03-11-2020

Winners announced, the festival continues!

    Winners were announced, the festival continues until Sunday

    Viera Čákanyova’s Arctic-shot video diary White on White took the Opus Bonum Award for the best world documentary during Saturday’s Ji.hlava Award ceremony (see the recording here). Hilal Baydarov, the sole juror of the competition, called the film “very honest, brave and inspirational”. The Special Mention was accorded to French documentary A Man Leaning by Olivier Dury and Marie-Violaine Brincard. The Award for the Best Central and East European documentary (10,000 EUR prize), is Latvian Coyote by Ivars Zviedris, and Special Mention went to Austrian film The Last Image, directed by Judith Zdesar. The Best Czech documentary (10,000 EUR prize) is A New Shift by Jindřich Andrš and the award in the First Lights category for the best debut went to Portugal for Ghosts: A Long Way Home by Tiago Siopa. The Contribution to World Cinema Award was received by a Chinese artist, dissident, and filmmaker Ai Weiwei. See all awards and jury statements here.

    Festival films still available this week

    Until this Sunday, international audiences can enjoy the selection of 40 films from the Ji.hlava competition programme online via DAFilms.com. They include the Ji.hlava winners Wolves on the Borders, poetic Colourful Traces of a Landscape, 14 experimental docs including the best world experiment We Are Without, and Rift Finfinnee, world premiered at Ji.hlava last week and awarded at DOK.Leipzig yesterday. Viewers in the Czech Republic can watch the Ji.hlava programme directly at the festival website – with accreditation, which can be purchased here. The festival ends on November 8.

    Recordings of Ji.hlava Industry events

    The online industry programme hosted over 1,200 film professionals, who attended the Ji.hlava industry days last week. If you are a film professional, you can still get your free industry accreditation and thus access the Industry LIVE section offering recordings of the EMERGING PRODUCERS 2021 presentation, pitching of new Czech documentaries CZECH JOY IN THE SPOTLIGHT, panel discussions of distributors, producers, and buyers reflecting the current situation, CONFERENCE FASCINATIONS on experimental film distribution, FESTIVAL HUB showcase of film festivals, and much more. The Ji.hlava Industry LIVE archive will be available until November 15.

    Hubert Sauper and Roberto Minervini sharing at Ji.hlava

    The festival hosted two important filmmakers, which not only participated in the festival’s live streams broadcasted throughout the first six festival days but also delivered their remarkable masterclasses. Roberto Minervini talked about building connections and trust within communities as he films their lives. Hubert Sauper explained why he never does interviews in his films and talked about his most recent documentary Epicentro, screened at Ji.hlava. You can now watch both masterclasses on our YouTube channel.

    Inspiration Forum – topical debates go on until Friday

    This unique Ji.hlava discussion platform focused in the last seven days on various topics including response to climate change, rules for technological giants such as Google and Facebook or on the challenges of the African continent and its future. What debates and guests can you still look forward to? Anarchist theorist and anthropologist Andrej Grubačić will talk about societies of the future, a debate about how algorithms manage our life and work, Norwegian writer Ingerid S. Straume who will talk about education in times of climate change, and to many other well moderated discussions and guests of the Inspiration Forum.

    Producers’ Award for Heino Deckert

    The APA Excellence Award for the Best Producer of 2020 accorded by the Czech Association of Producers was virtually handed at the 24th Ji.hlava to a German producer, sales agent, and distributor Heino Deckert. As a producer he worked, among others, with Russian director Victor Kossakovski, as a distributor for the Oscar-nominated Macedonian film Honeyland, and he also collaborated with Chinese visual artist Ai Weiwei on Human Flow. Heino Deckert was the second laurate of the award, after Gabriele Kranzelbinder in 2019.

    Published in Festivals
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