thursday in one of the lecture halls to watch selected works by African filmmakers as part of a film club. The films, which deal with the ever-present problems of post-colonial countries, provoke heated discussions. Thanks to the nimble handheld camera, we become participants ourselves. During the protests against police brutality, the students' passion for political and social issues, sparked by the films they have seen, spills beyond the walls of the university building. “I would say that it’s an attempt to render visible the reality of Nigerian students. I wanted to depict the ordinary beauty and intelligence they display despite the challenges they face.” — Alain Kassanda Source: New Directors/New Films

What does it look like at home in a small international community? What is the biggest challenge of their coexistence? And how long will they stay together? Community captures the life of four adults and two children who decided to live under one roof. This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

Audio documentary. A great development project is taking place near ENS Louis-Lumière in Saint-Denis. The constant construction noise is engulfing the entire neighbourhood. Saint-Denis has been scheduled to host the Olympic Village in 2024. As a result, its former residents, who had lived there until the present, have been forcefully evicted/relocated due to the new construction. Concrete Fissures focuses on how soundscapes can change as a result of capitalist gentrification.

A tribute to grandparents and an apartment on the top floor of a Bratislava apartment block overlooking the Danube and Austria takes the form of an intimate dialogue. Between generations, past and present, East and West. In the same space, through family experiences and traumas, the author's identity was also formed. “Pessimists look towards Petržalka, optimists towards Austria.”

Childlike imagination, naive playfulness and an enchanted view of the world are at the centre of this poetic film. The child protagonists talk about their dreams, fantasies and experiences while touching on metaphysical questions of body and soul, life and death. Magic permeates every frame of this colourful collage. “I don’t have any imaginary friend because I’m a realist.”

On February 25, 2022, Antonina Romana and her partner joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Before the full-scale Russian invasion to Ukraine, she lived a life as a director, performer and actress. The film Crimea follows her personal journey of resistance to Russian occupation policies.“This striking movie shines a spotlight on the value of resistance, protection of culture and love between two individuals despite their country’s official stance.” – student jury of My Street Films Award 2023

I’d still paint even if I were blind, declares Czech painter Jan Zrzavý in a film dialogue with himself about aging and infinity. For him, time is magically internalized. Stopped in the middle of nowhere, it transforms into blurred structures and landscapes, hidden from the outside world.

Nelson Sullivan was a prominent figure in New York's queer community in the 1980s. With a video camera that he rarely let go of, he was also a chronicler of the club scene of the time. The archival documentary draws on the rich video archive Sullivan left behind. It looks at a marginalised subculture and the life of the man sometimes described as the first vlogger. “Should I talk to the camera like it's a person?”

The film was shot in a region of Turkey near the borders with Iraq and Syria, an area that is “a melting pot of those fleeing war zones, where people of different origins meet: Assyrians, Iraqis, Kurds, Arabs, Armenians and Turks”. And there are also a surprising number of children running around with analogue cameras. Their gaze, transmitted onto celluloid, transforms a space of unstable contours into a backdrop for great stories and poetic games. The titular darkroom is thus the place where everyone returns regularly to witness the miracle of an image emerging from developer solution as a result of the combined action of creativity and light. “Children roam the area, looking at the world through the viewfinders of analogue cameras, in an intimate vision of the medium as a form of play and a way to forge an alternate reality in a conflict zone.” Source: MoMA

The three female protagonists present their personal relationship with intravenous drug use, and their intimate confessions are filled with fear and insecurity but also love for the state of intoxication. Ambient music in the background and colourful textures multiplying over shots of the everyday reality of drug users create an almost dreamlike world. “I won’t feel the full effects the whole night, but it will help take my mind off things.”

The director returns to his native Lisbon to find that the city has changed almost beyond recognition in his absence. He tries to capture this process of change on camera and at least document the last remnants of the metropolis as he remembered it on film. The effects of the coronavirus pandemic, the development of the real estate market and mass tourism are taking their toll on the buildings in the historic centre, where everything old and nostalgic must make way for the new and shiny. This time-lapse film follows the construction of one such building over the course of a year, taking a critical look at the labour issues of wage labour in Portugal. “Working on the form of a film is an organic process to me, which is always born from the confrontation between an idea and the material I have in front of the camera.” — João Rosas Source: DocLisboa.org

The short film Dialogues from Poti depicts one summer in the Georgian port city of Poti. Are you familiar with the world of thieves? Watch out for stray dogs on the streets. And much more! Many scary rumors are going around in Poti… This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

Eight years ago, Shiv moved with his wife and young son from Nepal to Poland for a better life. Now in Warsaw, he makes a living by delivering food and by night as a taxi driver. At the same time, his teenage son goes to school and his wife sits at home unhappy. A time-lapse portrait of an immigrant family follows their seemingly ordinary life as well as interpersonal conflicts. Misunderstandings, old grievances and different values lead to the breakdown of family well-being and painful separation. The film sensitively portrays the problems faced by immigrants in Europe, and at the same time focuses attention on their individual life destinies, dreams and hopes. “You can’t drop out of school to become a YouTuber. It doesn’t work like that.”

Literally with the arrival of the first steam train, “excursionists” began to appear in the Poberouní region – weekend guests who built cottages here for recreation and began to pile new deposits onto the geological layers, this time in the form of memories captured by recording devices. The audiovisual dimension of one region's memory is the subject of this experimental documentary, assembled from found footage taken by its residents over the course of nearly a century. It is based on the memoirs of Gizela Šmidlíková, published in newspapers in the 1990s, and on various visual and ideological associations developed against a hypnotic musical backdrop. “Using a contemplative, observational 'non-documentary' approach, I processed the memory of a place, the depiction of local cultural life and the great importance of the railway to all of the Lower Poberouní region.”Source: Magdaléna Kašparová

Danish artist Pia Rönicke has been exploring Scandinavian forests as a changing historical and phenomenological space for several years. She draws inspiration from the concepts of ecologist Suzanne Simard, who sees the forest ecosystem as an arena where human and non-human life forms collide. Like the subterranean mycelium, this polyphonic film is not arranged hierarchically but in a network. In addition to the people connected to the forest and the land, it lets the trees themselves tell the story. Their non-linearly presented story begins at the end of the Ice Age and continues to the present day, when man has ripped the wood from its natural habitat and reduced it to an industrial commodity."The forest is dynamic. Clearings appear and new trees grow. Just like the cells in our body are not the same as last year, the forest is always changing." – Pia Rönicke Source: BLOOM

Mark Bosselaers is a marine paleontologist for whom the skeletal fragments of whales are nearly his whole life. In this minimalist portrait, we learn about his sometimes almost detective-like work and his distinctive theories. Everything is connected in Mark's vision – the sunlight, the whales and the dust we eventually turn into.“Ideally, I would love to spend all day working on whale fossils, but of course I also have to do the occasional chores around the house for my wife.” — Mark BosselaersSource: KZGW

An amateur female musician accidentally finds a set of drums on a deserted Thai island. The very unlikely situation launches the minimalist story of a film labyrinth, which turns into a journey from rehearsal to public performance. The conceptual film weaves images and sounds, often returning in reframing or recontextualisation, into the equivalent of a rhythmic piece of music. The audio-visual medium conveys intense emotions that defy superficial rational interpretation behind the recurring leitmotif of beating drums. A film unfolds on the screen before your eyes that you literally have to tune in to.

