Elvis Lenic’s ‘Ship,’ About Croatian Shipyard, Wins at Ji.hlava Documentary Festival

From hulks of collective ruins to immigrant family struggles, marginalized communities and climate crises, the 27th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival wrapped Saturday with honors for work from diverse perspectives on a myriad of pressing subjects.

The Opus Bonum main prize went to Elvis Lenics Croatian doc Ship, an exploration of an unintentional monument to socialist worker collectives in the form of the Uljanik shipyard, once the countrys largest. Now an industrial graveyard, the vast port facility is closing down after 160 years, a moment Lenic filmed with powerful imagery in a story that reminds viewers of the fates of those who built the now ghostly cargo vessels and their docks.

The Ji.hlava audience prize went to Czech doc Is There Any Place for Me, Please? Jarmila Stukovas powerful portrait of a woman who survived an acid attack by an ex-boyfriend, which connected with viewers in a way that set it apart from the more than 350 other films at the fest this year.

The fests activist reputation shone through at the ceremony, with a top Czech chef cooking locally sourced soup for all guests while prizes, honorees and cameras shuffled around him. Meanwhile, the closing gala took on humanitys growing anxiety about AI, using the platform to generate bizarre images to project behind honorees and playing artificially generated music over clips of festival sections.

Among other major filmmaker figures visiting Ji.hlava this year, Hungarian art film icon Bela Tarr was honored for his contribution to world cinema.

After joking that filmmakers are people who shoot on freezing mornings with hungover actors and you never believe somebodys watching this shit, the Berlinale-winning director of Turin Horse offered up a more sincere explanation for why directors do what they do: You are transformed yourself and you have a feeling you have to share with others.

The sections Central and Eastern European doc prize went to Polish entry Distances by Matej Bobrik, an intimate portrait of an immigrant Nepalese family who have discovered life in Europe is no guarantee of security and success. Slovak entry The Third End of the Stick by Jaro Vojtek likewise explores with stark footage a community facing economic hardship and a form of double social isolation, gay Roma, and won the Visegrad region prize.

The Czech/Slovak tribute to the remarkable artist Jan Mancuska, You Will Never See It All by Stepan Pech, won the best debut prize for its depiction of the sensational and innovative artist who died at 39 in 2011.

Argentine doc East Wind by Maia Gattas Vargas won honors for original approach with its lyrical imagery and another form of memorial in a quest by a woman to the West Bank in search of understanding about her long gone father.

Another visually expressive Czech doc, La Reine by Nikola Klinger, won the Opus Bonum student jury prize with its chronicle of a 73-year-old nonconformist now facing his fate with his usual unconventional approach.

In the fests Czech Joy section, Slovak/Czech/Ukrainian co-production Photophobia by Ivan Ostrochovsky and Pavol Pekarcik moved jurors to award the top prize for its exploration of students forced by Russias war on Ukraine to attend schools held in underground metro stations in Kharkiv. Jurors credited the film for establishing the unbreakable will of the Ukrainian people.

Special mention went to Czech doc My Paradise Is Darker Than Your Hell, an account of the daily lives of those close to an artist who ended his life, by Katerina Dudova, while the editing and sound design prizes went to Satan Among Us, a meta-film by Martin Jezek that deconstructs the Czech biographical film Arved.

The Czech Joy cinematography prize went to Bedwetter, an exploration of a crisis of masculinity, filmed by Patrik Balonek with fluid and fresh imagery and directed by Jan Husek.

The sci-fi philosophical essay Notes from Eremocene, a Czech/Slovak doc by Viera Cakanyova won honors for original approach, while the student Czech Joy jury awarded The World According to My Dad, an affectionate portrait of a scientist by his daughter, Marta Kovarova, as he tries in vain to interest leaders in a plan to combat global greenhouse gases.

The Ji.hlava Testimonies section, focused on films exploring global issues and crises, was won by French/Greek doc Mighty Afrin: In the Time of Floods by Angelos Rallis, an exceptionally lush and poetic account of a young girls quest as she faces deadly rising tides on the Brahmaputra River.

The experimental film section Fascinations honored Japanese doc Silhouette, a film adapted from LIDAR computer scans by Yoshiki Nishimura, while the Exprmntl.cz prize went to The Commodity Catalogue, an essay on the valuing of images by Zbynek Baladran.

27th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival winners

Opus Bonum

Ship

Croatia

Director: Elvis Lenic

Central and Eastern European documentary

Distances

Poland

Director: Matej Bobrik

Film from the Visegrad region

The Third End of the Stick

Slovakia

Director: Jaro Vojtek

Debut

You Will Never See It All

Czech Republic/Slovakia

Director: Stepan Pech

Original approach

East Wind

Argentina

Director: Maia Gattas Vargas

Student jury

La Reine

Czech Republic

Director: Nikola Klinger

Czech Joy

Photophobia

Slovakia/Czech Republic/Ukraine

Directors: Ivan Ostrochovsky, Pavol Pekarcik

Special mention

My Paradise Is Darker Than Your Hell

Czech Republic

Director: Katerina Dudova

Editing

Satan Among Us

Czech Republic

Director: Martin Jezek

Sound design

Satan Among Us

Cinematography

Bedwetter

Czech Republic

Director: Jan Husek

Cinematographer: Patrik Balonek

Original approach

Notes from Eremocene

Slovakia/Czech Republic

Viera Cakanyova

Student jury award

The World According to My Dad

Czech Republic/Slovakia

Marta Kovarova

Audience Prize

Is There Any Place for Me, Please?

Czech Repubilc

Director: Jarmila Stukova

Contribution to World Cinema

Bela Tarr

Testimonies

MIGHTY AFRIN: In the Time of Floods

France/Greece

Director: Angelos Rallis

Special mentions

One Of The Thousand Hills

Belgium

Director: Bernard Bellefroid

Not That Kind of Guy

Norway

Director: Signe Rosenlund-Hauglid

Fascinations

Silhouette

Japan

Director: Yoshiki Nishimura

Special mentions

BLUE

Cuba/Belgium

Director: Violena Ampudia

Dinosauria, We

Canada

Director: Maxime-Claude LEcuyer

Exprmntl.cz

The Commodity Catalogue

Czech Republic

Director: Zbynek Baladran

Special mentions

But Not for Ever

Czech Republic/Portugal/Sao Tome and Principe

Directors: Anezka Horova, Klara Trskova

One Sol in the Life of Curiosity

Czech Republic

Director: Vit Ruzicka