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In Filip Remunda’s documentary “Happiness to All,” the Czech filmmaker portrays a characteristically off-kilter protagonist – and one who projects invincibility somehow tinged with doom. The film made its world premiere this week at the Ji.hlava Film Festival in the Czech Rep., where it won the best Central and Eastern European documentary award.

Vitaly, a former nuclear physicist and record holder in extreme cold-exposure training, makes his living as a construction worker on the fringes of Siberia, barely eking out a living. While his parents, still prominent scientists, reminisce about the glory of the Soviet regime they helped build, Vitaly finds his passion for Mother Russia on a different frequency.

Although also an avowed patriot himself, who spends his time rebuilding the foundations of rotting houses, Vitaly focuses on his video blog espousing his home repair skills and the evils of capitalism. But the energetic, foul-mouthed galoot seems mainly...

Marek Šulík’s “Ms. President” was named the winner of the Opus Bonum section at Ji.hlava Documentary Festival Saturday.

The film, which also opened the festival, was one of the buzziest titles this year, provoking discussions about upcoming U.S. elections and zooming onto the fifth president of Slovakia, Zuzana Čaputová – the first woman ever to be elected to that role. However, after completing her term, she did not seek reelection. It was produced by Barbara Janišová Feglová.

The director told Variety that constantly forced to face “an aggressively misogynistic atmosphere in society, Čaputová was really tired after five years.” Now, it seems that “the populists have the upper hand.”

“It really feels like something out of a bad movie that could be called ‘The Return of the Bad Guys,’” he said.

Šulík’s win marked an end of an especially lucky night for Slovak and Czech documentaries, with...

From its showcase of the most probing Czech and Eastern European nonfiction work to its tributes to underappreciated auteurs and platforms for indie collaborations, the Ji.hlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival is in its stride these days.

With a newly expanded 28th edition, a 10-day gala held in the historic Czech town of Jihlava, the fest is out to shake things up, as usual, says founder and festival director Marek Hovorka.

The fest’s opening film, “Ms. President,” by Marek Sulik, is an embedded account of the frustrations of Slovakia’s first woman to win the office, Zuzana Caputova, and it makes for a fitting banner project, says Hovorka.

“We always support Czech and Slovak culture and films. It’s a huge work and I think it can bring a deeper impression of how society works in the Czech and Slovak republics.”

Hovorka says people can detect “a shift in mood and tendency” in Slovakia,...

Three titles received €500,000.

Ildikó Enyedi’s Silent Friend is among 29 projects to receive a share of €8.1m in Eurimages’ latest round of co-production funding.

The new feature from Hungarian filmmaker Enyedi, who won Berlin’s Golden Bear for On Body And Soul in 2017, is a co-production between Germany, France and Hungary, and received €500,000 – the largest amount awarded in this round of funding. The film focuses on an ancient tree in the Botanical Gardens of the university town of Marburg to explore the relationship between man and nature.

Scroll down for full list of titles

Two more titles received €500,000: The Captive...

Péter Kerekes will follow “107 Mothers” – which won Venice’s Horizons Award for best screenplay – with “Marathon,” currently in production and eyeing a winter 2024 release.

Set in his Slovak hometown and revolving around the Košice Peace Marathon, established in 1924, the doc will clock in at exactly 2 hours and 7 minutes, mirroring its current record.

“It’s not just about people who run, get to the finish line and that’s it, end credits. There are so many beautiful contradictions in the stories we are recounting here,” Kerekes tells Variety ahead of the film’s bow at Ji.hlava New Visions Forum.

He didn’t immediately jump at the idea, he admits.

“I am not a runner and I already made one film about the history of my city [‘66 Seasons’]. I didn’t want to repeat myself. Then the organizers forced me to meet some of the veterans connected to the marathon and I...

“To me, it’s pure joy,” says Czech filmmaker Filip Remunda of shooting his latest project, “Love Exposed,” which he presented as part of the prestigious IDFA Forum this week. This is Remunda’s first time back at IDFA in 14 years. “Czech Dream,” his breakout film, was screened at the festival in 2008 as part of the Top 10 strand.

