28th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival

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Bergen - A City West of Reason

Bergen - A City West of Reason

Frode Fimland
Norway / 2020 / 76 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Special Event
International Premiere
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
Broken Sky

Broken Sky

María José Alarcón Ardila
Colombia / 2022 / 24 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Short Joy
European Premiere
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
Constant - an Homage to the Apartment

Constant - an Homage to the Apartment

Paula Ďurinová
Germany, Slovakia / 2023 / 16 min.
section: First Lights, Ji.hlava Online
World Premiere
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.”
Death of the City

Death of the City

João Rosas
Portugal / 2022 / 115 min.
section: Doc Alliance Selection, Ji.hlava Online
Czech Premiere
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
Drifting Woods

Drifting Woods

Pia Rönicke
Denmark, Sweden / 2023 / 100 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Testimonies
European Premiere
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
Live in a Non-Profit

Live in a Non-Profit

Markéta Oddfish Nešlehová
Czech Republic / 2023 / 26 min.
section: Czech Television Documentaries, Ji.hlava Online
The film already had its Czech Premiere
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.
Mud Covered City

Mud Covered City

Václav Táborský
Czechoslovakia / 1963 / 7 min.
section: Czechoslovak Film Feuilleton, Ji.hlava Online
The film already had its Czech Premiere
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.
Ship

Ship

Elvis Lenić
Croatia / 2023 / 65 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Opus Bonum
International Premiere
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.”
The Many Lives of Édouard Louis

The Many Lives of Édouard Louis

François Caillat
France / 2023 / 71 min.
section: Ji.hlava Online, Testimonies
Czech Premiere
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
Wenceslas Square

Wenceslas Square

Václav Táborský
Czechoslovakia / 1961 / 12 min.
section: Czechoslovak Film Feuilleton, Ji.hlava Online
The film already had its Czech Premiere
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.
Ministerstvo kultury
Fond kinematografie
Creative Europe Media
Město Jihlava
Kraj Vysočina
GEMO
Česká televize
Český rozhlas
Aktuálně.cz
Respekt
Dafilms