Ji.hlava IDFF has announced the 15 new European documentary projects that will be presented at the 4th edition of New Visions Forum on October 30-31, held as part of the 28th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival (Oct 25 to Nov 3).
The Forum will feature projects in development as well as in production and post-production, and includes diverse genres and audiovisual formats, such as documentary features, series, hybrid, experimental, and short films.
The Ji.hlava New Visions Market features additional 32 carefully selected European projects. The U.S. and Asian projects selected for the Ji.hlava New Visions Forum 2024 will be announced soon.
Several awards will be given to the most promising projects during a ceremony that will take place on Thursday, October 31. Jury members are Anna Hoffmann, program manager at Berlinale Forum; Yuliia Kovalenko , program director at Docudays UA, and Zeshawn Ali, artist programs manager at Points North Institute, USA.
EUROPEAN PROJECTS IN DEVELOPMENT
- 368 ASL Director: Michael Jiřinec. Producer: Matěj Paclík. Production Company: Breathless Films s.r.o.. Genre: Fiction with Documentary Aspects. Country: Czech Republic. Estimated date of premiere: January 2026. Synopsis: Young parents live in a caravan in a small village on the border of Czechia and Germany. To lift the family out of poverty, the father gets involved with arms smugglers. The bleak, hypnotic microcosm of the landscape in which the action takes place is engulfed in a stupendous darkness in which lost souls move without a way out. The father decides to smuggle the weapons, despite the risk, which he eventually realizes. He’s leaving and not coming back. The mother will be left alone with two children.
- FANTASMA Director: Tomáš Klein. Producers: Tomáš Michálek, Martina Netíková. Production Company: Cinémotif Films. Genre: Experimental. Countries: Czech Republic, Slovakia. Estimated date of premiere: December 2025. Synopsis: Max takes us into a world where truth feels like the end of everything. During his Chamber REST (dark therapy), he uncovers that his deepest secrets are just fragments of a larger story, and the biggest deception is the film itself. Yet, even the end of the world doesn’t taste as bitter as Max had feared.
- GREEN IS THE FIRE’S TINT Directors: Cristina Hanes, Arya Rothe, Isabella Rinaldi. Producer: Cristina Hanes. Production Company: NoCut Film Collective. Genre: Documentary. Countries: Romania, India, Italy. Estimated date of premiere: December 2025. Synopsis: Somi, an indigenous woman, fought for the rights of India’s indigenous communities as a Naxalite Maoist rebel. After leaving the movement, she and her family settled on land with other former Naxalites. One day, they received an eviction notice: the land had gained value due to a nearby iron mine, and a presumed owner is seeking real estate investment. In addition to land speculation, mining activities are devastating the jungle surrounding the settlement. GREEN IS THE FIRE’S TINT follows Somi as she leads the fight against eviction, believing the land belongs to the indigenous community.
- HOMEFIRE Director: Neus Pagés. Producer: Laura Alvarez. Production Company: Nanouk Films. Genre: Documentary. Countries: Spain. Estimated date of premiere: March 2027. Synopsis: Hidden in the Catalan Pyrenees, the village of Airamunt was abandoned eighty years ago when a dam submerged its lands. Now, Audit (53), Furi (41), their children Mel (9) and Raïu (2), and 5,000 bees live off-grid, pursuing their eco-tourism dream. Sixteen years ago, they left the city to rebuild Airamunt and expand their apiary. Bees symbolize teamwork and resilience—values they hope to pass on to their children. But competition with an industrial beekeeper threatens their organic bees, pushing Mel to finally connect with her family’s project.
- REBELLION OF MEMORY Director: Joel Jent. Producers: Sophia Rubischung, Charlotte Uzu, Claudia Chávez Lévano. Production Company: Aaron Film / Les Films d’Ici / Amazona Producciones. Genre: Documentary. Country: Switzerland / France / Peru. Estimated date of premiere: February 2026. Synopsis: Former child soldier Carlitos wants to reunite his wartime parents, Tania and Shogún, who were enemies during the Peruvian civil war. At 11, Carlitos joined the Guerilla and met Tania, who became his surrogate mother. Later, Shogún, a lieutenant, spared his life and sent him to school, becoming his father. Carlitos fought for both sides—against the Guerillas and his mother. Now, 40 years later, Carlitos brings them together at a former battleground. Over several days, they confront their past and, slowly, find understanding.
- SEMICOLON Directors: Ella Ramon Ferrer, Gala Diaz. Producer: Anna Boneta. Production Company: Benecé Produccions S.L. Genre: Documentary. Countries: Spain. Estimated date of premiere: November 2025. Synopsis: Since Èlia experienced the suicide of a close person, she has felt alone with immensely deep pain. When discovering through her psychologist how healing writing can be, she turns a notebook into a space of care for others who need it. Ari and Salva embark on a project that leads them to face the worst moment of their lives using correspondence with a stranger as therapy. They know nothing about each other; they only have a notebook with an address where they send it. The only thing they know is what they have in common: they have both experienced the suicide of a close family member.
- THE SPACES WE INHABIT Director: Bruno Cerpa Moreno. Producer: Bruno Cerpa Moreno. Production Company: Bruno Cerpa Moreno. Genre: Documentary. Country: Italy, Spain, Peru. Estimated date of premiere: 2025. Synopsis: We will visit, in different seasons of the year and times of the day, some of the houses I have lived in, without geographical details. We will first explore the streets, then we will slowly get closer to the facades, until we will get to the interior of the houses. No one will knock on the door, no one will open it, we will simply suddenly be inside, guided by my voice-over that will narrate memories that connect me emotionally to time when I lived there. We will not see the people who live there now, but we will hear them talking about their relationship with those spaces.
