The 24th Ji.hlava IDFF will open October 27 with A New Shift by Jindřich Andrš, which is a follow-up to The Last Shift of Thomas Hisem, which screened at Ji.hlava in 2018. The film will then continue to Dok Leipzig where it will be screened as part of the festival’s new Audience Award Competition programme.
In A New Shift, after the 2017 closure of the Paskov mine, the tradition of coal mining in the Ostrava-Karviná district is becoming a thing of the past. The New Shift retraining program takes released miner Tomáš from the football terraces matches to a life of object-oriented programming. New opportunities lead to changes in both his personal life and career. The sensitive portrait of the journey of an ordinary man through the labyrinth of the labour market, performance-oriented companies, and crumbling agglomerations shows the flip side of the process of human transformation as social engineering of the capitalist age, in which the media simulation of retraining permeates the soul and dignity of man.
“The film was shot over the course of almost four years. We started shooting intensively in 2017, just before the closure of the Paskov coal mine. This was the initiation moment of our story: Thomas’s mine where he had worked his whole life closed down and he had to decide what to do next,” says director Andrš. “Thomas made an impression on me immediately at the programming course because he was very straightforward like a typical miner, and charismatic.”
A New Shift will be released in cinemas after the festival.
“Even though we are going online, we want to bring Ji.hlava’s unique atmosphere to our audience who will be able to join discussions with filmmakers as well as during the Inspiration Forum,” says festival director Marek Hovorka. “To keep Ji.hlava rolling, we will be streaming live from our Lighthouse studio on the Jihlava’s main square. From morning till night, we will bring information about the current events: interesting films and discussions, and the filmmakers themselves will be talking about their work.”
The live service will include both the discussion platform Inspiration Forum and the programme Ji.hlava for Kids.
Says Helena Bezděk Fraňková, director of the Czech Film Fund: “The film world found itself in an unprecedented situation. Most of the festivals were cancelled or truncated while some fully adapted to the online environment. This is also case of the 24th edition of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival and it is clear that this will require many changes and a different approach from past editions. The current and future development will show how we all are able to join forces and keep the Czech film industry alive. And not only alive but also competitive in the upcoming years.”