A strong east wind brings snow, rain and also memories of her father. Only a few objects, newspaper clippings and diary entries make him present. But Maia would like to know him better, to piece together a complete portrait from the fragments. For this reason, she leaves Argentina, the land of her home, and travels to the West Bank, where her absent parent comes from. But at first she finds only more ruins, the remains of houses destroyed by the Israeli occupiers. As slowly as the calm sea ripples, the author's pilgrimage to her roots turns into an encounter with an entire nation that has been stripped of its home. The shared experience of loss helps her to fill the empty space in her heart. “When you had the accident, mom left eight blank pages in her diary. There is a gap from September 19 to September 27, 1986.”

To the sound of the ripples of electric current, the pitch-black darkness of the forest is penetrated by fickle paths of light that seem to emanate from mushrooms, tree fungus and branches.

Els' daughter doesn't want to live anymore. The formerly cheerful child became suicidal at the age of 13, to such an extent that she has to spend most of her time under medical supervision. She sees euthanasia as the only solution to her desperate condition. She not only wants to abandon her life, but unfortunately also her mother, who can only stand by and watch. “The themes of motherhood, the motifs of the mother-child relationship, are inspired by the relationship with my own mother and my own possible relationship with motherhood.” Source: We Are Moving Stories

The documentary First of May explores the more than a century-long evolution of the celebration and the meaning of this day. The structure is composed of memories, newspaper excerpts, testimonies found in archives, etc. - all these passages are brought to life by the actors' voices, taking on the roles of journalists, factory workers, policemen, workers and ordinary people who watch May Day, sometimes with interest and verve, sometimes with distance or irony.

The soundtrack of an intimate monologue of a fluctuating mind gathering the courage to ask for forgiveness mixes the gentle tone of the “inner” voice with the layering sounds of the natural and industrial environment, from which we see only brief monochromatic details perceived by those whose eyes are turned inwards.

Grandmother Anička is a short documentary film that captures the life of an elderly lady who attempted to cope with the loss of her husband through overdose. The film follows Anička as she gradually recovers and finds the strength to move forward. This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

Great Girls take care of those who are unable to look after themselves. Thanks to these women, people from the villages of Šumava can stay at home instead of moving to hospices or care homes. A film about women who do care work as a job despite the difficult conditions on the Czech periphery. The needs they provide include not only daily hygiene, food and cleaning, but also the willingness to listen to or help those who are dying.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

Gutwasser as a former military retreat and pilgrimage site with healing springs. The story of a place captured in a single house, a single name, a single drop of water.

Halina is one of the last singers of mourning songs from Podlasie in eastern Poland. Her son Andrzej works as a gravedigger. For many years, they have accompanied others on their final journey. Death, before which modern society closes its eyes, is for them a natural part of life in which they find security and peace. “When you’ve dealt with funerals for over ten years, then well, everything happens.”

Who were the unknown heroines who helped to promote women's rights in Europe at the beginning of the 20th century? The documentary by producer and director Silvia Venegas highlights the importance of past and present activism that continues to fill the streets of Spain today with people demonstrating and paying tribute to those whose rebellion advanced the status of women in society and opened up opportunities they could only dream of before. But their journey is far from over… “Who were those mothers who occupied the streets of Europe to fight for our rights (the most important one being the right to vote, which finally recognized us as true citizens)?” — Silvia Venegas

A bad trip is a very unpleasant experience induced by psychedelics that often resembles being in hell. The outcome is not necessarily traumatic. Integrating the event may have a positive psychological impact of getting closer to the essence of being. The protagonist tells the story of a bad trip experienced at the Bufo Alvarius ceremony that brings up the question of whether the journey to an imaginary heaven, inner peace and self-acceptance may lead through the very hell she went through.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

Residents of a retirement home in a Moroccan town film the world around them. For them, the camera is like a seagull in a blue sky, a promise of freedom and purification. It gives image and sound to their invisible lives. The poet and human rights activist Rachida Madani lends them a voice, washing away past traumas and offering hope for change. “I see the moving image as a portal to ourselves and our shared experience as we inhabit different moments of collective presence.” Source: Kamila Kuc's website

Shoot the elephant and the problem is solved, says the invisible Prague City Council, which decides on financing culture. A bitterly satirical commentary on the disastrous state of the buildings of the National Gallery, Czech Television and Prague's monuments points out that we are all elephants with the roof of the menagerie falling in on our heads.

The enduring Czech people have survived many historic dates ending in eight, from the Přemyslids to the Soviets. In a filmed opinion poll, Miloš Kopecký has a Schweik-like conversation with a tailor's dummy and, with a head carved out of stone, he debates the significance of Alexander Dubček and the Prague Spring.

Being somewhere else is the essence of Czech camping. Fleeting glances, the charms of passing women, queues for food, skirmishes between human males, the territoriality of tent stakes and the erotica of swing music personify the subversive summer illusion of a touchingly petty and collective escape into sameness.

When the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Svetlana went to the Czech Republic with her two daughters. Now she intends to return to the war-torn country. Christmas is approaching and the family wants to spend it with their husband and father, who stayed in the Kyiv region. The camera impartially records the preparation for this risky journey. “I'm telling you that there's a war going on in Ukraine! And you are going there!”

Big events in our lives and on the planet often start with something small. The author therefore puts different species of mosquitoes and glimpses of a childhood under the microscope. Scientific facts about the tiny bloodsucking creatures are mixed with fragmented memories in a ghostly narrative. To understand the past and prepare for the future, both require equal attention. “Every time that you think we're now living in some final, confusing battle arena, and that it will all end badly, you then realize that nothing truly ends.”

The unique testimony of a physician who, thanks to a series of coincidences, survived the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, brings to life the horror of such an act of mass destruction, even after more than 70 years. The mechanics of the forces that could no longer be stopped once they were set in motion are revealed in a cinematic essay that deconstructs petrified historical interpretation. “The poignant and thought-provoking evidence of the secret war tactics reveals the human value during times of war in conflicts.” Source: Chi Jang Yin's website

When we close our eyes, the world around us disappears, but a new world appears within us. Visual artist Lea Petříková follows in the footsteps of people searching for this invisible world. As a gateway to augmented reality, she uses mysterious places instead of psychadelics. A mountain where the devil resides, a stone with the footprint of Christ, a UFO landing ramp or a crypt with ancient inscriptions are shortcuts to abstract, imaginary or spiritual worlds. The medium of film is such a gateway, like the Shroud of Turin painted with light and shadow, representing a magical imprint of something greater.“The film could be something like the Shroud of Turin, by imprinting something bigger. It's not just about capturing, but capturing something that transcends us, and making it so that we can experience that transference as well.” — Ladislav ValešThe second projection will have English subtitles.

