Jihlava Festival Announces its Programme
The day after DOKLeipzig (below), the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival (IDFF) announces its programme schedule, October 23-28. The newsletter from the Czech festival does also, as DOKLeipzig, focus on statistics in its first paragraph. After headline ”57 world, international or European premieres at this year’s Jihlava IDFF”, it goes like this ” This year, the traditional competition sections will offer a unique blend of auteur documentaries, most of which as world, international or European premieres. In the competition of world documentaries Opus Bonum the IDFF Jihlava will present 5 world premieres, 5 international premieres and 1 European premiere. In Between the Seas, the competition of Central and East European documentary film, there will be 4 world premieres, 2 international and 2 European premieres. The Czech Joy competition will present 10 world premieres.”
All right, let’s go to content, the films, where I can only salute that there are films from Guinea-Bissau, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Philippines, Japan and – I know I am repeating myself – “Euromaidan. Rough Cut” from Ukraine.
I will be in Jihlava 3 full days and apart from taking part in a couple of industry activities, I am looking forward to watch films and why not dig into the section “Czech Joy”, where there are films by Veronika Liskova, Miroslav Janek (photo) and Jan Gogola. I am a big admirer of Janek, whose films on Vaclav Havel and on Olga Havlova have been praised on filmkommentaren.
I have been to Jihlava several times, mostly for the workshop of Ex Oriente, but also for the festival, once in the jury, and a compliment to the film selection: it is always surprising and out-of-mainstream festival profiles.