Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival (Oct 23 – 28, 2014) traditionally opens the documentary Autumn festival season. In its 18th edition, Slovak films are presented both in the competition program and side-bar sections. In addition, the festival´s Industry platform hosts several events with Slovak participation.
Official Programme:
Two Slovak documentaries are included in the Between the Seas Competition, focused on countries and nations of Central and Eastern Europe:
Zuzana Piussi premieres her latest film Transference (2014), in which she sketches a dark picture of the state social care system for threatened children in Slovakia.
Vladislava Plančíková comes to Jihlava with her debut Felvidék. Caught in Between (2014), in which by means of a personal collage of Slovak-Hungarian family stories she contemplates the issue of Slovak-Hungarian relations. The film is shown in Jihlava shortly after its international premiere and award at Budapest International Documentary Festival. It also competes in Ji.hlava’s First Lights competition.
Czech Joy, presenting the best of Czech documentaries in a competition, features an omnibus documentary project Gottland (2014) inspired by Mariusz Szczygieł´s stories, in which he describes the Czech Republic, as a country of horror, sadness, and grotesque that not even Kafka could have dreamt up. Slovak documentarist Viera Čákanyová is among five directors of this Czech-Polish-Slovak coproduction.
Special short film from the Slovak film archives The Machine Song (1948) by Vojtech Andreánsky, showing the transformation of Slovakia from an agrarian into an industrial country back in its times, is presented in the section Fascination: Factory.
Industry
Jihlava’s Industry programme features several sections with Slovak participation. A selection of recent Slovak documentaries is included in the East Silver Market library, with four nominations for the Silver Eye Award: Homo Video. The Watching Human (2013) by Katarína Hlinčíková and Peter Kerekes’s Second Chance (2014) compete in the category Short, among competing Features, Slovak films are represented by Jaro Vojtek´s latest documentary So Far, So Near (2014) and the Czech Joy-competition title Gottland (2014).
Within Visegrad Accelerator platform, dedicated to film professionals from Visegrad countries within the Jihlava Industry programme and aiming to discover and support new talents from Central Europe, Slovakia will have its presence, too.
Michael Kaboš, producer at Media Film, is the Slovak Emerging Producer in the third edition of the initiative. M. Kaboš is currently working as both a cinematographer and producer, active in Slovakia and the Czech Republic; his recently produced documentary All My Children (2013) by Ladislav Kaboš is one the most successful documentaries in Slovakia.
Currently, his latest film Ghosts (2014) by Bibiana Beňová, co-directed by M. Kaboš is in postproduction.
During Visegrad Accelerator Presentation: Interconnecting Film Professionals from Visegrad Countries with a Focus on National Film Awards, the Slovak national film award The Sun in a Net, awarded by the Slovak Film and Television Academy (SFTA), will be presented by Alexandra Strelková (director of the National Cinematographic Centre of the Slovak Film Institute and a member of the SFTA.
Last but not least, Peter Kerekes, Slovak documentary director and producer, will hold a masterclass within the second session of the Ex Oriente with the topic My Approach to Protagonists.
More information at: www.dokument-festival.com
