A new educational, networking and inspiring platform open to talents representing various elements in contemporary non-fiction cinema will be launched at the 21st Ji.hlava IDFF. Over the course of four days, Ji.hlava Academy will offer a creative lab for those who are observing and broadening the limits of visual style, authorial approach, and audience perception. The head tutors will be Luciano Barisone (IT), Fred Kelemen (HU) and Anja Salomonowitz (AT). The pilot project is free of charge and the deadline for applications is September 25. More information available here.

Icelandic composer, musician, experimental filmmaker and award-winning author of music to Sicario and Arrival, Jóhann Jóhannsson is the author of this year’s Ji.hlava IDFF’s festival spot. You may check the spot along with Jóhannsson's full commentary on his remarkable video here. Jóhann Jóhannsson will also appear at this year’s Ji.hlava IDFF in other roles: as a lecturer on film music, as a filmmaker presenting his documentary End of Summer, and a composer accompanying the screening with live music.

This year, the Ji.hlava IDFF will host the renowned Oscar-winning documentarian Marcel Ophuls. The festival will showcase his acclaimed films The Sorrow and Pity and Hôtel Terminus, as well as a lesser-known documentary focusing on the Munich Treaty, Munich or Peace in our Time. Marcel Ophuls will accept the Contribution to World Cinema Award at the festival's closing ceremony on October 28, three days before his 90th birthday.

The 7th edition of the EAST DOC PLATFORM (March 3 – 9, 2018, Prague, CZ), the meeting place for the international documentary industry in the CEE region, invites filmmakers and producers of documentary projects in any stage of development. For the first time, submissions of documentary series and shorts are welcome, too. Deadline: November 10, 2017. The event is organised by the Institute of Documentary Film. More information at dokweb.net.

Watch a selection of Czech documentaries at DAFilms.com, including DoomedBeauty by Helena Třeštíková and the winner of the audience award at Ji.hlava 2016, Love Me If You Can, about sexual assistance. Our selection also includes portraits of remarkable personalities (Little Brother Karel) and films with provocative themes (Ji.hlava's 2016 opening film Helena’s Law). Get ready for the fall festival season and watch Czech documentaries that you haven’t seen yet!