12.09.2023 The programme of this year's Ji.hlava IDFF will introduce prominent directors as well as significant contemporary topics. A film highlight will be the retrospective of Marguerite Duras. Audiences can also look forward to an expanded virtual reality section with a special focus on American VR production, as well as the latest Czech documentary crop and the very first retrospective of the Czech documentarist Pavel Koutecký. The Inspiration Forum’s discussions will revolve around water, space, artificial intelligence, and communities. The 27th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival kicks off in six weeks, on October 24 –29.
Women, women, and women again!
The twenty-seventh Ji.hlava is primarily dedicated to women. "Ji.hlava has long given a significant platform to female filmmakers, featuring retrospectives of, for example, Susan Sontag, Shirley Clark, Alice Guy, or Agnes Varda. It's important for us to make their works accessible, works that were often marginalized in their time, and to allow audiences to view them with today‘s perspective. So I‘m very pleased that the retrospective of Marguerite Duras will be accompanied by several distinguished guests, including French director Claire Simon – or that the icon of Japanese cinema, Naomi Kawase, will return to Ji.hlava after eighteen years," says the festival director Marek Hovorka about this year's programme.
Topics such as female physicality and sexuality, aging, friendship, childbirth, coming to terms with motherhood, sexual violence, and the effort to break free from gender roles run throughout the program. The Constellations section, which presents a selection of exceptional films from other film festivals, will feature several such films. For example Our Body where director Claire Simon grapples with womanhood and pivotal life stages, from birth through a cancer diagnosis to, for instance, gender transition. Simon, who took her camera to the gynaecological department of the Tenon clinic in Paris, will personally present the film in Ji.hlava. "Capturing pain is the hardest part," says the director.
"A woman's worth is based only on her ability to captivate a man," can be heard in the film Smoke Sauna Sisterhood by Estonian director Anna Hints. The film takes place in a smoke sauna, where the heroines grapple with life's fears, traumas, and relationships. "In the protective dimness of the smoke sauna, all emotions can surface, and no experience is too harsh or embarrassing," says the director, whose debut was featured at the prestigious Sundance festival this year and has since become a festival hit.
The topic of aging is addressed in the film Vika! by the acclaimed Polish director and investigative journalist Agnieszka Zwiefka. The eighty-five-year-old Polish DJ Vika can get crowds dancing, actively challenges stereotypes associated with aging, and strives to live life to the fullest, defying societal norms. At the same time, however, she grapples with the reality that inside her apartment, she is nothing more than a lonely widow.
The film Seven Winters in Tehran by German director Steffi Niederzoll follows the case of Iranian Reyhaneh Jabbari, who was sentenced to death at the age of nineteen for killing a man who tried to rape her. When given the chance to avoid execution by retracting her accusations against her assailant – she chose not to. The film has received awards from festivals such as the Berlinale and CPH:DOX.
Naomi Kawase back at Ji.hlava!
After eighteen years, Japanese director Naomi Kawase returns to Ji.hlava. According to Marek Hovorka, "For over three decades, she has been one of the most prominent Asian filmmakers. Her documentaries and feature films are characterized by a unique poetic touch and a feel for film form and rhythm. Her work stands out for its empathetic portrayal of female protagonists and themes they carry within." The esteemed filmmaker received the Contribution to Cinema Award in Jihlava in 2005. She also took home the Grand Jury Prize and the Golden Camera from the Cannes Film Festival for her first feature film, Suzaku. She also served twice on the jury at Cannes, once alongside Steven Spielberg.
"We will present both her documentary and feature work. The cinematic treatment of the Olympic Games – Official Film of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics – is a captivating spectacle rooted in Japanese cultural traditions," describes Hovorka. "For me, not only people are characters, but also the environment. When the camera stops and the characters disappear, what remains in the shot is the path, the forest, the wind blowing. Existence is not just in the characters, but also in the surroundings. Scenes are also characters in my films," says Kawase about her creative method, which she will introduce to the Ji.hlava audience during a Masterclass. Another film, this time a feature titled Still the Water (2014), addresses adolescence and death – and according to Kawase, ranks among her top three films. "It takes place on a Japanese island where we follow two teenagers who, through the mystical discovery of a drowned body, come of age. Life, death, and love are beautifully intertwined here," says Marek Hovorka.
