| Opus Bonum | World Premiere

Director: Jaro Vojtek
Producers: Tomáš Slebodník (SK), Juraj Baláž (SK)
SK | 2023 | 88 min. | documentary

The film follows the fate of Romani, minority within a minority. Queer Romas search for their living space and dream of working abroad. A legless father of five children longs for a wheelchair. A Romani grandmother sacrifices her life for the health of her beloved grandson. Will Emil, a Romani man who found faith in God, be able to save his son from alcohol? Four stories from Roma settlements in Slovakia aim to break down prejudices between the Roma community and the white majority.

More information & screening here.

| Opus Bonum | Czech Joy | World Premiere

Director: Štěpán Pech
Producers: Marek Dusil (CZ), Anna Mach Rumanová (SK)
CZ, SK | 2023 | 80 min. | documentary

The film is a window on the life and work of the artist Jan Mančuška, who died in 2011 aged 39, after he made a significant mark in the context of global contemporary art. Mančuška's story exposes many angles which show aspects of his life ranging from artistic brilliance to the philosophical dimension of his work, as well as human warmth, humour and nobility. The experimental nature of the film originates from inspiration by the vast creative world of its protagonist.

More information & screening here.

| Czech Joy | World Premiere

Director: Haruna Honcoop
Producer: Vít Janeček (CZ/SK)
CZ, SK | 2023 | 77 min. | documentary

What impact do the Olympic Games have on their host cities? Athens, Tokyo, Beijing and Paris – cities that have changed the urban layout of entire neighbourhoods for the Olympics, transforming their appearance forever. Unused sports stadiums are falling into disrepair and grass is growing over them, while public attention is focused on the construction of new stadiums costing billions, displacing thousands of residents who have to make way for them. The director travels to Olympic host cities to explore this unsustainable cycle, which has a devastating effect on the city's economy, the environment, and the lives of ordinary people.

More information & screening here.

| Czech Joy | International Premiere

Director: Marta Kovářová
Producers: Jan Bodnár (CZ), Jan Hubáček (CZ)
CZ, SK | 2023 | 77 min. | documentary

“I thought it would be easier,” admits director Marta Kovářová halfway through the film. In the form of a vivid diary, she captures her father's fight for climate justice. Jiří Svoboda from the Institute of Physics of Materials of the Czech Academy of Sciences came up with an ingeniously simple idea to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. He proposes a global carbon price. Accompanied by his daughter's camera and songs, the Brno scientist visits local protest meetings and global environmental summits. The infectious determination of both protagonists, however, clashes with the slothfulness of politicians and the inflexibility of power structures. Yet Svoboda never loses his humour and his belief that certain things make sense simply because they are the right thing to do.

More information & screening here.

| Czech Joy | Czech Premiere

Director: Vera Lacková
Producers: Vera Lacková (SK), Jan Bodnár (CZ)
SK, CZ | 2023 | 52 min. | documentary

Elena Lacková (1921–2003) was a prominent Romani writer, playwright and social worker. Her great-granddaughter, Alžběta Ferencová alias Zea, is a singer, dancer and actress. The film draws parallels between two family-related women who, despite social prejudices, dedicate their lives to artistic creation. Through archival materials and the stories of witnesses, the difficult fate of Elena Lacková is revealed: from growing up in a Roma settlement, through the period of the Roma Holocaust, to her emancipatory work under communism. The poetic narrative reveals how the personal can take on political dimensions in our society.

More information & screening here.

| Czech Joy | Czech Premiere

Director: Viera Čákanyová
Producers: Matej Sotník (SK), Nina Numankadić (CZ), Tatiana Vallová (SK)
SK, CZ | 2023 | 78 min. | documentary

A hands-on and deeply personal work, Notes from Eremocene is an audiovisual postcard dispatched by filmmaker Viera Čákanyová into an ambivalent world to come. Drawing upon a fictional conversation with her future virtual clone, the film offers a window into a world in which the technological solutions mankind has devised for sustaining its existence have major and unexpected downsides.

