Nick Cunningham

Eight industry awards were presented 31 October to the most promising projects participating in the Ji.hlava New Visions Forum 2024. In total, thirty projects from Europe, United States and East & Southeast Asia in development, production and post-production were presented. The winners received cash and in-kind awards in accordance with the partners of Ji.hlava IDFF.

The Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival and Czech entrepreneur Jan Barta have joined forces to support outstanding auteur filmmaking from Central and Eastern Europe with the launch of the Ji.hlava/JB Films support scheme. Three recipients of support totalling €110,000 were announced October 30 during the Industry Days of the 28th Ji.hlava IDFF.

In Natalia Pietsch and Grzegorz Piekarski’s feature project, a Kurdish shepherdess and an Arab barber face the consequences of a decision to flood their historic town of Hasankeyf (Kurdistan) after the construction of a massive dam. “This project is vital because it reveals the hidden impact of geopolitical control on human lives and culture,” Polish producer Katarzyna Kostecka tells BDE. “International audiences will connect with its universal themes of cultural loss, human resilience, and the consequences of state-driven displacement.”

In Ketevan Vashagashvili’s debut feature doc project, set for delivery in early 2025, a homeless Georgian woman becomes a surrogate mother in a desperate attempt to secure a brighter future for her daughter. What starts as a quick way to earn money transforms into an emotional and physical sacrifice, testing the limits of a mother’s love. “The impact campaign will aim to bring attention to the urgent need for stronger regulations in the surrogacy industry, both in Georgia and in the countries where intended parents come from,” producer Sylvia Nagel tells BDE.

Estonian director and German co-producer Dirk Manthey pitched their feature doc work-in-progress about the child of an eco-activist who, ten years after director Lillak first encountered her, is now struggling to cope with the intensity of her upbringing. “I think it is a timely project because it gives voice to the generation that is dealing with an enormous baggage. Baggage of climate anxiety, guilt and rage,” she tells BDE.

Anja Reiss and Jann Anderegg’s Traces of Responsibility offers a multi-perspective exploration of the origins and aftermath of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda. In the interactive film, the audience is taken on a journey through modern-day Rwanda but can, at strategic points, choose from the film’s numerous editorial lines, whether they be first-hand testimony, modern-day analyses of events, the trial of a war criminal, or expressions of hope for the future by Rwandan youth.

Maja Classen’s feature documentary world-premiering in Leipzig, may be highly explicit in its depiction of ‘sex positivity,’ but love, care and consent are at the heart of all the encounters we observe. “My purpose is to build a bridge with this film and to reach a wider audience, people who might be scared and have prejudices against queers and promiscuity,” the director tells BDE. “I want to gently take them by the hand and show them, that there is nothing to be afraid of. It’s all human.”

Following on from their multi award-winning When Spring Came to Bucha (2022), Mila Teshaieva and Marcus Lenz return to the liberated Ukrainian city to follow a set of characters dealing with personal and ethical dilemmas in the years after the full-scale invasion. “A sense of injustice on various levels is spreading inside the nation. What future will these people have, what future will this society get?” Lenz ponders to BDE.

The award for Best Short Film went to the Indian Only If the Baby Cries…by Shadab Farooq. The prize for the best documentary book was awarded to the anthology If I Am to Die, Let it Be a Story, about several Palestinian women living in the Czech Republic or Czech with Palestinian roots. The Respekt magazine award was given to Darja Stomatová and Ján Schrürger from Czech Television for their Ukrainian reportage for Czech TV, while the APA Award went to Slovakian Zuzana Mistríková.

Narrated by German Oscar nominee Sandra Hüller, Alina Cyranek’s feature doc (part-dance, part-animation, part-interview) tells a story of domestic violence and a woman’s attempts to break free from a damaging relationship. It also presents a critique of “a political and social system that prefers to look the other way,” says producer/director Alina Cyranek. The project won the D-Facto Motion Works-in-Progress Prize, providing post-production services valued at €10,000.