Veronika Janatková is a film producer, director, and programmer who focusses on social-politically driven documentaries. “I believe that through film one can perceive and consider society differently, and pay attention to those that are not in power. Film can be the fuel for action,” she underlined during her presentation to the professional audience at Ji.hlava IDFF 2023.
While Janatková wears many hats, producing is her major preoccupation, she stresses, and which undertakes in her production company Pandistan. But she is not content merely to oversee the financial packages of the projects she undertakes. “I’m always in very close contact with the director. I’m sitting with the director on dramaturgy and I’m very invested in the development of the content and the language and the storytelling,” she tells BDE. “For me, the producer is a filmmaker and not there only for the financial and business part, but in a very creative role.”
“I enjoy directing very much, but I cannot imagine to be director on the full time because it’s emotionally so engaging,” she adds. Her feature directing debut was Ticket to the Moon (2019), which she also produced. “So for me producing is what I do mainly.”
Janatková flags up how her experience as a director and as co-founder DokuBaku IDFF (Azerbaijan) informs her work as a producer. “I understand what the struggle is. I understand to go and write a voiceover is not just something you can do in one day. It’s a long process and I think it [her experience behind the camera] really gave me a different kind of angle and possibilities to look at the work of my director,” she says, before underlining how her festival direction is also a boon. “I understand how it is to bring a film to audiences. You have to understand who the audiences are, and what are we trying to say and how to convey that.”
Janatková stresses how she was “politicized” towards “engaged” films through her work on God Is Not Working on by Leona Goldstein (Germany), about women trying to overcome post-genocide trauma in Rwanda. “The film was also used as an awareness campaign around the world,” the producer adds proudly .
She further articulates the kind of docs she wants to produce. “I want to work on films that inspire and that can propel people to think in different ways about the voices that are not in power, those that are maybe rewriting the collective memory that was [traditionally] written by the ‘masters’ That is important for me.”
“Of course, I fall for personal stories, but it can be also a topic,” she elaborates. “It’s often touching on human rights, but not only. It’s films that show possibilities. Films that maybe can inspire us for making change or working together, or talking about community collaboration.”
Janatková is a new mum, but she is still eyeing up a 2024 during which she will be completing Panic Button by Samara Sagynbaeva, about ethical journalism in the face of blatant corruption, which is currently in post-production. “And I am stepping into production on a project that we are about to shoot in Cuba (Musica O Muerte: Destined to Freedom by Hana Jakrlova). I just got funding from the Czech Film Fund, so I’m very excited about this too. And now here at Emerging Producers, I met some colleagues and I would be happy to speak about their projects,” she signs off on her availability as a potential co-production partner.
