14.09.2022 Preparations for the twenty-sixth Ji.hlava IDFF are in full swing! Its packed programme will offer the largest showcase of Filipino cinema in Europe, a programme reflecting on the Russian aggression in Ukraine, “war” as a film theme, as well as new works by Armenian filmmaking legend Artavazd Peleshyan and Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa. The Ji.hlava’s Inspiration Forum’s discussions will revolve around freedom, technology, the theory of degrowth and the situation in Ukraine.
Only six weeks are left until the start of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival that will take place on October 25 to 30. The festival will bring new original documentaries, thematic retrospectives, the best in experimental filmmaking and a number of non-competitive programme sections.
“It wouldn’t be accurate to say that Ji.hlava’s film programme was curtailed during the pandemic, but this year's edition is absolutely exceptional – both in terms of the international sections and in the highly popular Czech Joy competition showcasing Czech documentary films,” says festival director Marek Hovorka. “Ji.hlava has always been a festival of discovery. Audiences can look forward to the largest retrospective of the cinema of the Philippines shown outside Asia, as well as a reflection on the war in Ukraine,” says Hovorka. “We will be looking at the latter in depth and from different perspectives. Aside from the screening of Ukrainian films or the Inspiration Forum discussions, there will also be a section called Notes on the War composed of world documentary classics.”
For more information, including the first confirmed films and news from the Inspiration Forum programme, download the press release below.
16.08.2022
DOCU TALENT AWARDS 2022 went to Dad's Lullaby and Between Revolutions
EAST WEST INDEX 2022: The representation of Eastern European films in Western Europe remains unbalanced.
EMERGING PRODUCERS 2023 were announced, with Qatar as guest country
Nine outstanding documentaries from Central and Eastern Europe, planned for theatrical release during the upcoming 12 months – the Docu Talents from the East – were presented yesterday as part of CineLink Industry Days at the Sarajevo Film Festival.
Projects from Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Ukraine made it to the final selection of Docu Talents from the East 2022.
Lesia Diak
The Docu Talent Award was granted to the most promising project. The international jury selected a personal story from contemporary Ukraine Dad’s Lullaby directed and produced by Lesia Diak. The award is accompanied with financial prize 5,000 USD, in cooperation with the festival’s partner Current Time TV.
The 3,000 EUR in-kind DAFilms.com Distribution Award was awarded to an archive-constructed film about unofficial history told from the women's perspective Between Revolutions by Romanian director Vlad Petri and produced by Monica Lăzurean-Gorgan. The award covers international VOD release on DAFilms.com (including Americas, Europe, Asia) for two years.
The jury gave the following statements:
“A heartfelt depiction of a life under impossible circumstances. Such a personal story is a valuable way to understand the scars of the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.” (Dad’s Lullaby)
“A true international co-production, it uses a unique method of letter-reading to express a friendship that survives revolutions, regimes and time itself; and has relevance to a world that needs female solidarity as much as ever today.” (Between Revolutions)
Since 2005, Docu Talents curated by the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, has been a launch pad for a number of documentaries by both renowned and emerging directors such as Laila Pakalniņa, Vladimir Mansky, Bartek Konopka, Piotr Stasik, Peter Kerekes, Dmitrii Kalashnikov and Helena Třeštíková. Films presented at Docu Talents in the past had world and international premieres at major film festivals including in Cannes, Berlin, Locarno, Rotterdam and Sundance.
“All of the selected films do not only explore the phenomena of our day-and-age, but also ask questions about how our choices shape our own future – whether as an individual, a particular social group or an entire society,” says Marek Hovorka, director of the Ji.hlava IDFF.
EAST WEST INDEX 2022: LESS THEN 15% OF EUROPEAN FILMS AT WESTERN FESTIVALS ARE FROM THE EAST
Representatives of the Ji.hlava IDFF presented in Sarajevo also results of this year’s EAST WEST INDEX – an exclusive survey among key European documentary film festivals, which focuses on figures representing individual regions.
