“In Ji.hlava we are trying to build a filmmaking community,” Ji.hlava IDFF director Marek Hovorka told Business Doc Europe on the eve of the 27th edition of the Czech doc fest, which runs October 24 – 29. “We systematically support filmmakers who are looking for new, often very personal topics and unexpected forms of film expression…those who think in an authorial way and perceive film as part of the arts.”
“[The festival] is an important voice of the contemporary documentary scene, not only in Europe,” Hovorka adds. “It nurtures the emerging generation of filmmakers as much as it does experimental filmmakers who revive the energy of the film, and connect them to audiences and the wider filmmaking community.”
This year, Ji.hlava IDFF offers 357 films across eight competitive and 11 non-competitive sections. Of this number, 115 will be world premieres, 22 international premieres and 17 European premieres. “We present a large number of films by emerging filmmakers, whom we want to motivate and draw attention to,” Hovorka says. “We then complement their work with retrospectives and profiles of prominent auteurs to underline the continuity of film.”
The festival presents a further eight retrospectives in 2023, which include focuses on the works of Japanese director Naomi Kawase; French novelist, screenwriter and experimental filmmaker Marguerite Duras, and the legendary Méliès Brothers.
The overall festival programme comprises a smorgasbord of national and international titles that range from experimental to formal in tone, long or short, covering an array of subjects and made using a panoply of styles. Always delivered with an auteur sensibility, the major criterion for inclusion is their high quality.
Artificial intelligence and new technologies, the changing planetary climate, migration, transformation of the democratic system and society, as well as the search for new paths to freedom and happiness, the films of this year’s programme reflect on the dynamic changes of the contemporary world, the festival underlines. “The world in which we live is rapidly changing, and this year’s Ji.hlava brings images of these transformations. The films in the program are thematically and formally very diverse, allowing us to recognize and contemplate the world’s transformation,” says Hovorka.
“If we were to look at the Ji.hlava programme through the lens of the themes of the presented films, we see films capturing various forms of work, films addressing aging, and examining often dysfunctional interpersonal relationships, the invasion of technology into our everyday lives, and political topics affecting the lives of millions of people in different parts of the world. From an artistic perspective, these are distinctive, personal, and poignant films,” he continues.
“We don’t think that daring and personal films ignore audiences. Quite the opposite. Documentary film has long been the most diverse and vibrant part of the audiovisual landscape, and interest in it continues to grow,” Hovorka further stresses to BDE.
“The world in which we live is rapidly changing, and this year’s Ji.hlava brings images of these transformations. The films in the program are thematically and formally very diverse, allowing us to recognize and contemplate the world’s transformation,” he concludes.
As previously reported in Business Doc Europe, highlights of the competitive and non-competitive programme are as follows:
Opus Bonum Competition
The Opus Bonum section, which presents diverse approaches and trends in global documentary cinema, will offer seventeen films. Among the selection is the time-lapse Nomad Solitude by Belgian filmmaker Sebastien Wieleman about three American elderly women for whom the car is the only available housing option. The documentary mosaic The Third End of the Stick by Slovak director Jaro Vojtek introduces four stories from Roma settlements in Slovakia; their protagonists do not fit the profile of the majority society, nor their own community. The near-detective film A Cautionary Tale captures the story of Romanian senior Constantin, who worked for a quarter of a century in Turkey – and upon returning to his homeland, found out he is formally considered dead. However, as director Ilinca Călugăreanu eventually discovers, everything is completely different.
Czech Joy
The competition section Czech Joy, which focuses on new Czech documentaries, will introduce fifteen films this year. “Audiences can look forward to several dimensions: there’s an interesting line of films shot abroad, reflecting on the contemporary world in an international context, whether it’s China, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, or France. There are strong stories told through intergenerational dialogue, as seen in films like You Will Never See It All or The World According to My Dad. And then there’s a pure concentration on the means of artistic cinema, which can be found in the works of Lea Petříková or Martin Ježek,” says Marek Hovorka inviting viewers to the traditional Czech Joy section.
Czech premieres will include the film Photophobia by the Slovak duo Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarčík. The film captures the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv in the spring of 2022, where the only safe place was the local metro. Is There Any Place for Me, Please? directed by Jarmila Štuková will also premiered. The film follows the story of Martina, who was attacked by her ex-boyfriend with acid, causing third-degree burns and blinding her. The documentary portrait follows her life story after this attack: coping with the loss of physical attractiveness, fear of the world she can’t see, and the search for a new meaning in life. The Slovak director Viera Čákanyová will introduce her new film at the festival. Notes from Eremocene, which straddles the genres of science fiction and philosophical essay, elaborates on the concept of a land shaped by artificial intelligence, where there is no longer a place for the human element.
