PRESS RELEASE
Prague, October 12, 2015
Jihlava IDFF presents Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl
and thematic sections focusing on terrorism and Syria
The Jihlava International Documentary Film festival, the 19th edition of which will take
place on October 27 – November 1, 2015 has always kept track of trends and
transformations in contemporary filmmaking. 233 film titles out of more than 3,400
submitted films have been shortlisted for the festival programme, with additional 21
featured as part of the Czech Television Documentaries section. Competition sections
will include 34 world, 11 international and 6 European film premieres.
“Spectators will have a chance to gain insight into the mind of Norwegian filmmaker and
adventurer Thor Heyerdahl, an Oscar-winner and pioneer in wildlife films and
travelogues whose works will be shown from 35mm and 16mm film copies,” said Marek
Hovorka, Director of Jihlava IDFF.
Jihlava’s special guests: Peleshyan, Kossakovsky, Kelemen and
McAllister
Festival visitors will have a unique opportunity to meet face to face with the legend of
Armenian documentary cinema, Artavazd Peleshyan, and the versatile Russian director
and the first laureate of Jihlava IDFF’s World Contribution to Cinema Award from 1999,
Viktor Kossakovsky, who is coming back after 16 years to introduce his film Long Live
the Antipodes! and present his Master Class, organised in conjunction with the Institute
of Documentary Film. As a sole juror, he will also select the best documentary film in the
international Opus Bonum section.
Among other notable guests who will join one of the juries or hold Master Classes, are
filmmakers engaged in a variety of professions ranging from editor Claire Atherton,
through German cameraman, director and one of the jurors of the Between the Seas
section, Fred Kelemen, who has collaborated with the distinguished Hungarian
filmmaker Béla Tarr, to the members of experimental art group Flatform.
Terrorism is old news in Europe
One of this year’s special thematic sections is dedicated to films accentuating the fact that
terrorism has not emerged in Europe as an unknown and recent threat but that it has its
roots in the mid-20th century, manifesting itself in various forms in countries such as Italy,
Germany, Northern Ireland and England.
“We came up with the idea of the Terrorism section after January’s tragic events at
Charlie Hebdo’s headquarters in Paris in January – deliberately referencing the European
context. It was striking how light-heartedly European media tended to overlook their own
European past when analysing these terrorist acts,“ added Marek Hovorka, Director of
Jihlava IDFF.
One of the pivotal titles of the entire section is the new documentary A German Youth
(2015) by French director Jean-Gabriel Périot, made in collaboration with the section’s
curator, Nicole Brenez.
Transparent Landscape: Norway
Join us on an expedition into the land of fjords with adventurer Thor Heyerdahl
Jihlava invites you to discover the mysteries of the Norwegian landscape, explore the
fates of local documentary protagonists and uncover archaeological findings on the Easter
Islands. Thanks to the newly initiated DOC.STREAM project fostering collaboration and
partnership with Norwegian film institutions, such as the Western Norway Film Centre
and the Bergen International Film Festival, Jihlava can host the Norwegian
documentarian Thomas Østbye (Out of Norway and Imagining Emanuel) who will hold
one of the director’s Master Classes, and TV producer Thomas Hellum, who is
accountable for the boom related to the Slow TV genre.
COMPETITION SECTIONS
Opus Bonum
The Opus Bonum competition section annually represents the best of world documentary
film. This year, the role of the section’s sole juror will be assumed by Russian director
Viktor Kossakovsky, who will select the winner from among 16 nominees from ten
countries, nine of which will be presented in their world premiere. Among others, the
category of the Best Documentary Film Award will this year feature TERRA NULLIUS
or How to Be a Nationalist (James T. Hong, 2015) depicting the relations between Japan
and China, shown in its world premiere.
One of the Czech premieres featured at the festival will present (T)ERROR (Lyric R.
Cabral, David Felix Sutcliffe, 2015) about a former member of the Black Panther
movement defending the rights of Afro-Americans in the USA who now works for FBI
and is tasked with disclosing acts of terrorism in Muslim communities in the USA.
(T)ERROR made by Cabral – Sutcliffe won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance.
Norwegian director and filmmaker Thomas Østbye will present a world premiere of his
third feature documentary film Things (2015) as well as one of the creative Master
Classes.
Czech Joy
The traditional Czech Joy section showcasing films vying for the best Czech
documentary will be judged by a five-member panel composed of outstanding
personalities of the Czech cultural scene.
15 nominees have this year qualified for the Czech Joy competition, addressing various
– more or less serious – social issues. The current burning topic of xenophobia and ethnic
hatred is dealt with in Czechs against Czechs (2015), a film by documentary filmmaker
Tomáš Kratochvíl, drawing on his own experience living in a socially excluded locality.
In his film RINO (2015), Jakub Wagner introduces the audience to Karel Köcher,
allegedly the most famous agent whom intelligence services of the Eastern Bloc managed
to infiltrate into American CIA. Martin Ryšavý, the head of the Screenwriting Department
at FAMU, will introduce his dream-like spectacle of the transforming landscape at the
foot of the Krušné Hory mountains entitled Afloat (2015) and, last but not least, director
and dramaturge Jan Gogola Jr. will present his new film, Excursions (2015).