“We are observing other projects and it’s important to have feedback from different sources as it will help us edit the film,” says Remunda about the importance of bringing the project to Amsterdam.

“The Forum was pioneering. They have broken the boundary between filmmakers, producers and commissioning agents. It wasn’t open before they started. It was like a Kafkaesque story where you don’t know who is ruling your life. The Forum has a very democratic principle because you can meet people, hear their feedback and learn about different possibilities,...

New work from filmmakers Maite Alberdi (“The Mole Agent”), Filip Remunda (“Czech Journal”) and Anette Ostrø (“Hotel Cæsar”) are among the 22 documentary projects that have been selected for the 30th edition of the IDFA Pitch Forum, which will run concurrent to the 35th edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, running Nov. 9 – 20.

The doc festival’s IDFA Forum is an industry-focused co-financing and co-production market that will host 60 titles across its four sections, including the IDFA Pitch category. The Forum allows filmmakers and producers to present their projects — all at various stages of production and development — before buyers, curator and decision-makers from the worlds of public and private broadcasting, streaming, and international film festivals.

The IDFA Pitch Forum is the market’s flagship category. Alberdi’s “The Eternal Memory” is a meditation on love and memory that observes a couple dealing with Alzheimer’s over a four-year period. Remunda will be presenting “Love Exposed,...

Maite Alberdi, whose The Mole Agent was Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary last year, will be among documentarians pitching projects at the 30th Forum co-production meeting of the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam.

Running November 14-16, within the framework of IDFA, the Forum and its new media extension media, the IDFA DocLab Forum, will present 60 projects.

Chilean filmmaker Alberdi will present The Eternal Memory, following a couple over a four-year period as they deal with Alzheimer’s.

Alberdi’s Santiago-based Micromundo Producciones lead produces in co-cooperation with compatriot Juan De Dios Larrain’ Fabula.

Other award-winning documentarians due to unveil projects include Kurdish-Norwegian director Zaradasht Ahmed and the Czech Republic’s Filip Remunda

Ahmed, whose Nowhere To Hide won best film at IDFA in 2016 and was nominated in the Critics’ Choice Awards in 2017, will unveil The Lions on the River Tigris.

Following on from Nowhere To Hide, the verité project explores questions of...

60 projects selected for the 30th edition of the industry meet.

IDFA Forum, the co-production and co-financing market of International Documentary Festival Amsterdam, has selected 60 projects for its 2022 edition, including The Eternal Memory, a new feature from The Mole Agent director Maite Alberdi.

Produced by Alberdi’s Chilean company Micromundo Producciones and Pablo Larrain’s Chilean firm Fabula, the film is described by IDFA as “an intimate meditation on love and memory that observes a couple dealing with Alzheimer’s over a four-year period”.

Scroll down for the full list of IDFA projects

It is one of 22 projects in the market’s flagship Forum Pitch category,...

The BBC’s Storyville strand, which sets out to showcase the world’s best international documentaries, has picked up a new slate of eight films.

They will be screened on BBC Four and iPlayer over eight weeks starting Jan. 26.

“We’re excited to offer U.K. audiences this eclectic range of documentaries from around the globe,” Philippa Kowarsky, commissioning editor of Storyville, said in a statement.

“These stories deal with the issues of our times, from mistrust of political systems to the challenges of educational attainment, and from class and racial discrimination to the fight for women’s rights. They shine a light on some truly inspirational, and some controversial, characters, as well as some appealing canines!”

Check out the full slate below:

“Final Account” [Pictured above]

About the last living generation of everyday people to participate in the Third Reich

Filmed and Directed by Luke Holland

Produced by John Battsek, Luke Holland,...

Karlovy Vary Film Festival, the leading cinema event in Central and Eastern Europe, has unveiled the projects that will be showcased during the online edition of its industry program, Eastern Promises.

