The anniversary edition of the festival will kick off with When Flowers Are Not Silent by Belarusian director Andrei Kutsila that captures the atmosphere in Belarus after last year’s presidential election. Over eighty percent of the votes were gained by the current president, Alexander Lukashenko. The local opposition and the European Union called the vote fraudulent and a large part of the population rejected the results. Peaceful demonstrations were brutally suppressed and political repression became as intense as before the collapse of the Soviet Union. “The documentary is a brave testimony of the state's violent repression against peaceful protests. It shows how brutally this last European dictatorship resists the transformation of Belarus into a freer society. With this special screening, we want to support the Belarusian opposition and all of the country’s citizens who want to live in a free world, just as various initiatives in Western European countries supported the Czechoslovak opposition in the 1980s,” says Marek Hovorka about the film. “Both in the Czech Republic and in Poland demonstrations and regular manifestations of freedom of speech are organized but Belarus has nothing like that, except perhaps for some online forums,” says director Andrei Kutsila, who will introduce the film at the festival’s Opening Ceremony. The film is included in the main international competition section Opus Bonum.

Jana Ševčíková to receive the Contribution to World Cinema Award

The Contribution to World Cinema Award will be presented to the prominent Czech filmmaker Jana Ševčíková at this year's Awards Ceremony. The director is currently finishing her eighth film. “Jana Ševčíková’s talent was appreciated mainly abroad,” explains Marek Hovorka. Her films were shown at festivals in Berlin, Rotterdam, Paris, Nyon and Leipzig, among others, and screened at MOMA or the Harvard University in the USA. And she was also always present at Ji.hlava where she won the Audience Award for The Rite of Spring (2002). “Jana Ševčíková has been ahead of her time. She always clung to her own independence and made films exclusively in her own production, even at a time when this was far from common. Her deep empathy, dedication to the film genre, liveliness and authentic humanism run through her entire film work and are an adornment not only of Czech and not only of ethnographic film," adds Marek Hovorka. Her Old Believers (2001) will be presented at Ji.hlava on Saturday evening. 

Festival awards created by Federico Díaz and artificial intelligence

As of 2021, a renowned Czech-Argentinean visionary artist Federico Díaz will be the author of the design of Ji.hlava’s festival awards. “It will not be the same design every year. This year, Federico Díaz began developing a long-running project in which he teaches artificial intelligence to examine and then transcribe emotional messages into graphic notation,” says Marek Hovorka, describing the new awards design. “This year it's going to be only a sketch, because we're at the very beginning. But I believe that from next year on every award-winning film will have its own particular award – a notation made by artificial intelligence,” adds Federico Díaz. “I'm interested in emotions and emotional intelligence because they can transcend the language itself and reveal the essence of things. It is related to the time when the language was created and therefore it is more universal,” he adds. The first test of the project has been based on the Twitter account of former U.S. President Donald Trump. “We chose Donald Trump because I'm interested in political statements that can manipulate the masses. It was fun, too. We wanted to see how our AI would deal with Trump, who is known for his strong statements. The notation is in black and white because the human eye can distinguish most transitions between black and white. Technically speaking, black and white are not colours, but compositions of other colours. And what is fascinating is that, in fact, black and white don’t exist. The eye sees the colour black when there is no light coming from the particular direction,” concludes Federico Díaz.  

Oliver Stone revisiting JFK, Vitaly Mansky revisiting Gorbachev

What else does Ji.hlava have in stock? A masterclass by Hollywood director Oliver Stone – the three-time Oscar winner, who presented his new film JFK Revisited at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Among other things, he will talk about his new film, in which he goes back not only to the assassination of President Kennedy but also to his feature film JFK (1991). “Kennedy’s murder was motivated by change: Kennedy was changing things. If he had succeeded, we would have been in a very different place today,” said Oliver Stone in Cannes. Russian documentary filmmaker Vitaly Mansky, whose new film Gorbachev. Heaven will be presented by Ji.hlava in the competition section Testimonies, will also introduce his creative approach. “I wanted to look behind the cold marble and see a man who decided to make the world a better place,” Mansky says about the film. The artist group Flatform, whose works can be seen, for example, at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, as well as the prominent Czech documentary filmmaker and script editor Jan Gogola Jr. will also talk about their creative methods. Creative duo Ivo Bystřičan (Czech Republic) and Sara Pinheiro (Portugal) will speak about their project Future Landscapes: Expedition into Sound. Read more about Masterclasses. 

