The audience of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival can look forward to the premieres of multiple Slovak films and the launch of a book about Viera Čákanyová. The 29th edition of the Jihlava festival takes place from October 24 to November 2, 2025.
Barbora Chalupová’s Virtual Girlfriends will be screened at the festival’s opening gala in world premiere. The Czech-Slovak-Bulgarian documentary follows three women who seek wealth, freedom, and quick fame on the OnlyFans platform. Chalupová follows up on her well-known film Caught in the Net (co-directed by Vít Klusák) and once again explores digital worlds and their impact, especially on young women. The film’s Slovak co-producers are Monika Lošťáková, Simona Hrušovská, and Veronika Zúbek Kocourková from Super film.
Virtual Girlfriends is competing for awards in the main competition section Opus Bonum – similar to Diana Fabiánová’s Open (pictured), shown in international premiere. The film is a deep, personal probe into partner relationships, which addresses, among others, the topics of infidelity and monogamy. Open was produced by Silvia Panáková from Dayhey. Diana Fabiánová’s previous film, The Moon Inside You, which dealt with menstruation in a broader socio-historical context, was a great international success, having been screened at many festivals, including Locarno and IDFA.
The Czech Joy competition section will feature the Czech-Slovak essay AMOOSED: a moose odyssey by Hana Nováková about the relationship between human and moose. The Slovak co-producer of the film is Peter Kerekes. The section also includes Bardo by Viera Čákanyová, which visualizes the experience of being in darkness; the critical documentary Voice of the Forest by Zuzana Piussi, which explores our relationship to the forest and the timber industry; the collective portrait of contemporary reality Chronicle by Martin Kollar; and the documentary road movie Change My Mind by Robin Kvapil, which reflects on conspiracies related to the war in Ukraine.
Two short films will also be presented in their world premieres. The documentary poem Seablindness, directed by Tereza Smetananová and produced by Tereza Tokárová, which follows the lives of people and animals near ports, is included in the Short Joy competition. The Film and Television Faculty of the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava and CinePunkt co-production, Seablindness has a shared world premiere in Jihlava and at Doclisboa. The experimental film in the Fascinations competition, Branching Light and Flickers of a Dawn by visual artist Paula Malinowska, explores the mysterious synchronized flashing of fireflies, blending scientific research with artistic interpretation through ecofiction.
Two films will be featured in the non-competitive Czech Television Documentaries: Ondřej Vavrečka’s experimental essay 1+1+1 and Miro Remo’s Better Go Mad in the Wild, the KVIFF-winning look at twins living alone in the Šumava forests.
Three upcoming projects will be presented to the professional audience: Thieves of Ashes by Lumír Košař and David Ticháček as part of the Ji.hlava New Visions Forum, and Sheepfold by Nora Štrbová and Who Cares by Ina Ivanceanu as part of the Ji.hlava New Visions Market. This year, the Slovak representative in the Emerging Producers training and networking program is Tomáš Gič.
On October 28, before the screening of the film Bardo, the book launch of Jana Dudková’s book Človek na okrAI. Postantropocén Viery Čákanyovej, published by the Slovak Film Institute in cooperation with the Institute of Theatre and Film Studies of the Center for Art Sciences of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, will take place.
Slovak professionals are also represented on the juries that will evaluate the competition films. Director and screenwriter Mira Fornay is a member of the First Lights jury, cinematographer Simona Weisslechner will judge the documentaries in the Czech Joy section, and Masaryk University student Jonáš Boroš will sit on the university student jury of Opus Bonum.
More information at: www.ji-hlava.com