I heard about a man who trains pigeons to fall to the ground. He lets them out of the cage, the pigeons circle high in the sky. Then the man gives the signal and the pigeons start to fall. I was terrified and fascinated by the idea at the same time. I don't understand how it's possible and I'd like to find out. (author's text)

You are worth as many people as the languages you speak. What if I speak two languages and was even introduced to two cultures from birth? Am I truly worth more people? This documentary movie delves into the part of identity given from birth for most people. Having two choices places me in between... rather than fully in either culture. “In Between stands out for its richly refined film language. Cinematically complex, this is a visually and rhythmically strong reflection on the experiences of people who are stuck in limbo, in the precarious space between two cultures.” – the expert jury of My Street Films Award 2023 (Viola Ježková, Tereza Tara, Martin Horyna)

Due to the increased reactivity of their nervous system, highly sensitive people are more receptive to sensory and emotional stimuli. Because of a generally low awareness of this trait, they often don’t understand themselves. This documentary movie shows the world through the eyes of two highly sensitive women who focus on this issue in their research. It follows their personal and professional search for a balanced attitude towards high sensitivity and the best ways to thrive in one shared world.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

I’ve been piecing my life back together for a few years now. Why am I doing this? Because I realized I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t keep pretending that it didn’t happen. I often wonder why I went through all this and this answer comes to mind – to tell my story and maybe help someone. Who knows. (the author’s text)“We applaud In the Dark for its courage to expose pain which is then transformed through the creative process. Its compelling story has a powerful and devastating impact.” – the expert jury of the My Street Films Award 2023 (Viola Ježková, Tereza Tara, Martin Horyna)

The view from the front seat to the back of the car makes up the majority of the shots in this minimalist documentary. The car oscillates back and forth between areas threatened by fighting in Ukraine and the Polish border. Its driver, the film's director, transports male and female war refugees to perceived safety. He drives through bombed-out towns, past destroyed military equipment and through checkpoint after checkpoint. The faces of his passengers sometimes show relaxation, sometimes exhaustion, but almost always a fear of things to come. Apart from the few necessities crammed into their suitcases, they carry with them traumas and fears for those they had to leave at home. “We never put people in a situation where they felt they needed to do something to get evacuated.” Source: Point of View Magazine

Suburbanization as an impending doom. The place of a stagnating building site veiled in liminal atmosphere that invoked more than nostalgic memories. This visually stylized documentary is a personal lament on the transformation of one important place that remained unchanged for a very long time. Fascination is shifting into hopelessness and vice versa. Meanwhile, the first residents are settling in. This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

The film depicts the relationship between a farmer and his cattle. The protagonist is Milan Kazda, the mayor of the only energy self-sufficient municipality in the Czech Republic - Kněžice. The second character is his cow, which is constantly hungry and requires attention and care. Since she is a constant burden, she is figuratively an iron cow for the farmer.

Martina was doused with acid by her ex-boyfriend, causing third-degree burns to the upper half of her body and almost complete blindness. The documentary portrait follows her life story after this life-changing attack – coping with the loss of physical attractiveness, the fear of a world she cannot see, and her search for a new meaning in life. Martina's story bears all the hallmarks of a good biopic. It presents a strong central character going through difficult situations and finding happiness despite many pitfalls. But what sets it apart from mainstream productions is the directness with which Martina speaks to us and its potential to break through many taboos. “When we started working together, she was very traumatized by the attack. She did not associate with journalists and only agreed to do the documentary on the condition that if she wanted to, I would throw everything in the trash.” Source: Vlasta.cz

Can someone become a mother without giving birth to a child? Twenty-nine-year-old filmmaker Santwana, who is not yet ready to become a mother, and forty-five-year-old doula Kata, who, though childless herself, helps many couples bring their children into the world, are searching for the answer to this question together. This highly intimate documentary empathetically introduces us to the most beautiful and vulnerable moments of life surrounding childbirth.“You know Khalil Gibran? Do you remember what he says about children? Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.” — Kata

The central Appalachian region has always been associated with coal mining, which to this day is not only a source of livelihood but also influences and shapes the lifestyle of local communities. Elaine McMillion Sheldon's documentary is a compelling mosaic that weaves together the past and present myths of the region, as well as a poetic reflection on a unique environment and its transformation. King Coal, as she calls her home, is indeed a place that, like the mountaintops, is dominated by rugged beauty, dreaminess and mysterious stories.“Some think that place matters less today. But here, we know that our bodies are only ever in one place.”

Drugs have been with 73-year-old non-conformist Ian all his life, but times have changed. Whereas in the 1960s they were part of the counterculture, today the lavender farm is a place far from the outside world where addicts flock, not looking for different or better company, but to bring their own traumas. Nikola Klinger used Super 16 to film not only Ian's memories, but also a nostalgic chronicle of social processes. His portrait of individual and collective memory shows that there are two ways to enjoy freedom, either as a medicinal herb or a poison drug. “Today we are taught to be individualists, but I think we are more dependent than ever.”The first screening is simultaneously translated into English.

Billions of years before the origin of life, our planet was an active, evolving entity. Rocks, crystals and minerals could tell stories, and in Deborah Stratman's meditative essay, they get the chance. Before and after does not exist for them. Also, in their story of Earth's evolution, the lines between past and future blur. Images of sublime rock formations are accompanied by commentary by renowned geologist Marcia Bjornerud as well as excerpts from philosophical texts and speculative fiction. To see the world from the perspective of minerals may be to admit one's own transience. And perhaps, in doing so, to understand our place in the universe. “I fell in love with the idea that storytelling and rhythm are a sort of genetic memory of our species. The land as tape recorder. Every rock as a text.” — Deborah Stratman Source: MUBI

The Plastic People of the Universe was formed in 1968. The trial of the band members in 1976 initiated the creation of Charter 77. During the so-called normalisation period, the band was banned. The musicians started performing together again in 1997. The last concert of The Plastic People of the Universe together with the Brno Philharmonic took place on 20 November 2021 in Broumov. How did the members of the legendary band The Plastic People of the Universe experience the last concert of their career?

There is no functioning democratic society without NGOs. They operate where the state cannot reach. At the same time, trust in the non-profit sector is consistently low in our country - according to a recent survey, 60 percent of adults do not trust them. Using the stories of several non-profit organizations as a backdrop, the documentary explores the current attitude of Czechs towards donations and the paradox resulting from the constant distrust of the non-profit sector on the one hand and the growing generosity of Czechs on the other.

This short film captures the mother’s point of view on transition and on the childhood of her trans-son. It offers an insight into the issue of transition from the parent’s point of view.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

Audio documentary. Mathieu pursues his passion for antiques. For 20 years now, this collector of old dolls has been restoring porcelain and reviving the past. Repairing objects allows him to heal his own wounds… This original work based on musical collaboration is one of the results of a school exercise aimed at introducing students to the world of radio production.

