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What is it like to be young and female and/or queer in this day and age, when social media is part of your daily practice, defines who you are, undermines or boosts your self-confidence? Answers can be found in this atmospheric, sensitive and revealing documentary set in the world of girls on the verge of adulthood.

During the October 25 festival opening, Romanian producer Ada Solomon was handed the APA World Excellence Award. The best film in Short Joy section film, as decided upon by the online viewers of DAFilms.com, was this year named as Blue Bed by Belgian director Lize Cuveele. In 2022, Ji.hlava IDFF presents almost four hundred films, and the festival continues to October 30.

This week, the Institute of Documentary Film will hand out the Silver Eye Awards to the best feature and short documentaries from Central and Eastern Europe during the East Silver Market at the 26th Ji.hlava IDFF. The winner in each category receives prize money of €2,500 and will benefit from the year-long international festival service East Silver Caravan, worth an additional €3,500.

The 2nd session of the Ex Oriente Film workshop 'Production and Story Development' takes place during the 26th Ji.hlava IDFF, running to October 30. The team of experienced tutors, comprising doc expert Mikael Opstrup, producer/consultant Iikka Vehkalahti, director/script editor Ivana Pauerová Miloševič and director/producer Filip Remunda will help selected filmmakers to develop their feature doc projects.

The top award in the German Competition was given to Dead Birds Flying High, while the Audience Award went to Three Women. Following the week-long festival which concluded October 23, a selection of the award-winning films will be shown online throughout Germany in the DOK Stream from 24 to 30 October.

The 20th anniversary edition of Millennium Docs Against Gravity will take place May 12-21 2023 in Polish cinemas and May 23 - June 4 online. The May 2022 edition programmed 192 non-fiction films, garnering an audience of 138,000+ across in eight cities in Poland. The new deadline for submissions is January 31 2023.

Four prizes were awarded to new documentary projects participation in this year’s DOK Co-Pro Market. Additionally from the DOK Preview Germany showcase, the D-Facto Motion Works-in-Progress Prize was awarded, and from the DOK Short n’ Sweet selection the Square Eyes Festival Consultation Awarded was handed out.

Would you send a digital version of yourself out onto the worldwide web? Not just any old avatar, but a precise copy of you, looking, speaking, laughing and moving exactly as you do. In Uncanny Me it is 26-year-old Lale who finds herself in this predicament. A calm, understated, highly personal yet thoroughly thought-provoking documentary about a dilemma created by the highly technical world we live in.

Ukrainian Oksana Moiseniuk’s film captures the outbreak of the Russian aggression, as seen through the eyes of Ukrainians in the Czech Republic. Ji.hlava will highlight the lifetime contribution of Slovak director Dušan Hanák. The fest will also feature masterclasses by Azerbaijani director Hilal Baydarov and Canadian documentary filmmaker Jennifer Baichwal.

The Amsterdam docfest, running 9-20 November, will open with Dutch/Iranian Niki Padidar’s All You See. The complete programme comprises 277 titles. “The diversity of artistic forms is astonishing, and there are no boundaries when it comes to tackling the biggest powers or inventing new grammar,” commented IDFA Artistic Director Orwa Nyrabia during the October 20 announcement.