Known as one of the largest documentary film festivals in Central and Eastern Europe, Ji.hlava IDFF in the Czech Republic is set to take place online this year, running from 27 October to 8 November. We are lucky enough to host the festival on our platform, bringing you a diverse program of select films from the competition sections, experimental section, and special thematic strands.

Every year, the festival presents a wide range of creative documentaries from across the world. This year whilst in a sort of imposed digital asylum, the festival aims still to provoke discussion on today's crucial subjects. One of the main themes to run through the festival’s sections this year is “Home”; that is, at a time when the festival itself was forced to leave its hometown of Jihlava in the Czech Republic due to the pandemic, this topic became all the more important. What does home mean to us? What does it feel like to return? What causes alienation from one's home? This is only the beginning of what you can expect from this year’s festival program.

During our 13-day roll-out of this exclusive festival line-up, you can experience two separate film selections taken from the festival program’s sections. The first strand will run here from 27 October to 1 November and then the second from 2 to 8 November, also on this page.

Festival sections:

Opus Bonum
A competition section for the documentary films from all around the world.

First Lights
A competition section for the debut feature length documentary film from all around the world.

Between the Seas
A competition section for the countries and nations of Central and Eastern Europe, including their historical, political, and cultural interrelationships.

Short Joy
Watch Short Joy films for free in special curated program (LINK) now and decide who will win the Audience Award. Voting ends on 29 October.

Czech Joy
A competition for the best Czech documentary.

Fascinations
A section for experimental filmmaking that takes films based on reality and strips them of all that weighs them down, thus significantly expanding the possibilities of filmic expression.

Testimonies
A selection of films that capture the current state of the world from various angles.

Constellations
A selection of films, that last year shone in world documentary skies. We introduce carefully selected titles from other film festivals.

Fascinations: Garden
An experimental retrospective on the phenomenon of gardens. The garden is one of the popular motives, metaphors and visual inspirations in the film avant-garde.