Ji.hlava New Visions Forum: Europe 2023

600 RAIDS

ARTIFACTS OF WAR

MINDSCAPES

ONE INCH EASTWARD

THE FERRYMAN

WOMEN WALK HOME

YOU NEVER JUST WALK AWAY

GODSTERMINAL

IF PIGEONS TURNED GOLD

LOST PARADISE

MARATHON

RIDING WITH GHOSTS

SOCIETY

STILL NIA

600 RAIDS
Director: Kristina Leidenfrostova
Producers: Jürgen Karasek, Alice Karasek, Matej Sotník
Genre: Documentary
Countries: Austria, Slovakia
Runtime: 80’
Estimated date of premiere: October 2025

Synopsis: Slovak Roma, who represent the largest ethnic minority in Slovakia, are most affected by social
exclusion and escalating racism. The trauma resulting from police raids, which even years after these brutal events, still shapes their present lives. As do the nightmares and images of the violence they suffered. 600 Raids enters the life of three protagonists showing their desperate longing for a better life. But is such a dream possible in a place where the perpetrators have not been justly punished, still wear a police uniform and enjoy unwavering authority among the white majority population?

Production Company: Soleil Film, guča films

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ARTIFACTS OF WAR
Director: Jorge Caballero
Producer: Anna Giralt Gris
Co-producer: Maria Bogliolo
Genre: Documentary
Country: Colombia, Uruguay, Spain
Runtime: 80’
Estimated date of premiere: 2025

Synopsis: Hundreds of people championing national security parade through the world's most important arms fairs: Milipol, Feinde, Shot Show... A man explains the advantages of "non-lethal" weapons. Boom! Unaware pedestrians walk on a street. The explosion forms a musical rhythm. Silence...In a clandestine workshop, a voice is heard, as hands turn a blank-firing weapon into a deadly "homemade" weapon. Behind each technology lies a political and social reason. Artifacts of War is a film essay that examines the market of "non-lethal" weapons, revealing the reasons that justify their use.

Production Company: Gusano Films- Artefacto Films

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MINDSCAPES
Director: Lina Zacher
Producer: Delphine Bishop
Genre: Documentary
Country: Germany
Runtime: 30’
Estimated date of premiere: January 2025

Synopsis: What does a feeling look like, what does it sound like? Mindscapes is about the multifaceted emotional worlds of people with mental illness. Feelings such as panic, emptiness, despair, mania, euphoria, tension, and sorrow are explored, as four protagonists with diverse diagnoses share their experiences. On the basis of the images and sounds associated with the feelings of those affected, a sound designer and a motion designer create a sonic and visual level immersing the viewer deeply in the inner worlds of the protagonists and bringing them vividly closer to what is difficult to explain.

Production Company: Pylon Studio UG / Delphine Bishop

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ONE INCH EASTWARD
Directors: Brendan Culleton, Irina Maldea
Producer: Brendan Culleton
Co-producer: Ralitsa Golemanova
Genre: Documentary
Countries: Romania, Bulgaria, Ireland
Runtime: 90’
Estimated date of premiere: May 2025

Synopsis: The story takes us from the first meeting of George H Bush and Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, still part of the USSR, to Yeltsin’s close relationship with Bill Clinton, and his final humiliation and resignation on December 31st 1999, to be replaced by Vladimir Putin. At the same time, war in Europe, once thought impossible, was back with a vengeance. For over half of the decade the continent was the scene of brutal conflict and genocide, from Croatia to Chechnya, Bosnia to Kosovo, Belgrade to Tbilisi.

Production Company: akajavafilms

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THE FERRYMAN
Director: Pavlo Dorohoi
Producer: Olha Symonenko
Genre: Documentary
Country: Ukraine
Runtime: 90’
Estimated date of premiere: December 2025

Synopsis: Danylo Bakhmutskiy lives in the riverside town of Staryi Saltiv, Northeast Ukraine. He was running an improvised ferry service when filming began, shuttling people and goods across the Siverskiy Donets river. His dreams of continuing studies at a sports academy to become a competitive kayaking athlete were dashed, by the need to earn money for the survival of his family. He labours alongside adult men, responsibility resting on his fragile shoulders. This observational documentary follows Danylo after occupation, as he navigates the uncertain world of a teenage boy in a country at war.

Production Company: eidos.productions LLC

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WOMEN WALK HOME
Director: Stephanie Andreou
Producer: Adrián Gutiérrez
Genre: Documentary
Country: Cyprus
Runtime: 85’
Estimated date of premiere: December 2024

Synopsis: In 1974, after a failed coup, Turkey invaded Cyprus and occupied the northern part of the island. Displacing two hundred thousand people and killing thousands. Disillusioned by political inaction, a group of women took matters into their own hands. Thousands of women from across the world and members of the filmmaker’s family faced the occupying Turkish army in an attempt to return the refugee’s home. Marking fifty years since and using a vast historical and personal archive, the film turns back the clock to look at what we are made to forget and how memory is dictated by the state.

Production Company: CARETTA FILMS (CPN) LTD

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YOU NEVER JUST WALK AWAY
Director: Rozálie Kohoutová
Producer: Martina Knoblochová
Genre: Fiction with Documentary Aspects
Countries: Czech Republic
Runtime: 80’
Estimated date of premiere: October 2026

Synopsis: After being raped and chopped by her husband, Pavla calls a domestic violence hotline. Recognizing the emergency, they offer her and her two kids a place in a shelter which houses women from diverse backgrounds. Their ironic laughter and banter might seem out of place, but it's their way of finding strength. Pavla tells her new friends about a dream of hers, and they take it upon themselves to make it come true. But Pavla hears husband's apologies and the pull towards him grows. She's neither the first nor the last to struggle with the simple desire to keep going to her Pilates class.

