Czech Republic’s Ji.hlava Doc Fest Launches Its Mission to Explore ‘What Images Can We Trust?’

variety.com:

Will Tizard Contributor Launching an ambitious program of compelling global and Czech work, the 27th edition of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival opened on Tuesday, kicking off six days of more than 350 film screenings by veteran and new filmmakers.

Fest head and founder Marek Hovorka, who launched the event in his hometown in 1997, introduced what is now Central and Eastern Europe’s main event for docs, defining the fest mission as “a celebration of films, image, sound, gestures and diversity.” The films selected this year are “all very original,” he told the opening gala audience, and show filmmakers “perceive the world very differently.” The fest, raising its curtain in the location that remains its home, the communist-era DKO “house of culture,” as the pre-1989 regime dubbed such multi-purpose spaces, attracts for its launch hundreds of guests seated at white-decked tables, sipping local wine.

Opening night moderators embraced an ironic take on AI, claiming their notes were all algorithm-generated, prompting Hovorka to say, “Filmmaking is evolving but we don’t know how.

What is and is not authentic? What images can we trust?” The festival awarded the winner of the Short Joy section, based on audience votes, to “Kata’s Motherhood” by Indian filmmaker Santwana Bayaskar, a film that explores whether someone can become a mother without giving birth to a child.