Lesser known Marguerite Duras
The Ji.hlava festival promises exceptional cinematic experiences this year with a significant showcase of French films featured across several sections. One of the most prominent will be a retrospective dedicated to the famous French writer, screenwriter, and filmmaker, Marguerite Duras. "She is among the most remarkable artists of the 20th century. In many ways, her approach to film direction is more radical and original than that of Jean-Luc Godard," says the curator of the retrospective, David Čeněk. Duras, whose themes revolved around female emancipation, the abandoned and abandoning woman, and a woman strengthening her position primarily through pain, drew material primarily from her own life. This is evident, among other works, in her most famous novel, The Lover.
Ji.hlava will showcase a selection of Duras's lesser-known films, including television reports for the feminist magazine Dim Dam Dom. "If any of us wants to understand the possibilities of film art, we cannot bypass her work, her films without a dramatic plot, her challenge to perceive the film-image and film-sound as two parts of a single entity. Marguerite Duras was able to base her reflection on a successful film on a favourite culinary recipe and the correct dosage of ingredients," explains Čeněk.
The festival will also present her film Le navire Night (1979), which captures conversations of anonymous lovers – and also the feature film I Want to Talk About Duras (2021), directed by the aforementioned Claire Simon; her film portrays the relationship between the famous artist and her thirty-years younger partner Yann Andréa.
Czech Joy reveals first highlights
The festival program traditionally offers a large showcase of current Czech documentaries. Among them will be The World According to My Dad directed by Marta Kovářová, which captures her father’s fight for climate justice in the form of a live diary. The film You Will Never See It All directed by Štěpán Pech will focus on the Czech artist with Slovak roots, Ján Mančuška. In the film Olympic Halftime Czech-Japanese documentary filmmaker Haruna Honcoop delves into the fate of Olympic constructions. While her previous film Built to Last (2017) focused on structures built during socialism across Eastern Europe, her current film maps Olympic construction in Beijing, Tokyo, and Paris.
Translucent Being: Pavel Koutecký
The section Translucent Being will be dedicated to director Pavel Koutecký (1956–2006). It is the very first retrospective of this talented and versatile Czech documentarist, whose works were recognized both in Czechia and abroad. The exhibition introduces Koutecký as a persistent observer, subtle ironist, and brilliant filmmaker, whose primary theme was the transformation of society after November 1989. “Pavel Koutecký was a part of the festival since its early editions. We know he held Ji.hlava dear to his heart, and we always appreciated his films, which he gladly presented at the festival. He managed to combine films about Czech politics with perspective and still give them a distinctive cinematic form. He was, in the best sense of the word, a cinematic chronicler of the Czech journey from socialism to capitalism, and we are delighted to present his cinematic work to a new generation of viewers. It's just a great pity that he can't be with us,” says Marek Hovorka. The programme includes his student, social, and political films: from those lesser-known from the eighties to his opus magnum Citizen Havel, 2007, a project he worked on for thirteen years, which, after Koutecký's untimely death, was completed by director Miroslav Janek.
Virtual reality – a special focus on American VR
This year's program will also offer a big showcase of virtual reality. Ji.hlava first introduced a VR section nine years ago, being the first among Czech festivals and fourth in the world. This year, the section will focus on American production. "The novelty is that we are targeting a specific country. We observe productions across countries where VR is strong in production, technologically, and in terms of creativity," says the curator of the section, Andrea Slováková. The selection includes the film Surfacing by Rossella Schillaci in which participants will experience how it feels for children growing up with their mothers in prison.
Experience water, universe, community and AI at the Inspiration Forum
The Inspiration Forum – Ji.hlava’s discussion platform – will this year offer a rich programme of debates, lectures, interviews, art, and a new participatory programme. Over the course of five days, five contemporary and crucial topics will be discussed: food, water, space, artificial intelligence, and communities. "At the Inspiration Forum, our aim is not just to reflect on current issues but to seek pathways to their resolution and directions for the future. We are uniting science, philosophy, thought, and imagination to shape visions of a better world for everyone," explains the head of the Inspiration Forum, Tereza Swadoschová.
