11/09/2026 - From contested histories and ecological collapse to digital afterlives and political divisions, the selection captures a continent confronting memory, identity and an uncertain future

The Ji.hlava New Visions Forum (28-30 October), set to unspool at the 30th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival (23 October-1 November), has selected 28 projects. Hailing from Europe, East and Southeast Asia, and North America, the selection encompasses productions from countries including Belgium, Poland, Ukraine, the UK, South Korea, Japan, Montenegro, Canada and the USA. Thirteen projects comprise the Forum’s European selection, dedicated to emerging producers, original artistic approaches and diverse audiovisual formats.

Questions of history and political memory run through several of the European projects. Robo Mihály’s Czech-Slovak project A Spectre Is Haunting Europe travels from Warsaw and Normandy to Tbilisi and Lesbos, examining the distance between European ideals and the realities of exclusion. In Ali Razi’s Archiveless Memories, for an Imaginary Museum, an exploration of the Iran-Iraq War is pulled into the present as conflict returns to Iran. Yelyzaveta Myshkalenko’s If Only the Pines Could Speak combines archives and animation to revisit the Bykivnia mass graves near Kyiv and the suppression of those who attempted to expose Stalinist crimes.

Personal histories provide another route into the past. In the Spanish project House Made of Mist, Alberto Dexeus uncovers poems connected to a relative killed during the fascist bombing of Lleida, intertwining historical silence with grief and queer identity. Laura Amna Stauth and Francesca Bertin’s The House follows a woman returning to Egypt to sell her family’s plantation – a place where memories of privilege and exploited labour resurface. Exile also shapes Czech filmmaker Ondřej Vavrečka’s Mythos, an essayistic portrait of filmmaker Artur Aristakisian’s journey from Russia into Europe.

Several titles examine how technology transforms perception and remembrance. Michał Stankiewicz’s Polish XR documentary Being in You creates a generative presence from recordings and memories of late musician Cat Janice. Iridescence by Dominika Kováčová and Kilhan Wittock brings the archive of an ophthalmologist into dialogue with artificial intelligence, dreams and blindness, questioning the authority of the image itself.

Environmental anxiety shifts between planetary and urban scales in the selection. Emelie Mahdavian’s UK project Planet A follows scientists monitoring the disintegration of Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier, combining observation, personal journals and a poetic voice assigned to the ice. Meanwhile, in Karim Akalay’s magical-realist Belgian project 6TM, children, teenagers and mothers confront broken infrastructure, social exclusion and disappearing rain during a scorching summer on a Brussels housing estate.

Institutional and ideological power comes into focus in Dorothy Allen-Pickard’s We Did Not Consent, about women deceived into relationships by undercover police officers, and Agnieszka Zwiefka’s Words We Never Say, in which the filmmaker attempts to reconnect with her radical right-wing mother. Finally, Timo Novotny’s We Have the Keys enters a clandestine community that climbs cathedrals and infiltrates forbidden spaces, testing the boundary between freedom and danger.

Here are all 13 European projects selected for the 2026 Ji.hlava New Visions Forum:

Projects in development

Iridescence – Dominika Kováčová, Kilhan Wittock (Slovakia/Belgium/Italy)
Producers: Klára Tasovská (Somatic Films), Matej Sotník (Guča Films)

Planet A – Emelie Mahdavian (UK)
Producer: Charlotte Hailstone (Hailstone Films)

A Spectre Is Haunting Europe – Robo Mihály (Slovakia/Czech Republic)
Producer: Anna Mach Rumanová (Filmsomnia)

If Only the Pines Could Speak – Yelyzaveta Myshkalenko (Ukraine)
Producer: Diana Nazaruk (DIM Filmhouse)

We Have the Keys – Timo Novotny (Austria/Czech Republic/Germany/France)
Producer: Sebastian Rieker (Seehundmedia)

Archiveless Memories, for an Imaginary Museum – Ali Razi (France/Portugal/Iran)
Producers: Eliott Baillon (Darjeeling), Isabel Machado (C.R.I.M. Productions)

The House – Laura Amna Stauth, Francesca Bertin (Egypt/Germany)
Producer: Julia Cöllen (Fünferfilm)

Mythos – Ondřej Vavrečka (Czech Republic/Moldova)
Producer: Tereza Rozálie Koldová (106%)

Projects in production

6TM – Karim Akalay (Belgium)
Producer: Walid Bekhti (Center Video of Brussels)

We Did Not Consent – Dorothy Allen-Pickard (UK)
Producers: Sorcha Bacon (Try Hard Films), Jules Kirby (Aluna Entertainment)

Being in You – Michał Stankiewicz (Poland)
Producers: Martyna Nitkowska, Michał Stankiewicz (Betwixt Foundation)

Words We Never Say – Agnieszka Zwiefka (Poland/Germany/Bulgaria/Spain)
Producers: Agnieszka Zwiefka, Iza Igel (Chilli Productions)

Project in post-production

House Made of Mist – Alberto Dexeus (Spain)
Producer: Montse Pujol (Boogaloo Films)