Between the Seas
The competition section showcasing the cream of the crop of this year’s Central and
Eastern European documentary harvest called Between the Seas will offer 14 titles, 3 of
which will be screened in their world premiere. These will include YOU and ME (Jasmin
B. Hirtl, 2015) and Trapped by Law (Sami Mustafa, 2015) co-produced by Kosovo and
Germany capturing the story of two brothers Kefaet and Selami, rappers from Essen, who
find themselves overnight in Kosovo, cut off from the rest of the world and their families
in Germany, in the aftermath of a massive expulsion of Romani people from Europe in
2010. Director Sami Mustafa has followed them for several years, sympathetically
capturing their journey out of the absurd situation and hostile legal tangle. The third film
that will celebrate its world premiere will be Steam on the River by Robert Kirchhoff and
Filip Remunda about three aging jazzmen: trumpeter Laco Deczi, saxophone player
Ľubomír Tamaškovič and double bass player Ján Jankej.
Fascinations
The Jihlava IDFF is the first Czech platform that has consistently dedicated space to the
presentation and exploration of experimental film production, and this year it will
organise the first ever Conference Fascinations focusing on the distribution of
experimental films.
Fascinations is a competition showcase of international experimental and avant-garde
films. Each year, the selected titles are assessed by a family jury panel – this time
composed of the experimenter Emanuel Lefrant and his partner Elena Gui.
In this section, the Jihlava IDFF will host the world premieres of: a short film by young
Nigerian artist Karimah Ashadu entitled King of Boys (Abattoir of Makoko), the
Japanese avant-garde film Orbiting (Yoshiki Nishimura, 2015) and British Nour (Guli
Silberstein, 2015) about the arrest of an eleven-year-old boy whose image is digitally
decomposed. The festival will also show the new film by Austrian found-footage master,
Peter Tscherkassky, called The Exquisite Corpus (2015).
For more information please contact:
René Kubášek
international communication
M: +420 778 058 273
E: rene@dokument-festival.cz
19TH JIHLAVA INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL
October 27- November 1, 2015
Jihlava, Czech Republic
www.dokument-festival.com
SPONSORS & PARTNERS
Supported By:
Ministry of Culture Czech Republic
State Cinematography Fund
City of Jihlava
Creative Europe MEDIA
Vysočina Region
ROP South-East
European Commission Representation in
the Czech Republic
Embassy of the Kingdom of the
Netherlands
Austrian Cultural Forum Prague
Polish Institute Prague
Italian Cultural Institute in Prague
Embassy of the State of Israel
Hungarian Cultural Institute
Instituto Camões de Portugal
Slovak Institute Prague
DOC.STREAM Supported By:
EEA Grant
Partnership Fund within the Swiss-Czech
Cooperation Programme
Partners of Industry Section:
Audiovisual Producers‘ Association (APA)
Central European Initiative (CEI)
Czech Centers
HBO Europe
Creative Europe Desk Czech Republic –
MEDIA
FAMU/MIDPOINT: Central European
Script Center
Industry Zone Partners:
State Cinematography Fund
Premier Wines & Spirits
Base Gang
Co-Organizers of Emerging Producers:
Creative Europe Desks – MEDIA in the
Czech Republic and Latvia, Danish Film
Institute, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation,
The Romanian Cultural Institute
Co-organizer of the Industry Section:
Institute of the Documentary Film
Partner Project:
Doc Alliance Films
General Media Partner:
Czech Television
Main Media Partners:
Czech Radio
Lidové noviny
Respekt
Official Festival Car:
Hyundai AC ROZKOŠ
Official Shipping Partner:
TNT
Security Service Provider:
Top Security, subsidiary Nokika
Partner:
Automotive Lighting
Regional Partners:
Ammeraal Beltech
Chesterton
Dafe Plast
Gold Crystal
Javab
Kronospan
MG – REAL
Mokov
PSJ
Sberbank
Sepos
YASHICA, reklamní agentura
Official suppliers:
Abuco ICT
Ackee
AZ Translations
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elektro-bicykl.cz
Eventival
Exit112
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Jabba design
Krahulík – Masozávod Krahulčí
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Rodinný pivovar Bernard
Tonera
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Media Partners:
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Art & Antique
Cinema
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Host
Iluminace
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Plakát s.r.o.
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Main Internet Partner:
csfd.cz
Regional Media Partners:
Jihlavské listy
Jihlavský deník
Hitradio Vysočina
SNIP & CO
Foreign Media Partners:
Cineuropa
Film New Europe
Kinečko
kinema.sk
Kino Ikon
Media Co-operation:
25 fps
7.G
ArtMap.cz
Dějiny a současnost
festivalguide.cz
H_aluze
Jihlavský expres
jihlava-city.cz
kult.
kulturissimo
protisedi.cz
Rozrazil
Tvar
UNI
Cooperation:
Film and TV School of Academy of
Performing Arts in Prague
Fara Rančířov
Třešť City
AMU Press / Publishing House
The National Film Archive in Prague
Regional Gallery of the Vysočina region
Tomáš Zdechovský – Member of the
European Parliament
College of Polytechnics Jihlava