Launching an ambitious program of compelling global and Czech work, the 27th edition of the Ji.hlava International documentary Film Festival opened on Tuesday, kicking off six days of more than 350 film screenings by veteran and new filmmakers.
Fest head and founder Marek Hovorka, who launched the event in his hometown in 1997, introduced what is now Central and Eastern Europe’s main event for docs, defining the fest mission as “a celebration of films, image, sound, gestures and diversity.”
The films selected this year are “all very original,” he told the opening gala audience, and show filmmakers “perceive the world very differently.”
The fest, raising its curtain in the location that remains its home, the communist-era DKO “house of culture,” as the pre-1989 regime dubbed such multi-purpose spaces, attracts for its launch hundreds of guests seated at white-decked tables, sipping local wine.
Opening night moderators embraced an ironic take on AI, claiming their notes were all algorithm-generated, prompting Hovorka to say, “Filmmaking is evolving but we don’t know how. What is and is not authentic? What images can we trust?”
The festival awarded the winner of the Short Joy section, based on audience votes, to “Kata’s Motherhood” by Indian filmmaker Santwana Bayaskar, a film that explores whether someone can become a mother without giving birth to a child. Ji.hlava said the film was an “intimate documentary [that] introduces the audience to the most beautiful and vulnerable moments of life that are associated with childbirth.” Viewers vote on the VOD portal DAFilms and Bayaskar’s short will receive distribution and promotion on the platform worth 3,000 euros.
The Czech producers association, APA, meanwhile, gave its world excellence award for outstanding contribution to film production to French producer Pierre-Olivier Bardet, who has been behind films by Albert Serra, Wang Bing and Alexandr Sokurov, among others.
The Ji.hlava films screen in sections that run the gamut from main competition Opus Bonum, which includes 17 entries from docmakers spanning the globe from Thailand to Argentina on subjects ranging from Alpine spiritual quests to King Coal and Slovak Roma settlements.
A Special Events section this year has collected six unique film experiences, including Wang Bing’s portrait of a Chinese composer, “Man in Black” and a collection of shorts by Dada art icon Man Ray with music scored by Jim Jarmusch.
The popular Testimonies section screens films exploring key contemporary issues, from social, economic, climate-related and political subjects, featuring 17 films, many co-productions, from a score of countries.
The Czech Joy section also screens 17 premieres, taking on subjects from a family diary on a climate change scientist to a forgotten Soviet-era prison town.
Ji.hlava’s broad horizons have always included experimental work, reflected in the Fascinations section, and the complementary celebration of Czech and Slovak work in the genre, Exprmntl.cz, with dozens of films of varying forms, formats, lengths and structures.
Meanwhile, music-based films, student films, reality TV and retrospectives fill out the program, with tributes to filmmakers Naomi Kawase, Pavel Koutecky, Marguerite Duras, Vaclav Taborsky and the Melies brothers. Archival gems also factor into the mix, all in aid of the fest’s yearly goal of capturing the zeitgeist of global trends as reflected in nonfiction filmmaking.
The opening night world premiere, “Havel Speaking, Can You Hear Me?,” directed by Petr Jancarek, showcases previously unseen footage from the last three years of ex-Czech President Vaclav Havel’s life. The film delves into the theme of departure and aging as the globally renowned playwright is seen adding a new role – that of film director – to his past credits as prisoner of conscience, statesman and national reformer.
The fest’s guest list this year is expected to pack several masterclass sessions, including one led by a visitor awarded for contribution to world cinema: Hungarian director and screenwriter Béla Tarr. Another masterclass expected to sell out is that of Polish director Agnieszka Holland, whose new feature on the refugee crisis in Poland and Belarus, “Green Border,” has been gaining heat.
The festival will also connect online with diplomat Hans Blix, the subject of Greta Stocklassa’s “Blix Not Bombs,” who served as the UN’s chief weapons inspector until 2003.
Screenings reflect the best of some 3,000 films submitted annually to Ji.hlava, culled from scouting trips the fest team make around the world, which cover another thousand or two films, said Hovorka.
Running through Oct. 29, the Ji.hlava fest turns its base, a former medieval silver mining capital and home to Gustav Mahler into one of Europe’s top doc destinations for both scouts and exhibitors.