- SUGARLAND Director: Julia Groszek. Producer: Alicja Gancarz. Production Company: Autograf. Genre: Documentary. Countries: Poland. Estimated date of premiere: October 2026. Synopsis: Coca-Cola is extremely important to the people of Chiapas – it is used ritually during prayers in church, it determines a person’s status, and if a local politician wants to win the people’s vote, he or she has to serve 180 cases of Coke at a rally. What’s more, local healers (curanderos) believe in the healing power of Coca-Cola. There is an epidemic of diabetes and obesity in Chiapas, while at the same time the Coca-Cola plants are depleting the groundwater, leaving residents without access to drinking water. The indigenous community is aware of the problem, but has no means of stopping ‘coca colonisation’.
EUROPEAN PROJECTS IN PRODUCTION & POST-PRODUCTION
- BOOKS ARE OUR WEAPONS Director: Maté Konkol. Producers: Maté Konkol, Balász Zachar. Genre: Hybrid Documentary.Country: Hungary. Estimated date of premiere: April 2025. Synopsis: Noémi and Péter are new members of FÉSZEK, a community of university students who are committed to studying critical social theory and also changing the world as activists. They participate in debates, reading circles, forums, choir and social life – and in the meantime realise how difficult it is to fit in, both for the first generation college student girl coming from a working class background, and the hedonistic, try-hard middle class boy. With its long takes and a stream of cultural references, our film levels form with meaning, while also depicting how the personal is political.
- DIVIA Director: Dmytro Hreshko. Producers: Polina Herman, Glib Lukianets, Richard Valk. Production Company: UP UA STUDIO / Gogol Film / Valk Productions. Genre: Documentary. Countries: Ukraine, Poland, Netherlands. Estimated date of premiere: December 2024. Synopsis: Divia documentary reveals Ukraine’s journey through unprecedented Russian aggression and its aftermath: forests reduced to ash, fields damaged by explosions, and the haunting presence of abandoned military wreckage amidst treacherous minefields. Amidst this desolation, nature stands as a silent witness, absorbing and beginning to heal from the scars of conflict. The meditative narrative without any dialogues follows deminers, body searchers, environmentalists, and animal activists who navigate the wreckage, striving to quantify the tragedy’s impact and restore Ukraine’s fragile ecosystems
- HOMEMADE MULBERRY VODKA Director: Anzhela Frangyan. Producers: Anzhela Frangyan, Stephane Jourdain, Mirjam Gelhorn. Production Company: Dokino / La Huit / Mantaray. Genre: Documentary. Country: Armenia, France, Sweden. Estimated date of premiere: 2026. Synopsis: Everytime I travelled out of the region I was afraid that soon the road would be closed. People kept asking; ‘’Why are you shooting so much?” I knew the answer to this question from the start. And the reason was the persistent feeling of the end, a premonition that soon this place, these faces, these mountains, houses, trees, everything might disappear and all of these people may never come together again. Unconsciously, I recorded long shots of the landscape, without any words or dialogues, as if I was trying to capture and preserve this world like it was in those moments.
- THE CASTLE Directors: Danny Biancardi, Virginia Nardelli, Stefano La Rosa. Producers: Giulia Campagna, Nadeje Labe. Production Company: Zalab Film / La Societe du Sensible. Genre: Hybrid Documentary. Countries: Italy, France. Estimated date of premiere: February 2025. Synopsis: Angelo, Mery and Rosy are three 11-year-olds living in Danisinni, an isolated neighborhood in Palermo. Their expeditions lead them to an abandoned kindergarten in the middle of the main square. Driven by a desire for adventure, the group decides to explore it. Amidst the rubble, they discover a safe place where they can escape the gaze of others. A secret place where they can let their imaginations run wild without feeling judged. However, this island of freedom is in danger: after fifteen years of waiting, the kindergarten will soon be renovated by the city of Palermo.
- THE FLIGHT OF THE STORK Directors: Berta Salas, Soumaya Djahdou. Producer: Matheus Mello. Production Company: Migranta Films. Genre: Documentary. Countries: Spain, Algeria. Estimated date of premiere: February 2025. Synopsis: Soumaya, a young woman of Algerian descent, explores her relationship with her mother, Malika, as she prepares for a trip to Algeria during the month of Ramadan, with her childhood friend Berta, who films the journey. What begins as a nostalgic exchange reveals family tensions and a conflict of identity. Between memories and expectations, Soumaya seeks to reconcile her path with the heritage her mother expects her to honor and what she wishes for herself. Through love and memory, the two find common ground in their relationship.
- THE VIOLENT SKIN Director: André Robert. Producers: Mario Adamson, André Robert. Production Company: Sisyfos Film. Genre: Hybrid Documentary. Country: Sweden, Costa Rica, Spain. Estimated date of premiere: January 2025. Synopsis: In “The Violent Skin,” I invoke the ghost of my father to have the conversation I could never have with him in life. I return to my family’s rustic cabin in the coastal town of Cuajiniquil, ten years after scattering his ashes in the same sea that now, due to climate change, threatens to erase our home and family history. How do I tell him about the intergenerational violence that has afflicted the men in our family with a deadly silence that killed him and led me to repress my homosexuality for so many decades? The only thing I can tell him is a story about how a few months after he passed away, my Uncle Sergio, a hunter who lives isolated in the northern mountains of Costa Rica, invited me to the untamed wilderness to hunt a jaguar.
