The 28th Ji.hlava IDFF (25 October to November 3) has reminded the international doc sector that there is one week left to submit rough cuts and films that have not yet had a festival world premiere. The Czech doc fest is looking for feature-length and short films, animated, hybrid, interactive documentaries as well as VR projects. The deadline for submissions is June 30.
Films premiered at Ji.hlava have a chance to be nominated for the European Film Academy Awards and the winners at the Ji.hlava IDFF are also eligible for Oscar® consideration in the Documentary Short Subject and Documentary Feature Subject categories.
Poster of Ji.hlava IDFF unveiled
At the core of this year’s visual concept of Ji.hlava is the theme of islands, “which have been provoking the human imagination for centuries,” the festival writes. 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. Every year, a new poem accompanies the visual.
Czech Dream 20 years on
This year Ji.hlava will offer a major retrospective of directors Vit Klusák and Filip Remunda and their leading Czech production company Hypermarket Film. The festival will present almost two dozen films, including the award-winning Czech Dream (2004) about “the hypermarket that did not exist”. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the film’s release, the festival will present its digitally remastered version. After its premiere in Jihlava, Czech Dream will be re-released in cinemas.
Ji.hlava New Visions: Call for European projects
The festival also invites European filmmakers to submit their projects to the Ji.hlava New Visions Forum & Market 2024. Projects presented at the Forum in the past three years have later premiered at festivals including HotDocs, Rotterdam, Berlinale, Cannes, and Locarno, the festival notes. “We welcome diverse audiovisual formats such as fiction with documentary aspects, hybrid, experimental, short films, docu and web series, cinema expanded projects, games with documentary aspects, and VR+AR+Live documentaries,” it adds, with cash and in-kind awards to be given to the most promising projects. The deadline for applications is August 15.
Inspiration Forum to address war, immunity, forest, new technologies and leisure
This year’s edition of Ji.hlava’s discussion platform Inspiration Forum will be “dominated” by the themes of war, immunity, forest and the relationship between new technologies and leisure. British environmental philosopher Timothy Morton will present his latest book Hell, in which he proposes combining ecological thinking with religious perspective in dealing with the climate crisis. The topic of free time will be opened by famous Canadian-British critical theory duo, economist and philosopher Nick Srnicek and prominent feminist theorist Helen Hester.