Production Company: Punk Film

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GODSTERMINAL
Director: Georg Tiller
Producers: Maéva Ranaïvojaona
Genre: Fiction with Documentary Aspects
Countries: Austria, Sweden
Runtime: 90’
Estimated date of premiere: February 2024

Synopsis: A film resembling a sensitization therapy, inviting you to breathe deeply and taste the essence of stones. Light reflections guide the transition into a world of dreams and fantasy. Meet Edward Weki, a 75-year-old Sudanese man with Parkinson's disease, whose face mirrors a landscape, his graying beard reminiscent of the fur of a Gotland sheep. Bergmanesque ghosts materialize by Weki's bedside, featuring Alma, a revenant of the nurse of the same name from Ingmar Bergman's film Persona, and a female incarnation of Death from Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal), aiding him in rediscovering his lost memories.

Production Company: Subobscura Films

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IF PIGEONS TURNED GOLD
Director: Pepa Lubojacki
Producer: Wanda Kaprálová, Klára Mamojková
Co-producer: Matej Sotník
Genre: Documentary
Countries: Czech Republic, Slovakia
Runtime: 80’
Estimated date of premiere: October 2024

Synopsis: The film follows three years of lives of four family members, whose shared past has grown into a present fundamentally at odds. While Pepa, the film's author and narrator studies at university and is sober, their brother and two cousins have been unhoused for over a decade, each facing their own substance dependency. Mosaic-structured documentary navigates its way through shared trauma, codependency and the core meaning of family. It's a story of a cycle-breaking and acceptance. Story of how to let live (and die) in order to respect not only our loved ones and their journeys but life itself.

Production Company: CLAW

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LOST PARADISE
Directora: Nicola von Leffern, Jakob Carl Sauer
Producers: Arash T. Riahi, Sabine Gruber, Peter Drössler
Co-producers: Jakob Carl Sauer, Nicola von Leffern
Genre: Documentary
Country: Austria
Runtime: 96’
Estimated date of premiere: February 2024

Synopsis: Beirut's inhabitants are furious about needing to play the role of the phoenix. Clean, rebuild and move on, an all too familiar feeling. Even the big explosion of the city in 2020 did not bring about the desired change during the crisis of a century. What more needs to happen? While a Syrian refugee family living in an underground parking is plotting to pay smugglers to escape, a dancer and a painter are coping through their artistic ways and a Lebanese family is questioning their faith, after the loss of their brother. Lost Paradise is a poetic mosaic about the vacuum in life after tragedy.

Production Company: Golden Girls Film

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MARATHON
Director: Peter Kerekes
Producers: Peter Kerekes, Tereza Tokárová
Genre: Documentary
Countries: Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary
Runtime: 127’
Estimated date of premiere: December 2024

Synopsis: ​Through the history of the Marathon, held for a hundred years in Košice, a small city in central Europe, we learn stories woven across the world. Stories of people running for freedom, running to be ahead of time, running to run. The history of the town and the history of the marathon are blurring into one. From the first marathon, Košice was part of four different governments. The regime changed, but the marathon stayed. This track and blue lines on the road marking the way to the past. Behind the bend is the present which disappears in the fog of autumn morning in the memory of the runners.

Production Company: kerekesfilm

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RIDING WITH GHOSTS
Directors: Piotr Malecki, Maciej Nabrdalik
Producers: Joanna Tatko, Piotr Malecki
Genre: Documentary
Country: Poland
Runtime: 72’
Estimated date of premiere: May 2025

Synopsis: Bosnia, Chechnya, Iraq, Afghanistan. Time magazine photojournalist Christopher Morris has
witnessed many wars. He suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In a seemingly perfect American suburb where he lives, he finds symbols that trigger his memory. Only the presence of his wife and daughters saves him from madness. When he returned from the wars, he barricaded the door to his archives. He's afraid of the demons hidden there. Will he open it to confront his past?

Production Company: Short Docs Media

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SOCIETY
Director: Thomas Østbye
Producer: Ellen Ugelstad
Genre: Documentary
Countries: Norway, Indonesia
Runtime: 90’
Estimated date of premiere: August 2025

Synopsis: Society delves into the complexities of human society and the structures that shape it. Set in both Norway and Indonesia, the film artfully juxtaposes two vastly different cultures to explore themes of inclusion and oppression, isolation and safety. The film poses two thought-provoking questions: What do you truly value in society, and are willing to fight to preserve and what can you let go of, even if it causes pain. The interview subjects are chosen from different positions in society in Norway, with a parallel with similar positions in Indonesia. Same questions and observations of similar social spaces. Same idiom and logic, but wildly different starting points.

Production Company: Twentyone Pictures

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STILL NIA
Director: Paula Onet
Producers: Ada Solomon, Diana Caravia
Genre: Documentary, Hybrid
Countries: Romania, France
Runtime: 70’
Estimated date of premiere: June 2024

Synopsis: Due to a misdiagnosis, Ștefania spent most of her childhood in Romanian hospitals. 15 years later, her buried memories rise to the surface. Despite the promise of a healthy body, today she feels detached from it. She takes dance classes with a group of people, engaged in a quest for their identity through the body. Through imagination and dance she tries to rewrite her autobiographical memory and, thus, to confront her present. On the verge of the imaginary, the film speaks about the search of the self and opens a dialogue with the camera about the limits of one’s intimacy and vulnerability.

Production Company: microFILM

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