More information & screening here.

| Czech Joy | Czech Premiere

Directors: Ivan Ostrochovský, Pavol Pekarčík
Producers: Ivan Ostrochovský (SK), Albert Malinovský (SK), Katarína Tomková (SK), Tomáš Michálek (CZ), Kristýna Michálek Květová (CZ)
SK, CZ, UA | 2023 | 71 min. | hybrid

On a cold February morning, 12-year-old Niki and his family arrive at the Kharkiv metro station to take shelter from the terrifying war raging outside. For Niki's family, daylight is synonymous with mortal danger, and the boy is not allowed to leave the station premises, living under the constant glow of their neon lights. While aimlessly wandering around the abandoned cars and full platforms, Niki meets Vika (11), and a new world opens up to him. As their bond strengthens, the children find the courage once again to feel the sun on their faces.

More information & screening here.

| Short Joy | World Premiere

Director: Robert Mihály
Producer: Erika Paulinská (SK)
SK | 2022 | 25 min. | documentary

A reporter for a fictional television station, originally from Ukraine, travels around Slovakia and asks people at memorable places questions about the nature of fascism and the soul of the Slovak nation. The documentary essay seeks to capture the shape of a society on the fringes of the political spectrum through the words spoken and the images of crowd scenes.

More information & screening here.

| Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz | World Premiere

Director: Claude Johann Čierny
Producer: Claude Johann Čierny (SK)
CZ, SK | 2023 | 3 min. | experimental

The eternal question of the digital age: how to rid analogue film of the traces of nostalgia? The answer here is a fast-paced stream of sharp photographs and blurred or disturbed shots of Prague's transport vehicles, anchored in the present by passengers holding mobile phones. The music for the film was created by Bratislava-based producer Sofia Nøt, and the film's co-writers include the generative realistic image creation system DALL-E 2.

More information & screening here.

| First Lights | World Premiere

Director: Paula Ďurinová
Producer: Paula Ďurinová (SK)
SK, DE | 2023 | 16 min. | documentary

A tribute to grandparents and an apartment on the top floor of a Bratislava apartment block overlooking the Danube and Austria takes the form of an intimate dialogue. Between generations, past and present, East and West. In the same space, through family experiences and traumas, the author's identity was also formed.

More information & screening here.

| First Lights | World Premiere

Director: Peter Podolský
Producers: Erika Paulinská (SK), Nataša Jurčová Findrová (SK)
SK | 2023 | 34 min. | documentary

Peter Podolsky's audiovisual diary is filmed in the spirit of its subtitle: “An attempt to return to childlike sensitivity.” With the immediacy of a child, the author explores the sounds, colours and textures of various corners of the more-than-human world. He captures the wonders of the natural landscape while attempting to establish a dialogue with it on 8mm and 16mm film.

More information & screening here.

| First Lights | World Premiere

Director: Tereza Smetanová
Producers: Erika Paulinská (SK), Tereza Smetanová (SK)
SK | 2023 | 37 min. | documentary

Lucia "Pretty Beast" Krajčovič is a 34-year-old professional MMA fighter and mother of two children. Shortly after giving birth, she is determined to become a champion in both disciplines - sport and motherhood. With a baby in her arms, she is preparing for her next fight. Under the immense pressure of her two identities, exhausted from lack of sleep, she wrestles with a question to which she had a clear answer not long ago. How to be both Pretty and Beast and for how much longer?

More information & screening here.

| Czech Television Documentaries

Director: Robert Kirchhoff
Producers: Robert Kirchhoff (SK), Jiří Konečný (CZ), Tibor Horváth (SK), Peter Dubecký (SK), Alena Müllerová
SK, CZ | 2023 | 116 min. | documentary

Lucia "Pretty Beast" Krajčovič is a 34-year-old professional MMA fighter and mother of two children. Shortly after giving birth, she is determined to become a champion in both disciplines - sport and motherhood. With a baby in her arms, she is preparing for her next fight. Under the immense pressure of her two identities, exhausted from lack of sleep, she wrestles with a question to which she had a clear answer not long ago. How to be both Pretty and Beast and for how much longer?

More information & screening here.

Ji.hlava New Visions ​Forum: Europe
600 Raids, dir. Kristína Leidenfrostová
If Pigeons Turned to Gold, dir. Pepa Lubojacki
Marathon, dir. Peter Kerekes

Ji.hlava New Visions Co-production Market
The Other One, dir. Marie-Magdalena Kochová
Beyond a Knit Cap, dir. Violette Deffontaines

Emerging Producers 2023
Matej Sotník (guča films)