VR zone, brand new Industry Hub and Ji.hlava for Kids

This year’s Ji.hlava will also invite visitors to step into virtual reality. The VR zone will newly be situated on Masaryk Square in the very heart of Jihlava. It will bring a showcase of this year’s most remarkable VR projects with documentary elements. The industry activities will be concentrated in a new space – in the main hall of the College of Polytechnics (VŠPJ) that will become the festival’s Industry Hub. Among other things, there will be a new programme, Ji.hlava New Visions Forum, which will present 36 new documentary projects from Europe and the USA.

This year's Ji.hlava will also feature live streams from the festival. The afternoon service will offer a daily programme in English: interviews with filmmakers and guests, film tips, the Ji.hlava programme for children, and the Inspiration Forum. The festival stream will be available via the festival website and Facebook.

Ji.hlava also keeps kids in mind. After a one-year break, Ji.hlava will open its gates to children and invite them to their own full-fledged festival programme. They will be treated to film and fairy tale screenings, performances, concerts, workshops as well as Fairy Arguments, in which they will discuss digital technologies, equality and inequality or our relationship to nature with the guests of the Inspiration Forum.

Who will be in the jury?

The winner in the Opus Bonumsection will be selected by six-member jury composed of: Syrian writer and filmmaker Orwa Al Mokdad, Romanian producer Anamaria Antoci, Czech-Japanese documentary filmmaker Haruna Honcoop, Dutch film critic Sofie Cato Maas, Slovenian director Olmo Omerzu and Mexican festival programmer and distributor Pedro Emilio Segura Bernal. 

Czech Joy awards will be in the hands of the last year’s winner – documentarian Jindřich Andrš, together with director and cinematographer Tomáš Klein, film and theatre music composer Jakub Kudláč, Slovak editor and musician Monika Omerzu Midriaková, Czech art theorist Tomáš Pospiszyl and Jihlava native and collaborator of the Czech Centre in Paris Marie Sýkorová.

The winners of the awards for the best experimental film in the Facinations and Exprmntl.cz sections will be selected by a family jury consisting of Daria Kashcheeva, a filmmaker who won a student Oscar for her short film, and script editor and film editor Alexander Kashcheev.

Inspiration Forum: Sahraa Karimi, Judith Butler, David Abram and local personalities

The Inspiration Forum, the discussion platform of the Jihlava festival, discovers new perspectives and brings new questions about the future into the public space. Visitors will be treated to six days of live discussions, interviews and lectures, followed by an online programme. Each day, discussions, interviews and talks will focus on a single topic, with guests from a range of disciplines and experiences, from global thinkers to important local figures. They will be looking at mental health, equality and inequality, how digital technologies can help create a more just and fairer world, the relationship between humans and nature, and the online programme will deal with the challenges the Czech Republic is facing after the Parliamentary election. Judith Butler, a star in the field of humanities, who has given a completely new direction to feminist and gender thinking and thus contributed to the creation of a more tolerant and equal society and world, will be among the speakers. And it is the world they would like to live in that they will talk about at this year's Inspiration Forum. David Abram, one of the most important ecological thinkers of our time, and Afghan filmmaker Sahraa Karimi will also be among the Forum’s guest speakers. The local guests include the Mayor of Jihlava, Karolína Koubová, Vysočina Region Governor Vítězslav Schrek and the director of the Jihlava primary school Ivana Málková. 

On the safe side at Ji.hlava

“Last year we couldn't meet in person in Jihlava as the festival had to move online. This year, we appreciate all the more that we can return to the cinemas with live viewers and guests. Of course, we have to stay on the safe side and therefore we have introduced a simple system of rules to create a safe environment during the festival,” Marek Hovorka says about this year's safety measures. The anniversary edition requests visitors to use respirators in cinemas and in all other indoor areas. In addition to that, valid infection-free status is a condition for attending the festival programme. A testing site will also be available for the festival visitors. For more information go to ji-hlava.com/faq.

The 25th Ji.hlava IDFF will take place on October 26 to 31, 2021. Festival passes can be purchased at ji-hlava.com and they serve as a full-fledged ticket to the live part of the festival (film screenings, discussions and lectures, off-screen programme). Festival accreditation also provides 14-day access to the festival's online video library (available only in Czechia). Admission to the screening and the accompanying programme will be granted only upon presentation of proof of Covid-19 vaccination, or a valid antigen or PCR test. Let's be responsible and considerate of each other!