A stormy summer night. Lightning strikes the water. A chain reaction begins. Director Emilien Dubuc uses vivid imagery, evocative sound effects and microscopic shots of biochemical experiments to explain in detail how life on Earth is created. But his narrative gradually becomes less scientific and more personal.

This time-lapse film follows five years in the life of Afrin, an orphaned girl who lives with her foster parents on an island in the Brahmaputra River. For the past few years, the area has been plagued by heavy rains, and devastating floods caused by climate change have taken the homes and lives of its inhabitants. Survivors are moving to the cities, leaving behind a devastated wilderness. Through her pride and courage, Afrin also manages to make it to civilization, where she tries to find a better life and her missing father. The visually captivating shots of the waterlogged landscape and the story of a girl who doesn't want to be a victim of circumstance speak volumes about the current conflict between humanity and nature. “The Brahmaputra tells new stories over and over again.”

The difference between a director and a pyrotechnician is that a director can afford to make a lot of mistakes. But the protagonists of the film, who are pyrotechnicians, cannot afford to make even one mistake - because any misstep could be their last.

The documentary adaptation of the novel by the well-known Flemish writer Louis Paul Boon is conceived as a polyphony consisting of voiceovers of three characters inhabiting a common apartment. A man, a woman and their maid, the latter of whom is many years younger than them, take turns using their inner voices in expressing reflections on their own and each other's lives.“The poetics of the source novel take on new power as this highly original approach brings literature to life, while the apparent randomness of overlapping texts and recurring motifs makes for a very particular and unexpected filmmaking experience.”Source: Diagonale

A report from an unfinished housing estate, which won an award at the Venice Film Festival, captures the sea of mud separating the inhabitants of Prague's Malešice from their dreams of a new world, one which they are given in an absurdly unfinished state. Concrete panels like biscuits stacked on top of one another, a tap with no water and a can of mud for lunch remind us that society is a playground where anything can happen.

Audio documentary. During a discussion on trust, three people open up about their vision of mourning, exploring their relationships with places, beliefs and memories. The speakers take part in a liberating discussion that highlights the singularity of their grief and sketches their relationship with their own death. Following her own personal bereavement, Manon Josien, assisted by her co-director Alba De la Rosa, interweaves the stories in this documentary of three of her relatives confronted with disappearance.

Theatre director Jan Kačena poisoned himself in 2019 by inhaling fumes and suffered irreversible brain damage. While his partner makes a film as a declaration of love, he lies unconscious. In the film, the director follows moments in the everyday lives of three people close to him: Czech rapper Tyler Durden, painter Tadeáš Pochman and film director Helena Papírníková. In a naturalistic way, it captures drug addiction, self-destructive tendencies and family problems, which are the subject of intimate, often uncomfortable conversations. The result is a diary-style probe into the fate of the artistic bohemia of late capitalism. “Maybe you're just a spoiled brat playing the anarchist bit.”

Nomadism today is no longer just an expression of a traditional way of life or a free choice for young people, but an imposed necessity for many seniors in the US. For them, a house on four wheels remains the only economically affordable option. In this time-lapse documentary, we follow the lives of three women on a long journey across the United States as their lives have been transformed. How do they cope with radical change? And what do loved-ones and friends have to say about their decision? These questions are also answered in the film, which anchors the philosophy of desolation in a broader political and social context.“Each fleeing a part of their past, these three reckless women criss-cross the roads in the hope of rebuilding their lives.” Source: Grizzly Films

This associative collage of images reflects on our inherent need to think of ourselves as autonomous individuals and to define ourselves in relation to external reality. Fragments from the educational films of the Łódź Film Studio are accompanied by an interview with British psychologist and therapist Halina Pytlasinska, who works with the concept of the collective unconscious. “The attitude of man is twofold, in accordance with the twofold nature of the primary words which he speaks.” — Martin Buber

Mike and Jeanne live together, spend their free time together, have sex – just about everything partners usually do. Except that at the beginning of their relationship, instead of mutual affection followed by gradual bonding, there is a legal contract. As contractual obligations, it lists some of the duties and rights that usually accompany the cohabitation of two people. The social experiment they both entered into with different expectations is the main theme of the film, which looks at the conflicting nature of emotions and reason in the web of interpersonal relationships. And it tries to answer the question: Is it possible to plan love just like a project with a set goal? “By behaving like a part of an ordinary couple's life, Jeanne tries to fit into a heteronormative world in order to show its absurdity.” Source: Leon Blog

Perpetrators of sexual assault tend to be portrayed as monsters. Signe Rosenlund-Hauglid, on the other hand, approaches them with empathy and an attempt to understand what led them to commit the crime. In her documentary, we follow a trio of men aged 20 to 27 who committed rape after a party. They face charges, trial, sentencing and eventual release. In the process, Morten, Benjamin and Kasper talk openly about their identity crisis, social stigma and suicidal thoughts. Faced with the director, herself a victim of an assault, they also realise how devastating an attack on someone's physical integrity can be. “Identifying yourself with the term 'rapist‘ is really quite impossible.” (from Not That Kind of Guy)

The term eremocene describes a sense of loneliness in a time of environmental crisis and technological development and raises questions about the future fate of humanity. The film is a cross between science fiction and a philosophical essay and develops the idea of an earth shaped by artificial intelligence, digital data and blockchain, in which human organic matter no longer has a place. In this dystopian vision of the future, an inhuman being searches for its ancient roots and finds them in the figure of the film's author. The dialogue between the virtual voices and the authentic creator is complemented by analogue footage of everyday life in society before the world was taken over by inhuman actors and streams of data.“Eremocene is an epoch marked by an existential and material isolation resulting from having extinguished so many other forms of life.” — E. O. WilsonQuote from The Bitter Southerner.

A run-down Swedish small town. A hot summer evening. A group of young people meet in the parking lot of a local supermarket. The location doesn't offer much in the way of leisure activities. That’s why they’ve found their own hobby: cars. In their specially modified vehicles, they listen to music, date, race, try to outwit the police… Their cars are a source of pride and their main topic of conversation. An anthropological study of the car subculture slowly turns into a magical-realistic probe into the depths of the night, where hormones and phantom creatures awaken to the sound of revving engines. “When everyone else drives illegally, you can't keep up. If you are going to the city, and everyone drives 90, if you drive 30 you'll arrive an hour later.”

Elena Lacková (1921–2003) was a prominent Romani writer, playwright and social worker. Her great-granddaughter, Alžběta Ferencová alias Zea, is a singer, dancer and actress. The film draws parallels between two family-related women who, despite social prejudices, dedicate their lives to artistic creation. Through archival materials and the stories of witnesses, the difficult fate of Elena Lacková is revealed: from growing up in a Roma settlement, through the period of the Roma Holocaust, to her emancipatory work under communism. The poetic narrative reveals how the personal can take on political dimensions in our society.“Overall, I feel there is a lack of space in the area of the media for us Romani people to express ourselves. That is why we need to claim that space.”Quote from A2larm.

The iconography of garden communities, which also includes fences, is spread out before us in a pictorial-sound study of a Czech phenomenon. All those swings, cottages, rusting gates and weed-ridden concrete panel walkways are monuments to human attempts to tame nature within reasonable limits.