This year's Inspiration Forum will see a host of experts and intellectuals focusing on key contemporary topics.
Space will be the focal point of the second festival day. Questions about its vitality, boundaries, and a potential future conflict over cosmic resources and territory present both fascinating and unsettling topics. Czech anthropologist Lucie Ráčková will discuss human stress in extreme conditions, which is immensely important for long-term space missions.
Water, an essential source of life on Earth, will be at the center of attention on the third day. Discussions will focus on the origins, ownership, and protection of water resources. In addition, there will be a discussion about deep-sea mining, which Portuguese marine biologist Patricia Esquete criticizes for its potentially irreversible impacts on marine ecosystems.
The theme of communities represents the way people interact and share resources. Polish sociologist Jan Sowa offers a provocative view of current inequalities and challenges associated with resource redistribution.
Finally, artificial intelligence represents one of the most current technological topics. Paris Marx, a critic of the technology industry, will explore the potential challenges and opportunities that AI brings, both in terms of regulation and its impact on human work.
07.08.2023 Docu Talents from the East – the traditional presentation of most remarkable documentary films in post-production from Central and Eastern Europe will take place on August 13 at Sarajevo FF.
Eight new creative documentary projects will be presented as part CineLink Industry Day on August 13, the presentation will take place at Hotel Europe – Atrium from 14.30 – 15.45.
The most promising project will receive the Docu Talent Award in cooperation with Current Time TV. The award is accompanied by a cash prize in the amount of 5,000 USD. The DAFilms.com Distribution Award will also be awarded, which covers services in the amount of €3000 including international VOD release on DAFilms.com for two years.
"One for all, or one against all? The protagonists of the presented films are exploring their family roots and cultural background, striving for a fairer and more open world, and trying to secure their own place in it – often in spite of global and political influences. The films in progress, in which they appear, thus closely and often mercilessly depict the world in which we live and which we are shaping together. In line with tradition, Docu Talents from the East presents formally diverse and thematically significant documentary films at the completion stage made by prominent filmmakers from Central and Eastern Europe'', says Marek Hovorka, director of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, which has organized and curated the Docu Talents since 2005.
In the last 18 years, Docu Talents have served as a launchpad for documentaries from Central and Eastern Europe. Below is the selection of this year’s most remarkable documentary projects from the region:
A PICTURE TO REMEMBER
Ukraine | France | Germany | 70’
Director: Olga Chernykh
Producer: Regina Maryanovska-Davidzon
Production Company: Real Pictures LLC
A Picture to Remember is an essayistic account of a family's long journey through the war. It chronicles the search for a way to handle terrible and recurring losses experienced by three generations of Ukrainian women - those of the director, her mother, and of her grandmother.
CHRONICLE
Slovakia | Czech Republic | 70’
Director: Martin Kollar
Producers: Ivan Ostrochovský, Albert Malinovský and Katarína Tomková
Production company: Punkchart films
A documentary observation essay creating a portrayal of irretrievably disappearing realities.
RUNA
Poland | 82’
Director: Agnieszka Zwiefka
Producers: Zofia Kujawska and Agnieszka Zwiefka
Production Company: Chilli Productions
After her mom’s tragic death on the Polish-Belarussian border a 16-year-old Kurdish girl Runa has to become a mother for her 4 younger brothers as the family deals with trauma and tries to establish a new life in Europe.
ROOT
Bosnia and Herzegovina | Turkey | 50’
Director: Deniz Čelebić
Producer: Deniz Čelebić
Production Company: Kapiya Production
As the diary of a woman who carries ancestral memory of displacement from home because of the war, the documentary Root shows her journey of becoming rooted through the garden she cultivated on the land of the Other.
DREAMING OF EL DORADO
Croatia | 60’
Director: Alan Stanković
Producer: Boris Veličan
Production Company: Event Film Ltd.
Film about a young girl Fatima Zahro from Senegal who took her destiny into her own hands and decided to move to Croatia.
