Ji.hlava IDFF has unveiled programme details of its 27th edition which this year is “primarily dedicated to women.” The festival will run 24 to 29 November. Special guests include Claire Simon and Naomi Kawase, and the programme includes a Marguerite Duras retrospective.
“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 [and] 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 programme,” writes the festival.
The Constellations section, which presents a selection of exceptional films previously screened elsewhere, will include Our Body in which director Claire Simon grapples with womanhood and pivotal life stages, from birth through a cancer diagnosis to 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.
Smoke Sauna Sisterhood by Estonian director Anna Hints. 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 feature doc debut world-premiered at Sundance 2023, winning the Directing Award of the World Cinema Documentary Competition.
The topic of ageing 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 ageing, 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 19 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 RETURNS TO 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 filmmaker received the Contribution to Cinema Award at Ji.hlava IDFF 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.
“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.
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,” the festival adds,
Ji.hlava will showcase a selection of Duras’ 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.
The Translucent Being section 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,” says Marek Hovorka.
The programme includes Koutecký’s 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 an extensive virtual reality showcase, with a 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 selectionincludes 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 centre 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 Sowaoffers 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.
