Marek Hovorka, the founder and long-time director of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival (24 October-2 November – see the line-up news), reflects on the evolving landscape of non-fiction cinema as the festival approaches its 30th anniversary. At this year’s edition, the largest documentary gathering in Central and Eastern Europe sharpens its focus on debut and auteur-driven works, explores the vitality of regional filmmaking, and continues to blur the lines between documentary, experimental and fiction forms.

Cineuropa: How would you characterise the main curatorial focus of the line-up?
Marek Hovorka: This year, we have made a clear distinction between the First Lights section, now dedicated exclusively to feature-length debuts, and Opus Bonum, which gathers second and later films. It allows us to support both emerging filmmakers taking their first steps and established voices continuing to evolve. Over the past two years, we’ve built strong ties with film schools across Europe and beyond, resulting in an exceptional collection of debuts. For us, as for many festivals, nurturing new talent is crucial because many directors make only one film and then stop. Giving them visibility early on is vital, and it’s fascinating to watch how each generation shapes its cinematic language and explores new themes.

How would you describe this year’s Opus Bonum selection?
Opus Bonum shows how vibrant and diverse contemporary documentary filmmaking has become. This year’s line-up ranges from Barbora Chalupová’s Virtual Girlfriends and Maximilien Dejoie’s Everything Works Out (In the End), both exploring women’s experiences of working in the adult entertainment industry, to Dea Gjinovci’s The Beauty of the Donkey [+leggi anche:
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scheda film], a deeply moving reflection on exile and memory, and Carlos Araya’s Floating Population, a personal exploration of one’s own memory and imagination. Among the highlights is Peter Mettler’s seven-hour While the Green Grass Grows: A Diary in Seven Parts, an expansive, essayistic meditation on life that echoes the trend of serialised storytelling in today’s audiovisual culture. Each movie in the section embodies a unique, personal approach, underlining how inventive and artistically ambitious documentary cinema has become.

What trends or tendencies do you see emerging in Czech documentary this year?
This year’s Czech Joy section highlights the growing diversity and international reach of Czech documentary filmmaking. Alongside new works by Slovak filmmakers Viera Čákanyová, Martin Kollár and Zuzana Piussi co-produced by Czech companies, the line-up reflects a generation of producers increasingly engaged in international collaborations, from Vitaly Mansky’s ongoing partnership with Hypermarket Film to Michal Sikora’s Czech-Polish co-production Child of Dust [+leggi anche:
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intervista: Weronika Mliczewska
scheda film] by Weronika Milewska. The section encompasses raw, generational portraits such as Maja Penčič’s Minimum Love, political insight in Jakub Ondráček’s Grolich the Great, and socially probing works like Robin Kvapil’s Change My Mind, which examines pro-Russian sentiment in Czech society.

As the leading documentary festival in Central and Eastern Europe, how do you perceive the current state of documentary filmmaking in the region?
Across Central and Eastern Europe, the documentary landscape remains dynamic, albeit uneven. Romania has long had a vibrant documentary scene, represented this year by the visually powerful Still Nia, which shows how art can help us understand our own past. Documentaries also hold a traditionally strong position in the Baltic region – for instance, Vytautas Oškinis will present his personal film A Grandfather, a portrait of his granddad, prominent Lithuanian politician Vytautas Landsbergis. In Hungary, the number of independent productions has noticeably declined, while in Slovakia, the effects of funding changes are only just beginning to surface, with some producers moving operations to the Czech Republic in search of better opportunities. Poland continues to stand out for its internationally resonant filmmaking, with works like Ania Szczepańska’s Unearthed, a powerful personal excavation of historical memory, 14 years in the making. Such long-term, deeply researched projects show how documentarians today often assume the role once held by journalists or writers, offering multilayered reflections on reality through artistic means. It’s no surprise that major festivals now feature documentaries in their main competitions, a testament to how profoundly the form shapes our understanding of the present.

What about the retrospectives this year?
They explore how cinema reflects shared experience and collective creation. One focuses on food, a universal theme chosen to reconnect audiences in a divided world, tracing its depiction from early Lumière shorts, through Czechoslovak films of the 1950s-1980s, to today’s cooking shows, revealing how representations of eating mirror social and cultural change. The second, Collective Film, curated by Andrea Slováková, celebrates the history and vitality of artistic collectives, often overshadowed by the auteur system. It includes works from across decades and continents, culminating in this year’s Award for Contribution to World Cinema, presented to Bolivia’s Grupo Ukamau.

Ji.hlava has always embraced experimentation. How do you see this ongoing transformation of documentary film?
Documentary today is one of the most vital and transformative areas of cinema, constantly reshaping itself through hybrid, poetic and experimental forms. This spirit is embodied in Ji.hlava’s collaborations, such as Tsai Ming-liang’s new Walker film, shot on location with FAMU students and inspired by the town’s nocturnal stillness, a poetic contrast to his usual urban settings. His presence, alongside returning filmmakers like Peter Mettler, Alisa Kovalenko and Claire Simon, reflects Ji.hlava’s role as a living space for creative exchange.

Next year, Ji.hlava will celebrate its 30th anniversary. Are you already preparing something special for this milestone?
For now, our focus is on this 29th edition, but it’s impossible not to reflect on how documentary film, and Ji.hlava with it, has evolved over nearly three decades. Looking ahead to the 30th anniversary, we see it as a chance to connect a new generation of documentarians with the legends who helped shape the field.