AN ALMOST PERFECT FAMILY
Romania | 90’
Director: Tudor Platon
Producers: Carla Fotea and Ada Solomon
Production Company: microFILM
After 30 years of marriage, my parents announced to me that they were separating. In the midst of this painful process, I was falling in love and starting my own family. The film explores the different shapes that love can take between parents and children and children who become parents.
80 ANGRY JOURNALISTS
Hungary | Germany | 80’
Directors: András Földes and Anna Kis
Producer: Loránd Balázs Imre
Production Company: filmDOUGH
Viktor Orbán’s government seizes Hungary’s top independent media outlet, Index.hu. Journalists fight back by resigning and forming a new entity but face familiar toxicity. Can healthy communities survive in a corrupt system? Possible answers are revealed through the lives of three ex-Index.hu employees as they navigate challenges.
HAVEL SPEAKING, CAN YOU HEAR ME?
Czech Republic | 90’
Director: Petr Jančárek
Producer: Jiří Konečný
Production Company: Endorfilm
Leaving. And the ever-necessary presence of the playwright, prisoner of conscience, citizen, statesman and a shy director of his own life.
The programme is held as part of the Visegrad Accelerator supported by the International Visegrad Fund.
20.06.2023
“This year’s Ji.hlava visual is absolutely documentary,” says festival director Marek Hovorka. “It connects the old with the new. It refers to calligraphy, an art that is six thousand years old, and at the same time works with the principle of mirroring. Its all-silver surface reflects the world around, including those who look at it. It thus links tradition with the present, much like the Ji.hlava IDFF, which presents retrospectives of important authors as well as the latest films by filmmakers from all over the world.”
The author of the poster is the award-winning book graphic designer and illustrator Juraj Horváth. A traditional part of the festival is the "festival of thinking” Inspiration Forum, which this year will focus on food and sustainability. The most affordable Early Bird accreditations will be on sale until 30 June, this year for 700 crowns (appx. 30 EUR).
The Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival will take place this year from 24 to 29 October in Jihlava and will then be online for 14 days. "We have been intensively searching for the most interesting documentaries from literally all over the world for several months now and we are looking forward to presenting them to the audience. This year, we will completely change the booking system at the festival, which will make it easier to plan screenings. We are doing everything we can to make this year's edition inspiring and surprising and at the same time enjoyable and comfortable for its visitors," adds Hovorka.
The author of the visual, Juraj Horváth is also the author of the traditional “poster poem”.
Poster poem
Juraj Horváth
Go outside
And look carefully
Evaporating slowly
Messages from the sidewalk
Brushes swaying in the wind
That tears leaves from the trees
And tarpaulins from scaffolding
Traces of tanks
Braking cars
Hellish machines
Stuck in the mud
It’s seemingly calm around here
Tune the string
And make a sound
You'll ripple the silver surface
And in the underground
Twists
A giant animal
Fluffing up
And sending
Upwards
Its ambassadors
Sprouting messages
Ji.hlava collects recipes this year
And what else will this year's Ji.hlava bring? Food! Prepared from local autumn recipes which the festival will receive from its fans. Ji.hlava will then share the selected recipes on social media, feature them in the upcoming festival cookbook and cook them for festivalgoers. The authors of the selected recipes will receive free accreditations to this year's festival.
The Inspiration Forum, Ji.hlava’s discussion platform, will invite the audience into the kitchen. "Food is something that unites us all. It is a necessity for us and can be a great joy," says Tereza Swadoschová, the forum's leader. "We want to use it to connect people with nature, with heritage, to discover lost sustainable practices." That's why the Inspiration Forum will also offer a cooking show and is preparing a cookbook for which anyone can recommend their recipes or favourite ingredients. "The availability of traditional foods is changing rapidly: biodiversity loss, freshwater scarcity, soil degradation and a wetter and stormier climate are increasingly threatening global food security. Our current diets are dying out. That's why we'll be looking at where food comes from, how it's grown and what stories it tells," concludes Swadoschová.
The 27th Ji.hlava IDFF will take place on 24-29 October 2023, a discounted Early Bird pass for CZK 700 (Ji.hlava physically + Ji.hlava online) can be purchased until 30 June. It is also possible to pay more for the accreditation and support the Ji.hlava IDFF.
More photos here