Testimonies
The competition section Testimonies, which monitors current global events, will feature twelve films. Project 02 by American creator Adam Diller will take audiences behind the glossy façade of Google’s data centre. The film uncovers the power dynamics, media relations, and ecological implications of this multinational company’s operations in the state of Oregon, USA. The Hostage Takers is a raw film about the fighters of the Islamic State who were responsible for a series of kidnappings, tortures, and executions of Western journalists and humanitarian workers. Created by the Danish duo Puk Damsgård and Søren Klovborg, the film pieces together the testimony of a surviving Danish photographer and interviews with two fighters. These interviews are conducted by a British journalist whose friend was executed by this group. The Many Lives of Édouard Louis by director François Caillat is a compelling portrait of the famous contemporary French writer. The thirty-one-year-old Louis, who blends philosophy and sociology into his autobiographically inspired literature, is one of the leading figures in the French literary scene. In the film, he narrates the story of his challenging childhood, adolescence, and adult life in a new social stratum.
Fascinations
This year, film experiments will once again be in the spotlight. The competition section Fascinations will showcase two dozen films from all over the world, including countries such as Mexico, Norway, Canada, South Korea, Taiwan, Cuba, and Tunisia. The programme will consist of works from established filmmakers, some of whose creations the Ji.hlava audience has had the chance to view in the past, as well as completely new names. Prominent figures of the global experimental scene such as Dietmar Brehm, Steve Reinke, Mike Hoolboom, Thomas Kutschker, and Karel Doing will be featured. Yet, as with every year, the section also discovers entirely new talents.
According to Andrea Slováková, the curator of the experimental sections, “The work of experimentalists with natural motifs, exploring landscapes, imprints, echoes, and shadows of plants and animals, often carries an urgent environmental undertone. What remains fascinating about these films is how the conceptual choice of expressive means can emphasize thematic urgencies.”
Ji.hlava traditionally features the Czech experimental competition section called Exprmntl.cz. This year, it offers two dozen films. “Returning to the Czech competition are filmmakers who, in past years, showcased their progressive thinking about the audiovisual capture of the world in Ji.hlava. However, as usual, we are also discovering the upcoming generation of talents,” says Slováková, describing the showcase. Video artist Adéla Babanová will present her film The Law of Time at Ji.hlava. This spatial film installation had its premiere at the group exhibition Shifted Realities in Prague’s Rudolfinum Gallery earlier this spring.
Fascinations AI: chatbots and I
The non-competitive retrospective section Fascinations this year offers a selection of films co-created by AI. “In the past, we’ve seen many films where tools and computational processes assisted filmmakers in shaping the film’s individual components. Today, we’re looking at works where AI’s role is autonomous,” says Andrea Slováková, emphasizing the diverse approaches represented in the selection of thirteen pieces. The theme of identity is explored, for example, through transformations of a single photographic portrait in the film Me, Myself, and I. It was created by a neural network in collaboration with chatbots. Similarly, AI critically examines biases in its own work, as seen in the film Fag Face. AI is also behind the film Let’s be Friends!, where it crafted images, sounds, texts, poems, editing sequences, and in some cases, even the narration. Experimental film classic John Smith, in collaboration with AI, produced a metropolitan symphony in an algorithmic translation.
Short Joy: free on dafilms.com
All nominated short documentaries from the Short Joy section, presented as world or international premieres, will be available for free on dafilms.cz from now until to October 29. Moreover, until October 22nd, it will be possible to vote and decide for the winner of the DAFilms Audience Award, which will be announced at the grand opening of Ji.hlava. All voting viewers will be entered into a raffle for a chance to win one of three annual DAFilms subscriptions.
Awards and juries
This year, a five-member jury in the Opus Bonum section will decide not only on the winner of the main prize but also on the best camera, editing, or sound design. The members will be French editor Dominique Auvray, American writer and educator Michael Renov, Czech director Adéla Komrzý, British curator and filmmaker Christopher Small, and director Una Gunjak from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Professional awards will also be given in the Czech Joy section, composed of Czech film publicist Kamila Boháčková, Iranian director Kaveh Daneshmand, Slovak director Robert Kirchhoff, writer Klára Vlasáková, and director Lucie Králová.
The winner of the best experimental films in the Fascinations and Exprmntl.cz sections will traditionally be chosen by a family jury, this year consisting of Ukrainian director and editor Anna Kryvenko and her mother Iryna Kryvenko.
The Testimonies section jury will include Icelandic writer Andre Magnason, Czech analog astronaut Lucie Ráčková, and Canadian publicist known through the podcast dedicated to the criticism of the current technology industry, Paris Marx.
There will also be an award for the best VR work. Among others, the laureate will be selected by Czech artist Vojtěch Radakulan, Hungarian AI expert Bujdoso Gyöngyim and Polish artist, lecturer and historian Krzystof Pijarski.
The 27th Ji.hlava IDFF runs October 24–29 2023.
