2024-08-22 00:50:27
This year, the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival will offer a retrospective of directors Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda and their production company Hypermarket Film. It will also screen the documentary Český sen, which premiered 20 years ago. The organizers call it groundbreaking.
They included the retrospective of filmmakers Klusák and Remunda because they want to introduce the Czech Dream to the young generation. The festival will premiere the remastered version of the film. It will then return to cinemas.
The Czech Dream tells about a hypermarket that did not exist, but for the opening of which on May 31, 2003, more than 3,000 eager people came to the parking lot in Prague’s Letňany. They were lured by an extensive advertising campaign promising lots of cheap goods. Half mystifying film, half sociological experiment, it was created with the aim of illustrating the power of the media and the influence of advertising on people. In his time, he aroused favorable and negative reactions.
Documentarians Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda in a photo from 2013. | Photo: Martin Svozílek
“The authorial approach of Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda changed our perception of documentary film. With their interventions into reality, work with absurdity and their desire to reflect the most current social issues in a substantial way, they drew the attention of viewers and the media to documentary cinema,” says Jihlava festival director Marek Hovorka, according to whom Czech Dream “rightfully belongs to the most important Czech documentary films ever”.
The originally six-day event will be extended to ten days from this year’s 28th edition. It starts on October 25th, runs until November 3rd, and will then be online for 14 days. Hovorka promises greater comfort for visitors. Also thanks to the fact that the space will repeat the images more often in order to reach more interested parties.
The background of the event will be in the Silver House, where the Jihlava Documentary Film Center is located. The reason is the reconstruction of the buildings of the Vysočina Regional Gallery, which the festival usually uses.
Jihlava festival director Marek Hovorka with this year’s poster. | Photo: Radek Lavička
The longer duration of the event will also make it possible to expand the Inspirational Forum, which is a regular part of the show. This year, free time, war, immunity and the climate crisis will be discussed here, which will be discussed by the British philosopher Timothy Morton from Rice University in the USA. Other guests will be the Canadian writer Nick Srnicek from London’s King’s College and the feminist theorist Helen Hester from the University of West London, who recently published a book in Czech.
The Inspirational Forum will also present a new program called Inspirational Meetings, where people will be able to bring their own topics.
The festival poster was once again created by book graphic artist and illustrator Juraj Horváth. “The manuscript that he imprints on the Jihlava poster and festival every year is unrepeatable, and we are happy with how the audience reacts to his ideas,” praises director Marek Hovorka.
The poster is dominated by blue and beige shades, and mainly island motifs. It was the scene of many literary and film works and, according to Hovorka, it can be interpreted in many ways. “Whether it’s a place of discovery, a place of getting lost, a place of isolation and a place of some kind of adventure. It’s an exaggeration to say that the films at the festival are islands that the audience can discover during the festival and travel like sailors, like travelers from one to the other.” compares Hovorka.
Last year, the Jihlava festival offered 357 films. They were seen by 90,000 viewers in cinemas or online. About 5,300 accreditations were sold. The best Czech documentary was Světloplachost, filmed in a metro station in Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Video: Trailer from the film Czech Dream
Because of the film Český sen in 2003, more than 3,000 people came to the opening of a non-existent hypermarket in Prague’s Letňany. | Video: Hypermarket Film