The survey shows that most festivals have adopted a hybrid format in the past twelve months. The European documentary festivals are slowly returning to more titles being screened, so the 2020 slump - caused by the pandemic - is fortunately not a permanent state of affairs. On the other hand, only three festivals screened more films in their most recent edition than in the pre-pandemic year of 2019. However, the representation of Eastern European films in Western Europe and vice versa remains very unbalanced.
“While Eastern European festivals screen almost half of the European films produced in Western Europe, the reverse is only 15% - less than one in six European films screened by Western European festivals is from the Eastern European region,”, comments Marek Hovorka, director of Ji.hlava IDFF which has been conducting the annual survey since 2019.
See the survey in detail here.
EMERGING PRODUCERS 2023 WERE ANNOUNCED
During the event, the representatives of the Ji.hlava IDFF also revealed the names of the EMERGING PRODUCERS 2023. This unique programme aims at promoting talented European documentary film producers and provides them with a range of networking, educational and promotional support throughout the year. 17 European producers will be accompanied by a producer from Qatar, which is the guest country of the 2023 Emerging Producers programme. The Emerging Producers programme will consists of two workshops – taking place in Jihlava in October 2022 and during the Berlinale 2023.
The Docu Talents from the East and the EMERGING PRODUCERS programmes are part of the Visegrad Accelerator supported by the International Visegrad Fund.
23.06.2022
The visual identity of the 26th Ji.hlava IDFF has been revealed! Its concept invites us to joyfully discover new and creative approaches to the world around. The author of the visuals, Juraj Horváth, is an award-winning book graphic designer and illustrator who has been the creator of the festival’s visual identity for over two decades.
The festival announced also the first programme highlight of this year’s edition: the latest film by legendary surrealist filmmaker Jan Švankmajer entitled Kunstkamera. The two-hour director’s cut will be presented in world premiere.
The 26th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival will take place on October 25 to 30, 2022 in Jihlava and move online for the 2 following weeks. “We want to make the live part of Ji.hlava into an experience, full of stimulating input and inspiring encounters, followed by an online part that brings documentaries not only to those who can make it to Jihlava,” says the director of the Ji.hlava IDFF, Marek Hovorka.
What will this year’s Ji.hlava look like? The festival’s traditional visual identity created for the upcoming festival edition can give us a pre-taste.
“This year’s Ji.hlava‘s visuals capture the joy of discovering our creative presence in the world,” says Marek Hovorka. “Juraj Horváth physically encodes life, his everyday experience, meetings, thoughts in the latest festival poster. Rather than an eye it resembles a retina, on which all perceptions are inscribed as if on a screen”.
The renowned graphic designer Juraj Horváth has been behind the Ji.hlava’s visual identity for over twenty years, and is author of the celebrated EMERGING PRODUCERS catalogues and other Ji.hlava’s visuals. The Ji.hlava 2021 festival catalogue recently came third in a competition for the Most Beautiful Book of the Year in the Czech Republic.
Horváth is also the author of the traditional “poster poem”. This time it is depicting a “left eye inked with indigo” and a “shadow of a moving probe / followed by the camera”.
The poster poem by Juraj Horváth
A Posteriori
Explosion of light on the retina
Left eye inked with indigo
Fixed, not blinking
A smudged image
The shadow of a moving probe
Followed by the camera
As time goes by
I place under the matrix
Hairpins, seeds
Contours of faces, bodies
Signs to decipher
Without the help of machines
Only by touch
Fingertips and palms
I exert pressure
And create
Layer by layer
I go with the flow
I make fire in the stove
I'm surrounded
With samples, paints and tools
Everything has its place
I pick them up repeatedly
I use them
And then I clean up
I often do nothing
Silence
I'm waiting
I step out
Apricots are in bloom
At moments like these
I'm not watching the news
Answering the phone
Thinking about you
Or about the war
