Czech Center New York is proud to present its 6th edition of Echoes of Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival (IDFF). From March 6-9, 2023, four outstanding films, presented during the 26th edition of the festival in October 2022, will be shown in in-person screening. All films will have its US premiere.
Echoes of 26th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival
Day 1: Monday, March 6, 2023, 6:30 pm
7:15 - Blackbird. Deserters. | Introduced by Josh Siegel, the film curator of the Museum of Modern Arts (MoMA)
Day 2: Tuesday, March 7, 2023, 7 pm
Those Who Dance in the Dark | Curated and introduced by Jenny Miller, Co-artistic director at UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art
Day 3: Thursday, March 9, 2023, 7 pm
Kunstkamera | Curated and introduced by Dale Dobson, Executive Director, Maysles Documentary Center
7:15 - Blackbird
Director: Judith Auffray, France, 2022, 30 min.
In French with English subtitles
Original title: 7h15 - merle noir
Ji.hlava Opus Bonum Award 2022
The documentary’s brief synopsis sounds like an unconventional fairy tale – an old hermit and a young girl who can communicate with birds hear the singing of an unknown bird one day and set off into the forest and an abandoned mine to find it. Although the story involves modern recording equipment and microphones, this doesn’t detract from its fairy-tale poeticism. With birdsong at its centre, the film encourages concentrated listening, while at the same time leading us to reflect on the fact that even a sound as ordinary as birdsong has something mysterious about it.
More at: https://www.ji-hlava.com/filmy/07-15-kos
Deserters
Director: Damir Markovina. Croatia, 2022, 44 min.
With English subtitles
Original title: Dezerteri
Best Central and East European Documentary Film
“I had many friends before the war; many of them are dead now”, one of the narrators comments, looking at a photo of her classmates. “We had a perfect life, but we were never satisfied,” she adds laconically. The secondary school in Mostar united them, the War of Independence divided them. This mosaic of memories of the early 1990s is composed of contemporary postcards and silent shots of places where wars were once fought. Their calmness today contrasts with the emotional excerpts from the letters of the Croatian students. They describe their flight across the border, their experiences in refugee camps, and their lingering hatred of the enemies who robbed them of their home and youth.
More at: https://www.ji-hlava.com/filmy/dezerteri
Those Who Dance in the Dark
Director: Jana Ševčíková. Czech Republic, 2022, 77 min.
In Czech with English subtitles
Original title: Ti, kteří tancují ve tmě “Try to describe what it's like to see,” one of the blind actors in Jana Ševčíková's documentary urges the film crew. The same challenge for him is to express how reality is perceived and experienced by a visually impaired person. Ševčíková therefore does not explain the blindness. Using everyday situations as examples, she empathetically and without pathos presents the stories of six people who never stop dreaming, yearning, and searching for ways to be as free in life as the sighted majority. They find sources of energy in work, sports, dance, and relationships. We are also transported into their world by the dimly lit black and white camera and the layered soundtrack.
More at: https://www.ji-hlava.com/filmy/ti-kteri-tancuji-ve-tme
Kunstkamera
Director: Jan Švankmajer. Czech Republic, 2022, 113 min.
No dialogue
Original title: Kunstkamera
According to Jan Švankmajer, museum exhibits are ordered rationally, while the Kunstcamera is an irrational showcase. This holds true also for this film with which the leading Czech surrealist personality decides to finish his cinema career and his close cooperation with the producer Jaromír Kallista. Very playfully, he approaches works of art, curiosities and everyday objects that he and his wife Eva had assembled over many decades inside a former Renaissance granary in the Bohemian village of Horní Staňkov. These immobile objects come to life thanks to Švankmajer’s traditional methods of composition and Antonio Vivaldi’s music. Dalí, Štýrský, Toyen, dog’s food bowl and the creaking floor all create an organic whole, stirring imagination and creative passion.
More at: https://www.ji-hlava.com/filmy/kunstkamera
The Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival is the largest festival of creative documentary film in Central and Eastern Europe. The festival follows the essential tendencies in world documentary film, with a focus on creative cinema.
More about the festival: https://www.ji-hlava.com/filmy
