17th Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival

October 24 - 29, 2013

The Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival is a celebration of creative documentary film and the greatest event of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe. We conceive documentary films primarily as unique artworks dealing with significant themes.

To us, the festival represents an artifact inspiring a playful reflection of the world from various perspectives. We do not follow common festival models, nor do we have a routine, pragmatic approach to program selection. Jihlava pays tribute to courage and risk.

Guests

The following guests have held discussions with Jihlava visitors in the course of the past years: writers Tariq Ali, Carlos A. Aguilera, Natalya Gorbanevskaya or Nobel prize laureate Gao Xingjian, directors Mads Brügger, Ray Sandeep, Basilio Martín Patino, Victor Kossakovsky, Jørgen Leth, Sergei Loznitsa, Naomi Kawase, Manoel de Oliveira, Frederic Wiseman, Ulrich Seidl, Woody Vasulka, Želimir Žilnik, Richard Leacock, Mike Hoolboom, Jean-Pierre Goran, Herz Frank, Khavn de La Cruz or Fernando Solanas. Among film theorists, let us name P. Adams Sitney, Bill Nichols, Guy Gauthier and Francois Jost.

Dutch film historian Thomas Elsaesser specializing in film festivals characterized Jihlava as “one of the most original festivals I have ever attended“ and Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira declared it a “Mecca of documentary film”.

Program

The festival program is based on four competitions: Opus Bonum awarding world documentaries of innovative themes and film language, Between the Seas presenting remarkable films from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Czech Joy surveying the newest Czech filmmaking, and Fascinations focusing on a distinctive form of documentary film; experimental documentary. Further program sections introduce the current events at the Czech as well as international documentary scene. Translucent Beings are the retrospective profiles of remarkable filmmakers.

Industry Programme

Jihlava IDFF also organizes the Industry Programme during the festival. In 2012 the Emerging Producers project for connecting talented european producers with film professionals had an succesfull premiere. The second edition of the Inspiration Forum was again an unique meeting of selected directors from around the world and significant personalities from outside the film community, with each other and with a festival audience. For the third time the workshop for representatives of film festivals Festival Identity was held accompanied by the Festival Poster Competition. Part of the Industry programme were also the Distribution Forum, a presentation of selected upcoming films to distributors and sales representatives.

Year-Round Activities

In cooperation with Karlovy Vary IFF, Jihlava IDFF also organizes the Docu Talents from the East panel, co-organized with the Institute of Documentary Film (IDF) until 2009. The panel introduces upcoming documentary films from Eastern Europe.

Our further activities include publishing professional literature and the Dok.revue critical supplement and on-line revue as well as initiating further cultural, social and educational activities.

Other Projects

• In 2004, we founded and co-organized the East Silver market in cooperation with IDF.
• From 2005 to 2009, Jihlava IDFF co-organized the Panel of Upcoming Czech Documentary Films.
• From 2007 on, Jihlava IDFF took part in the transformation of the traditional festival of popular-scientific film Academia Film Olomouc (AFO).
• Jihlava IDFF is a co-founder of Doc Alliance, an alliance of European documentary film festivals, and has been its member since 2008.

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