The world is losing snow every year and people don't want to accept it. The film Of People and Snow is about what we are willing to do so that we don't have to say goodbye to snow yet.

What impact do the Olympic Games have on their host cities? Athens, Tokyo, Beijing and Paris – cities that have changed the urban layout of entire neighbourhoods for the Olympics, transforming their appearance forever. Unused sports stadiums are falling into disrepair and grass is growing over them, while public attention is focused on the construction of new stadiums costing billions, displacing thousands of residents who have to make way for them. The director travels to Olympic host cities to explore this unsustainable cycle, which has a devastating effect on the city's economy, the environment, and the lives of ordinary people.“I think the ruins are alive, and in them the present, past and future all exist simultaneously.”The second projection will have English subtitles.

Jiří Menzel, a bachelor, is looking for a partner in an instructional film about how not to be alone. This socially futuristic probe into the souls of singles with a lack of dating opportunities shows that new times offer new possibilities – like a Swiss computer for finding the partner of your dreams.

Space agencies plan the schedule of activity on Mars in the cycle of sols – Martian days lasting 24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds. In an experimental sci-fi, the aging rover Curiosity sets out on its routine mission. Tremors of curiosity and the desire for knowledge mix in a written monologue with doubts about its own abilities and the meaning of its actions, which it addresses to the silent planet. “A series of individual submitted photos is animated with the help of generative neural networks into a full-fledged story. The selection of scenes and the editing took place using my own written program for interacting with the neural network that was used. Indeed, a similar technology could theoretically be used to control the rover to search for anomalies in the 'seen' image.” – Vít Růžička

The protagonist of Virginia Woolf's Orlando was born a man. But, after thirty years of life, he wakes up as a woman and his previous perspective changes radically. Similarly, this personal film essay changes the perspective from which a middle-class story is usually presented. When you are neither rich nor poor, you struggle with the problem of identity all your life. All the more so if you are also a woman struggling for your rights, education and financial independence. Inspired by Daniela Dröscher's text, the film is not only about growing up in West Germany, but more generally about the difficulties of social mobility for those who are not heterosexual men. “It took a long time for me to realise that I'm from a lower-middle class family, from the petit bourgeois. For some time, I didn't know what to call my social position.”

A dream of the anarchy of nerves, muscles and tissues, gripped by the shell of institutions and prejudices, but also by the remedies used by contemporary medicine, materializes in a demonstration of the possibilities of controlling the robust machine of a motorcycle. The diary account of the vicissitudes of recovery and the struggle to reconnect with one's own body is also a reflection on the ability to accept and share pain.“The homophobic shit of one of the paramedics is echoing throughout the ICU…”

We see the liminal spaces of abandoned offices and adjacent corridors through the eyes of the one who is at home in them – a robotic vacuum cleaner. Its wanderings, punctuated by close-ups of materials or digital surfaces, provide an opportunity for borderline empathy with something that, like us, is looking for a way out. Meanwhile, electronic music, permeated by the fragile vocals of Václav Peloušek, embraces the office furniture in an almost redemptive gesture.“Perplexity asks its viewers to seek solidarity with a non-human person. … Utilizing a distinctive blend of animation techniques in Unity3D, coupled with AI style transfer, Perplexity boasts a unique visual style to mirror its premise. The film is a journey that traverses the non-human condition, as seen from a non-human perspective.”

Inspired by the stories of three protagonists involved in the misogynistic incel subculture, this short hybrid film presents the manifestations and sources of patriarchal extremism, which is increasingly escaping from virtual space into the real world. “The term [incel] has become so detached from the original meaning that it´s become useless.”

This film is about the places where I’ve lived and grown old. About a life that, like rain, has flowed down a wide roof into a narrow gutter but keeps on flowing. Everything changes – the times, our lives and places around us. What will be here fifty years from now? This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

The death of the film director’s mother hit her very hard. She was just a child when this happened, and memories fade with the passage of time. Thus, the home videos that the most important woman in her life extensively shot begin to enter the picture. The documentary, with the poetic diction of the author's haunting voice, chronicles her journey from the sands of Arabia to the icy Antarctic, where she participated in a popular-science expedition. It is the contrast of two worlds, two completely different places, that brings her to question the titular places of the soul. Where do our memories remain? Where do we really belong at home? And where do we keep those who have already left us? “I'm the first Qatari woman in history to go to Antarctica, so this journey is a spiritual one and an exploration into matters of tradition, the environment, and the greater question of loss.” Source: Khaleejesque

Vast and inaccessible, barren landscapes hide industrial structures and unknown technology. The stream of panoramic shots and visual explorations of the discharges and movements of the majestic machines is accompanied by the enchanting sound design of Tomáš Jiřička and framed by an interview with a scientist from the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.“I’m not too keen on watching science fiction, because I work in this field.” — Matěj PeterkaSource of the quote PLASMA.

A documentary about the various forms of the desire for perfection. Director Eva Tomanová uses the stories of four protagonists to show the motivations that lead people to often unrealistic aspirations, and explores why and at what cost they aspire to fulfil them. She reflects on how treacherous the process of reaching the ideal is and how easy it is to get lost on the road to perfection.

The black-and-white video prayer stages a small miracle in the form of a minimalist one-shot study of a glass vase, water surface and light. It’s as if the hands, which regularly stir up the still life, are asking for more than the elements and the utilized technique can give.The name of the film is a quote from the book Les Grands Initiés from Édouard Schuré.

The fragile visualization of the feeling of the persistence of inner movements, albeit through small or even imperceptible reminders, prevents fleetingness through the subtle movements of an enigmatic object on a white background, where it almost loses its third dimension. In certain places, the dimensions of the central egg-shaped cocoon, in which something is hatching, is made similarly ambivalent by the lighting design.

Google's data centres are renowned for their size and efficiency, but are also fraught with many questions. Adam Diller tried to penetrate the security fence and answer some of them. In his multimedia project, which in addition to this film includes a book and exhibition, he focused on a data centre in The Dalles, Oregon, built in 2006. Using both his own and archival footage, he uncovers the various layers of power, media and ecology to understand the history of the site and the material and discursive practices we come into contact with daily in our use of the internet. “The internet that this data center helps produce is changing our relationship with ourselves and everything around us.”

A film about the friendship of musician Miroslav Wanek and artist Martin Velíšek, connected by their collaboration and especially the band Už jsme doma. It was directed by Václav Kučera, who died in 2019, and completed years later by Radim Špaček. Similarly, producer Romek Hanzlík died in 2019 and the film was completed by Petr Koza in his company KOZA Film, s.r.o.

Anežka lives surrounded by cracks left by the (in)presence of her foster son and begs God for him to turn to faith. Fragments of echoes from his prison cell alternate with the daily routines that fill the stretching time. Meanwhile, the storm outside the windows covers the rough Beskydy landscape. The documentary film poem reveals a complex relationship of unconditional love that brings both hope and suffering.

