The Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival has selected 14 European projects for this year’s Ji.hlava New Visions Forum (29-31 October), dedicated to the new generation of European producers. A number of this year’s projects explore the legacy of conflict and the persistence of trauma across generations and geographies. Maya Klar’s In the Penal Camp uses 3D gaming technology to reconstruct the Israeli detention and torture camp of Sde Teiman. Zlata Veresniak’s The Game of Women and War similarly revisits the aftermath of war through the bodies and voices of others. Belgian actresses perform testimonies of Ukrainian women who have survived wartime violence, their performances constituting an act of empathy and embodiment that culminates in a collective public ritual in the Brussels Metro. This sense of intergenerational echo resonates in Underneath the Waves by Daniel Washington, which traces the legacy of Roma genocide through the descendants of a Holocaust survivor.

In Superhumans, FEMEN activist Inna Shevchenko steps behind the camera to document a different form of survival: war amputees at Lviv’s Superhumans Centre, who are learning to navigate new lives and bodies in a world forever altered. The notion of identity as an act of transformation runs strongly through the Forum selection. In Read My Breasts, Austrian director Anja Salomonowitz turns her lens on Shevchenko herself, merging archival press images with performance to examine the contradictions and scars left by political nudity as a form of protest. A more spiritual search for identity unfolds in Laura Zahirah: Just a Regular Muslim by Karoliina Lahti, which follows a young Finnish woman who leaves showbusiness behind to embrace Islam and pursue a new dream in Indonesia: to become a renowned Quran reciter. Maria Sidiropoulou and Chloe Bruhat’s Momtski Kamen – The Girls Rock extends that conversation to collective female experience, following three Pomak women in northern Greece as they retrace the mythical path of women who once leapt to their deaths to escape oppression.

Several projects turn their gaze to contested geographies, where nature, infrastructure and ideology collide. The Pylon and the Lake by French director Sylvain Yonnet examines a multi-million-euro ski resort expansion in the Toura valley, where notions of “eco-responsibility” clash with ecological reality. In contrast, The Hope Will Carry Us by Azerbaijani filmmaker Alemdar Faig focuses on a small mountain village suffering from water scarcity and educational neglect. Environmental anxieties take on a speculative form in The Other Preppers by UK-based director San San F Young. Combining VR, AR and live performance, the film follows a group of young people of colour in Birmingham as they imagine alternative futures amid the climate crisis.

If Ji.hlava has long been a haven for experimentation, this year’s European projects confirm the vitality of hybrid and essayistic modes. Adam’s Tooth by Georgian duo Mariam Chachia and Nik Voigt unfolds as a darkly comic parable about two men guarding an ancient wolf’s tooth in a remote village, where archaeology, absurdity and bureaucracy intertwine. Clara Jost’s Still—Moving takes a radically different approach, giving voice to a car that becomes both witness to and participant in a family’s search for home during Portugal’s housing crisis. Laura Gabay’s Correspondences to Inhabit the World utilises letters and recordings exchanged between two women separated by migration and violence in order to construct a sensory dialogue about friendship, trauma and the possibility of healing through art. Finally, Thieves of Ashes by Czech filmmakers Lumír Košař and David Ticháček brings the selection back to the rugged realities of labour and survival. Following two Czech seasonal workers harvesting mushrooms in the charred forests of British Columbia, the film captures both the romantic allure and the quiet disillusionment of a generation seeking freedom on the fringes.

Here are all 14 European projects set to be presented in the Ji.hlava New Visions Forum:

Projects in development

The Hope Will Carry Us – Alemdar Faig (Azerbaijan)
Producers: Turkan Huseyn, Sarkhan Jafarli (Chinar Film)

In the Penal Camp – Maya Klar (Germany)
Producers: Zsuzsanna Király, Alon Sahar (Flaneur Film)

Laura Zahirah: Just a Regular Muslim – Karoliina Lahti (Finland/Indonesia/Saudi Arabia)
Producer: Serj Rimma

Read My Breasts – Anja Salomonowitz (Austria/Spain)
Producers: Sabine Gruber, Peter Drössler, Arash T Riahi, Alba Sotorra (Golden Girls Film)

The Game of Women and War – Zlata Veresniak (Ukraine/Poland/Belgium)
Producers: Yanina Kucher, Olga Zhurzhenko

Underneath the Waves – Daniel Washington (Hungary)
Producer: Timea Huszár

The Pylon and the Lake – Sylvain Yonnet (France)
Producers: Elise Hug, Cécile Lestrade (Alter Ego Production)

Projects in production and post-production

Adam’s Tooth – Mariam Chachia, Nik Voigt (Georgia/UK)
Producers: Tekla Machavariani, Mariam Chachia

Correspondences to Inhabit the World – Laura Gabay (Uruguay/Spain/Switzerland)
Producer: Vania Jaikin (Écran Mobile)

Still—Moving – Clara Jost (Portugal)
Producer: Anze Persin (Stenar Projects)

Thieves of Ashes – Lumír Košař, David Ticháček (Czech Republic/Slovakia/Canada)
Producer: Wanda Kaprálová (CLAW films/Guča Films)

Superhumans – Inna Shevchenko (Austria)
Producer: Arash T Riahi (Golden Girls Film)

Momtski Kamen – The Girls Rock – Maria Sidiropoulou, Chloe Bruhat (Greece)
Producer: Maria Sidiropoulou

The Other Preppers – San San F Young (UK)
Producers: Rebecca Wolff, Ed Owles (Grasp the Nettle/Younger Production)