More information at www.ji-hlava.com, email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and on the festival’s Facebook and Instagram profiles.

PARTNERS AND SPONSORS 2021

MAIN SUPPORTERS
Ministry of Culture Czech Republic
Czech Film Fund
Creative Europe MEDIA
Statutory City of Jihlava
Vysočina Region

GENERAL MEDIA PARTNER
Czech Television

MAIN MEDIA PARTNER
Czech Radio

EXCLUSIVE MEDIA PARTNERS
Aktuálně.cz
Respekt

PARTNERS OF INDUSTRY SECTION
Creative Europe MEDIA
Czech Film Fund
International Visegrad Fund
Ministry of Culture Czech Republic
Audiovisual Producers’ Association
Statutory City of Jihlava
Creative Europe Desk CZ – Media
Czech Film Center

THE INSPIRATION FORUM PARTNERS
European Cultural Foundation
Prague office of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung e.V. – representation in the Czech Republic
Masaryk Democratic Academy
Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom
Czech Centres
Creative Europe Desk Czech Republic
EUNIC – EU National Institutes for Culture

PARTNERS OF JI.HLAVA FILM FUND
UPP
Soundsquare
Center for Documentary Film

CO-ORGANISER OF THE INDUSTRY SECTION
Institute of Documentary Film

PARTNER PROJECT
Doc Alliance Films

SUPPORTED BY
EEA and Norway Grants
U.S. Embassy in the Czech Republic
Current Time TV
European Commission Representation in the Czech RepublicCzech Centres
Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Romanian Cultural Institute
Italian Cultural Institute
Austrian Cultural Forum
Goethe Institute
French Institute
German Films
Delegation of Flanders in the Czech Republic
Instituto Camões
Slovak Institute
Embassy of the State of Israel
Jan Barta

FESTIVAL PARTNER
Czech Tourism
Kudy z nudy
REGIONAL PARTNERS
CZ LOKO
Chesterton
Sepos
Vysoká škola polytechnická Jihlava
WFG Capital

OFFICIAL SHIPPING PARTNER
FedEx Express

PHOTO PARTNER
Nikon

PARTNER OF VR ZONE
Go360

PARTNER OF SAFE FESTIVAL
ANYGENCE

OFFICIAL FESTIVAL BEER
MadCat Brewery

OFFICIAL SUPPLIERS
Autocolor
Autonapůl
AZ Translations
BIOFILMS
Böhm BOKS
Dřevovýroba Podzimek
Fine Coffee
Flexipal
Husták
ICOM transport
Johannes Cyder
KINOSERVIS
KOMA Modular
M-SOFT
Mlékárna Krasolesí
Natural Jihlava
On Lemon
Osmička 2.0
Little Urban Distillery
Vinařství Kolby
Wero Water Service

PARTNERS OF JI.HLAVA FOR KIDS
Baby Office
Bistro na tři tečky
ČT:D
DAFilms Junior
Dětský lesní klub Hájenka
DIOD a Tělovýchovná jednota Sokol Jihlava
Dům Gustava Mahlera
EKO-KOM
Husták
Kavárna Paseka
Nikon Škola
Oblastní galerie Vysočiny
VOŠG a SUŠG

CO-OPERATIONS
Academia
Aerofilms
Bombus Energy
Dům kultury a odborů Jihlava
Dopravní podnik města Jihlavy a.s.
Foto Škoda
Horácké divadlo Jihlava
Knihkupectví Otava
Město Třešť
Newton Media
Oblastní galerie Vysočiny
Prádelna a čistírna Jihlava
ScioŠkola Jihlava
Skaut: Středisko ZVON Jihlava
Studio VOKO
DIOD – Divadlo otevřených dveří

MEDIA PARTNERS
25fps
A2
Cinepur
Dějiny a současnost
Film a doba
Iluminace
Radio 1

REGIONAL MEDIA PARTNERS
City.cz
Hitrádio Vysočina
Jihlavská Drbna
Jihlavské listy
Náš Region
SNIP a CO.

MEDIA CO-OPERATIONS
Art Antiques
ArtMap
ČSFD
Festival Guide
Flash Art
Full Moon
HIS Voice
Heroine
Host
Kinobox
Kult.cz
Nový prostor
Protišedi.cz
Revolver Revue
7.G

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA PARTNERS
Variety Cineuropa
Modern Times Review
Business Doc Europe
Film New Europe
Kapitál
Kinema.sk
Kinečko
Kino Ikon