On 8 May 2019, the Yellow Vests rehabilitate Gustave Courbet’s tomb in Ornans. Not far away, Christian Corouge, a former member of the Medvedkine group, a militant film collective, makes the painter's work his own. But “we're not going to discuss painting, everyone takes what they want, I don't care!”

The parallels between the human body and architecture are highlighted in a film based on the personal experience of Louise Lemoine. As a child, she spent years in and out of hospitals caring for her severely disabled father. She confronts her traumatic memories with a cinematic exploration of the REHAB facility in Basel – a unique medical space adapted for special purposes. The artist duo arrives at the nature of its holistic character by way of a decomposition into sub-elements, including the body of the building, which is sensitively adapted to the mental state of the patients, as hospitals are not just factories designed to manage people. “So all the ways we occupy space and the way we adapt and subvert it are crucial to us, yet we are under the impression that we, as a society, think about it too little.” Source: ArchDaily

In a suggestive miniature, the artist creates impulses for the physical experience of the film: The needle, which consistently penetrates the palm of the hand in a close-up that repeats nine times on the screen, sews the audience to the screen, only to release them, unharmed, with a single jerk.

Originally a six-part television series, it offers a detailed insight into the political transformations of the last few decades in Brazil. The transformation of the regime, the introduction of the constitution, the development of human rights, but also the ever-swelling judiciary, whose high-ranking protagonists are paradoxically above the law. Without the use of typical talking heads, the narrative turns to archival footage, television reports, feature films and mood-art video clips to create a documentary collage. The film narrates historical events from a contemporary critical perspective and exposes the mechanisms behind the lawlessness in South American states. “They do not overthrow the powerful with weapons or battles, but with pens, sentences, and in coordination with the Public Ministry.” Source: Ponte Jornalismo

The film shows a cleansing ritual in the presence of two shoes and four girls who know that revenge is healthy for people.

A Frankenstein-esque portrait of a scientist who develops materials for the construction of robots with sensitive and flexible parts while losing control of her own consciousness. As a result of stress overload, she is unable, at least temporarily, to do what her products can already do – rely on her memory. “I started directing films when I was in my 2nd year of college. I came into it spontaneously and I’ve learned to love the art so much that sometimes I even direct my dreams.” — Inshallah Montero Source: GMA News

A historical documentary conceived as a discussion of history and method of production – this is one way to interpret the film about the Portuguese Colonial Exhibition, held in Porto in 1934. From archival print and video material, a pair of researchers piece together a picture of an event officially presented as a showcase of the southern European country's foreign achievements. However, with the hindsight of more than 70 years, the clearly racist dimension of the event stands out. The objectification of the gaze of the passing visitors on the titular Rosinha and other forcibly imported members of African ethnic groups finds a parallel in the operation of zoos, museums and similar institutions. “The titular Rosinha is a Guinean native who became the symbol of the first Portuguese Colonial Exhibition presented by the Estado Novo in 1934. A trip to the past to better understand the present.” Source: IndieLisboa International Film Festival

Is it possible to find a poet based on a poem that was written almost 25 years ago? The gonzo-style documentary movie depicts the author’s search for the poet who sent her a poem at the end of the millennium. Will she be able to track him down or will she end up finding something else entirely? This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

How has the coronavirus epidemic transformed everyday life in Shanghai? The world seems to have gone black and white. New routines are replaced by often harrowing and bleak intertwining stories, public announcements or cries for help. The director observes these from the shelter of her home, but even this, as a result of isolation, no longer evokes a sense of safe haven. “Over the past two months, my camera witnessed my everyday routines locked in this place. This place seems exactly like my home, but something feels strange here.” — Clarissa Zhang

After more than 160 years of existence, one of the largest Croatian shipyards Uljanik is closing down. The place where ships of impressive size and importance were manufactured and then sailed away has been turned into an industrial graveyard for wrecks, dysfunctional cranes and abandoned workshops that once teemed with life. Through a collage of observational footage, however, we now observe the almost post-apocalyptic landscape of the site, which has become home to seagulls, sea creatures and hungry cats. How did Pula's originally important Austro-Hungarian shipping empire come to an end? The former glory of Uljanik and its road to extinction come alive in the memories of countless individuals, many of whom have dedicated their professional and private lives to Uljanik. “Everyday I walk past Uljanik and think about those [past] scenes. I simply don’t want to remember this moment now.”

A man, whose mutated, darkly vibrating voice guides us through a space of disintegrating, divided or merging visual fragments, describes his own experience of compulsively waking up and falling asleep again, and of dreams diving into one another. In the abysmal depths of repeated dreams of being awake, he does not leave the space of his bed; reality, however, weighs down on him more and more heavily.

A look at 40 years of subversive work by the American collective Negativland. Would you go to jail for your work? They say they never had a hit single, but they had a hit lawsuit. Negativland's media collages, which predated the web-sharing era from the late 1970s onwards, resulted in a single called U2. The group documented the court-imposed punishment in such a way as to create a spectacular artefact, and a narrative about the moral standards around copyright and intellectual property. “Media is coming into our homes: its images and sounds flow into our living rooms. So I consider them mine – and I want the right to dispose of them,” says Negativland member Don Joyce.

Families on a trip, people at work, festive parades, city streets, apartment interiors. Slides depicting everyday life in the former GDR serve as a visual basis for a reflective lyrical commentary consisting of excerpts from prose and essay works by James Joyce, George Orwell, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, F. Scott Fitzgerald or Virginia Woolf. Images of specific people, places and rituals – which we learn nothing of in greater detail – acquire timeless qualities thanks to extravisual reflections on mortality, fate or the imprint that we leave behind on this world, for example through photographs. “Apparently one grows more carnal and more mortal. As one grows older, only youth has a taste of immortality.”

This film captures the current situation in the Czech textile industry and the lost tradition of sheep wool production. The PhD student Linda Havrlíková and Fashion Design studio at UMPRUM work together to bring this material back into contemporary fashion. What does sustainability mean to young fashion designers? Is it possible to wear a wool coat with latex boots? Why do we burn and bury Czech wool?This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

A taxi driver and his passenger drive through Cuban villages and talk about travel, heartbreak and human destiny. One speaks English, the other Spanish, yet they find mutual trust and understanding. The passenger, a Filipino filmmaker, tells the taxi driver the shocking reason why he is in Cuba and asks for cooperation in his search. A seemingly documentary prologue opens a journey into the last days of a former general of the Philippine dictator hiding on a banana plantation. The history of colonialism and political dictatorship emerges in the blazing Cuban sun in a film standing on the borderline between reality and fiction. “It is a thrillingly anticlimactic story of an overwhelming calm and a horror so absolute that it is confused with everyday life; it is immanent to it and is therefore definitive, omnipresent, absolute as the air.” — Antonio Enrique Gonzáles Rojas, Rialta Magazine Source: Rialta Magazine

A rigid record of a performative action in which the artist exposes herself to patient physical acts. The motionless camera observes a chair in a clean, neutral space, a glass of water and crumpled tape that slowly disappears in the mouth of the protagonist. The performance is anchored in the real world by unfiltered ambient noise.

A story about a bell for a friend. The search for a sound, vibration and a frequency that allows one to communicate and travel across worlds. This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

The film is the second part of a trilogy about representation, art and politics. In the previous film, The Signature of Certain Things (2022), the author dealt with the social role of art. In this essay, he encourages us to view images as commodities. But is it even possible to exclude art from this point of view? The very form of the film, which slyly follows the logic of commodified and multiplying images, becomes a hint to the answer.“Low resolution, distorted colours, an obsolete frame rate, errors and interferences. All of these are signs of VHS analogue video, which this film, of course, is not. It is merely a manifestation of consumerist aesthetics. Old images pretend to be new. New images pretend to be old. The form of art follows the logic of products and uses it to critique itself, but that’s about everything that’s happened so far.”

This short experimental fable, filmed during a school plein-air session at the Wallenstein Loggia, uses stop motion animation and black and white images shot digitally while utilizing the camera obscura technique. In the surrounding woods, reflections on water and pebbles by the roadside, the work finds a materialisation of the fragility, envy and anger that make up the fable.

1953 was a year of great sadness for Czechoslovak citizens. Obligatory mourning intervened in their lives after the deaths of Stalin and Gottwald. Their grief was sincere because of the currency reform, which ruined their lifelong savings. In retrospect, 1953 was the height of social despair.

Children in the Vysočina region miss the forests that climate change and the bark beetle calamity have taken away. How do they cope with this loss and how does the School Forest project help? Environmentalist Barbora Klocová sought answers to these and many other questions. She filmed a total of 31 personal interviews with children and adolescents from the Highlands aged 8 to 18.

The Invisibles is a short documentary by the emerging author Kateřina Matulíková. In six minutes, it tells the story of a woman who stayed at a shelter for mothers. Her experience echoes that of thousands of people who need to use this kind of social service every year to have a chance to cope with a difficult period in their lives and keep a roof over their heads. But since they are not on the streets, these people remain invisible to us. This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

The documentary Farma Květná follows the fate of three young men who have hit rock bottom, living in orphanages, in detention centres, on the streets. Now they have found work, and with it an unrecognised sense of meaning and self-worth, at Farm Květná, founded by former Interior Ministry official Ferdinand Raditsch. In it, he offers unorthodox support to those whose circumstances have destined them for an unfavourable starting line.

Édouard Louis comes from a poor family in the north-west of France. But, in less than a decade after the publication of his debut novel, The End of Eddy, he has become one of the leading figures on the French literary scene. The transformation of a boy from a proletarian background into a privileged Parisian intellectual with high cultural capital is one of the central lines of this biographical documentary. Louis is given the space to retell the story of his difficult childhood, adolescence and integration into a new social class in his own words. He introduces us to the landscape of his youth and to the act of writing, which for him is above all a means of crossing boundaries. “Here is a young man who has not stopped transforming himself for twenty years. His entire career has been marked by renewal.” – François Caillat Source: Outplay Films

Bohumil Modrý, the best hockey goalie in the world, who significantly contributed to the first international successes of Czechoslovak hockey after World War II. In 1948, he was offered a job in the NHL, but his stellar sports career and happy family life were destroyed by a trumped-up political trial in 1950. He died prematurely in 1963 at the age of 46 from the effects of imprisonment and radiation.

A reporter for a fictional television station, originally from Ukraine, travels around Slovakia and asks people at memorable places questions about the nature of fascism and the soul of the Slovak nation. The documentary essay seeks to capture the shape of a society on the fringes of the political spectrum through the words spoken and the images of crowd scenes. “According to the Centre for Research of Ethnicity and Culture, people in Slovakia generally have an aversion to extremist movements. But at the same time, 75 percent of them identify with several of their ideas."Source: Aktuality.sk

Set history free. A modern history, enclosed for more than a quarter of a century in an abandoned prison in Uherské Hradiště with unique rooms preserved from the 1950s. The authors fill the emptiness of the premises with situational encounters with the building, nature and people who are united by their experience of the place and who are often divided by their life experience. A shared past as a starting point to a shared future. "I used to go to the Hradiště prison as a boy in a playgroup, without any idea, while playing in the former prison yard, of what happened there two decades ago. I perceive the emptiness of the grounds here, closed since the 1990s, as a manifestation of the historical void within us. I then see the prison of history as an opportunity to open up the site and ourselves, to meet each other as the living and the dead, despite the fact that we come from different generational, ideological and social worlds." – Jan Gogola Jr.

Anthropogenic chemicals have become a ubiquitous part of life. They circulate and accumulate in the environment and in our bodies. Is it possible that in addition to having an adverse effect on our health, these compounds can also affect our thoughts, feelings and motivations? “The Sadness of Anthropocene is a remarkably researched and bold treatment of the taboo subject of hormonal contraception, conveyed with sophisticated editing and a distinct visual style.” – student jury of My Street Films Award 2023

David Vostrovský is a professional reaper. With his sharpened scythe and years of experience, he participates in international grass cutting tournaments and teaches his craft to others. The film is a probe into this unusual hobby and an alternative lifestyle in the bosom of nature, which the reaper shares with his two adult children. “The relationship between humankind and nature is fading; it's becoming a cliché.” Source: Český rozhlas

An elderly Vietnamese couple has been running a fresh orange juice stand for many years. They live and work at the Sapa market in Prague. This observational documentary about work and homesickness offers a unique sketch of everyday life in a place that is often described as the heart of the Vietnamese community in the Czech Republic. “Sometimes you suddenly die because of irony.”

The documentary mosaic consists of four stories from Slovak Roma settlements. The protagonists do not fit into either the majority society or their own community. This is because of their sexual orientation, religious beliefs or physical disabilities. However, a factual observation of their struggle for a dignified life shows that they are not bitter. On the contrary, they find strength and hope within themselves day after day to overcome common obstacles and step outside the boxes in which they have been situated by other people and by their background. In doing so, they ask no more of others than what they themselves have no problem with – the ability to understand and accept their fellow human beings in their otherness. “The film is dedicated to all those who are not indifferent to anyone's fate, who are looking for a path to connection, not division, who think more about others than themselves, who give more than they take, who do not judge, but try to understand each other.” – Juraj Baláž Source: The Film New Europe (FNE) Association

War journalism is indeed a special discipline in the world of journalism. Even elite journalists bow to the brave few who venture into conflict zones and bring quality reporting from extreme environments. And apparently even the biggest cynic perceives that their work is worthy of respect and admiration. Documentary filmmaker Petr Jančárek talks to a number of reporters, cameramen and photographers about how they see their profession.

“I thought it would be easier,” admits director Marta Kovářová halfway through the film. In the form of a vivid diary, she captures her father's fight for climate justice. Jiří Svoboda from the Institute of Physics of Materials of the Czech Academy of Sciences came up with an ingeniously simple idea to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He proposes a global carbon price. Accompanied by his daughter's camera and songs, the Brno scientist visits local protest meetings and global environmental summits. The infectious determination of both protagonists, however, clashes with the slothfulness of politicians and the inflexibility of power structures. Yet Svoboda never loses his humour and his belief that certain things make sense simply because they are the right thing to do.“I wanted to use the film to examine why the world couldn't work the way my dad imagines it in the kitchen.” — Marta KovářováThe quote from dok.revue.

Baby clothes on the line, a fictional mother and cots for sixty-five boys and girls stuck in time paint a sensitive portrait of the residents of a children’s home. The probe into a fragile world of those who are waiting accompanies Táborský's socially-themed feature films Escape in the Wind and Miraculous Puzzle.

What can be done to cover 550 km? Ocean splashes, phone signals and kitchen rituals as a bilingual tale of the search for a love language.

Audio documentary. Paris metro is the most vital and crucial mode of transportation for Parisians and tourists from around the world. It is the heart and veins of the city. Some of the people are just passing through to reach their destination; for others, it is their livelihood. Who are these people whose lives collide in the tunnels when a train passes through? In this audio documentary, we explore the city’s metro and its Train of Thoughts.

It is said that in his spare time, Antonín Dvořák would go to the New York train station to admire trains. A similar kind of fascination has led me to make this short documentary movie. This film is an insight into the world of trains through the categories of rhythm and time. These categories obtain a strange meaning in this specific autonomous world in the way they affect the lives of the workers.This film will be featured in the online edition of Ji.hlava IDFF.

We were the closest, now we will be strangers – Věra and Vladimír say goodbye to the lost years of their marriage, which culminated in a divorce. Women's shoes, a man's briefcase, photographs of their young son and details of personal fetishes are transformed into alienation by fragments of human faces, bodies and memories in the abyss of the courtroom.

Lucia "Pretty Beast" Krajčovič is a 34-year-old professional MMA* fighter and mother of two children. Shortly after giving birth, she is determined to become a champion in both disciplines - sport and motherhood. With a baby in her arms, she is preparing for her next fight. Under the immense pressure of her two identities, exhausted from lack of sleep, she wrestles with a question to which she had a clear answer not long ago. How to be both Pretty and Beast and for how much longer?*the sport formerly known as Vale Tudo, which means "everything allowed" in Portuguese

September 2023 marked the end of the exhibition Was ist Kunst? dedicated to the Serbian artist Dragoljub Raša Todosijević, an important representative of Eastern European conceptualism. The title of the exhibition and film was taken from one of his performances. In a video filmed for the Prague City Gallery, Turner revels in Todosijević's work with symbols such as the swastika and the orange, followed by his playfulness, dexterity and multimedia exuberance.“The Edinburgh Manifesto: who benefits from art? … the national saviours of art, a proofreader, a columnist who has nothing to do with art but writes about artists, their works and the issues of the art world…”

In this meditative and playful time-lapse documentary, the author observes a gardener and a garden gnome searching for a lost garden in a concrete backyard.

Wenceslas Square is the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic in a nutshell, explains Karel Höger in his annotated mosaic of local phenomena, which includes “meetings by the horse”, teeming crowds of tourists from Czechoslovakia and abroad, shopping frenzy, and patriotic affection for Czech beer and glass.

Under the direction of director Mehran Tamadon, an empty warehouse on the outskirts of Paris is transformed into a prison cell. He reconstructs the claustrophobic space according to the descriptions of three people who were imprisoned by the Iranian regime for their political views. Taghi Rahmani is a proscribed journalist who was harshly interrogated countless times. Mazyar Ebrahimi ran a film equipment rental business and was accused of espionage after a competitor slandered him. Homa Kahlori experienced torture at the hands of Iranian jailors in the 1980s. While each of them describes and re-enacts in detail the effect of the horrific experiences on the body and mind, we wonder along with the director whether there is a staging method that could ever capture similar hardships to their full extent. “In Where God Is Not, I tried to be delicate with my characters, because the trauma is huge, and I had to take care of them. I always tried to make sure that they could go on; I kept asking them how they felt. I was really with them, and I understood that re-creating these scenes could even help them a bit. But it wasn't my sole goal to help them; it was to make the film. I don't think that a filmmaker is an angel or that he has only good intentions.” — Mehran Tamadon Source: Cineuropa

In Mongolia, the word dzud refers to extremely cold winters that make it impossible for cattle to dig food out from under the snow. The fundamental transformation of pastoralists' lives caused by climate change is captured in this documentary portrait of a multi-generational family threatened with the loss of their traditional livelihood due to more frequent dzuds.“I discovered film as this really wonderful visual language that helps transport us to different places and introduce us to different characters and emotions that we might not have felt otherwise.” – Justin Kim WooSŏk

The epidemic has divided many families in Romania. Despite various restrictions, one such family tries to stay in touch with both traditions and relatives abroad, even during a burial. In addition to modern technology, black humour helps its members to do this.

Emma's mother first idolized Arnold Schwarzenegger. He was then replaced by Russell Crowe, and the household’s DVD collection grew to include all the actor's films. At the same time, however, there is no real man in her mother’s world. She lives for her daughter and makes do with a few close female friends with whom she throws frivolous house parties. The apparent contradiction between the manifestation of the sex drive and its fulfilment leads the director to question the things that remain unspoken and yet define her and her mother’s coexistence. And, in deep introspection, it also leads to the painful realisation that she herself might be carrying her mother's traumas. “I see myself continuing to research between the line of art and documentary film. Letting my voice be heard in today’s society as a filmmaker who happens to be queer and female.” Source: Film Freeway

What constitutes body memory? How do we perceive its boundaries? How does the body deal with its image? The author finds answers in the experiences of meeting her own physicality in the gynaecologist’s office. Footage from the waiting room, the sounds of examinations and the view from the gynaecological chair create a suggestive ground for reflection on the hidden histories of the medical knowledge of physicality.“We are images created by blind bats. Economically minded creatures. Descendants of failed 4D ultrasounds.”

Jakub and Martin worship their own bodies. They are the source of their livelihood. They live half in Brno, half on the online OnlyFans platform, where they fulfil the fantasies of their followers – from displaying their biceps, which they build with regular visits to the gym, to golden showers and imitating pigs. They approach conversations about work the same way they approach their bodies – without inhibitions. “Look at these muscles. Me and Martin are flexing for you.”

Conceptual visual artist Ján Mančuška died in 2011. However, in his short 39 years of existence, he managed to create a number of remarkable works, many of which have been exhibited in renowned galleries around the world – including the Centre Pompidou in Paris and MoMA in New York. In his homeland, however, his work reflecting everyday life, social reality or the meaning of language has never achieved comparable fame. Together with the children of an artist who was not afraid to confront the public with the question of the meaning of art, the director embarks on a journey that aims not only to get closer to Mančuška, but also to reveal him in hitherto unrecognised shades, thus filling in the gaps that are increasingly appearing in the context of the fading memory of his personality.“We are trying to make [Mančuška's] works present, to confront them again. Not to be dependent only on recollection, on memory, but to actually have the opportunity to relive it, to see these things again.” — Štěpán PechQuote from Artalk.