Eastern Promises will feature a total of 41 film projects, which will be presented as part of its various sections – Works in Progress, First Cut+ Works in Progress, Docs in Progress, Works in Development – Feature Launch, and Eurimages Lab Project Award. The presentations of projects to industry professionals will take place July 6-8, and the most promising projects will receive awards of the total value of Euros 165,000.

In order to attend the online program, film industry professionals must be registered (click here) by June 22 at the latest.

Works in Progress

The Works in Progress sessions will be presented online on July 6 at 14:00-17:00 Cet and July 7 at 14:00-17:00 Cet.

The Trt prize of 10,000 Eur will be...

Czechia was among the first countries in Europe to close schools because of the Covid-19 outbreak on the 10th of March, 2020. I learned the news of this in a patched-up boutique cinema in the basement of an otherwise run-down functionalist Prague office building from the 1930s called, somewhat disturbingly, “House of Joy,” as a voice on the mic was excusing the education minister’s absence at the press conference held after a screening of Caught in the Net. The new documentary by Czech directors Barbora Chalupová and Vít Klusák about child abuse on the internet was screened here in a remixed version intended for children below the age of 15, while its restricted access, much darker uncut counterpart had already been making rounds in cinemas, reaching a little short of 180,000 ticket sales within the first 7 days. This not only made it the most successful Czech documentary of all time, but gave...

The duo of provocative and thought-provoking filmmakers consisting of Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda are finishing their latest project, billed as a performative doc. Duo of renowned Czech documentarians Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda – who rose to prominence with their feature debut, Czech Dream, about “the largest consumer hoax in the Czech Republic” (a social experiment and large-scale prank all in one) – have recently been working on their own, separate projects. Since The White World According to Daliborek, Klusák has been finishing his probe into the mechanisms used by online predators, Caught in the Net (see the news), while Remunda has shot two entries in the Czech Journal documentary cycle, #sandrainuganda and The Okamura Brothers, unveiled during the latest edition of the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival. However, they have been collaborating together on another project that recalls their trademark style first used in Czech Dream: Once Upon...

The European Film Academy has unveiled its nominations for the 32nd European Film Awards with the ceremony to be held December 7 in Berlin. Among the titles to figure in the races, three are tied with four mentions each including Roman Polanski’s An Officer And A Spy, Pedro Almodovar’s Pain And Glory and Marco Bellocchio’s The Traitor. The latter two are also the Oscar representatives from their respective Spain and Italy and give Sony Pictures Classics a combined eight nods at the EFAs.

While Polanski remains a controversial figure, there has been a divide between U.S. and Euro perspectives in the #MeToo era. His Dreyfus Affair drama, An Officer And A Spy, which also has Efa nominations for Director, Actor and Screenwriter, was one of the most contested titles at the Venice Film Festival where it debuted earlier this year. It went on to win the Grand Jury Prize there.

“We want you to act as 12-year-olds.” This was the bizarre, admittedly creepy direction Vit Klusak gave to a gaggle of 19-year-old actresses who turned up for a casting call on his newest docu project, “Caught in the Net.”

The film, co-directed with Barbora Chalupova, has not yet opened in the Czech Republic but has already caused a stir – and has led to the arrest of several alleged sexual predators, the director told a master-class audience at the Ji.hlava docu fest on Saturday.

When Klusak and Chalupova first began looking into the idea of online predators targeting pre-teens, they confess, they had no idea of the extent of the problem.

But as “Caught” makes abundantly clear, there are enough dangers for young people to give any parent nightmares.

The team was assisted in their research by the Czech police cyber crimes unit, Klusak says, which acquainted them with some...

At Cph:Forum, Eurimages Award goes to Maria Back’s Psychosis in Stockholm; 31 projects pitched.

Cph:dox expanded its industry offerings this year by adding a Work-in-Progress session on the eve of its Cph:forum for six Nordic documentaries currently in production or post-production.

Short presentations including footage was shown for projects including:

The Acali Experiment (Swe/Den/Ger/Us), dir Marcus Lindeen, prod Erik Gandini

The story will examine what happened when Mexican anthropologist Santiago Genovés tried a unique experiment in 1973, putting 10 people on a raft for a 101-day voyage to study human behaviour. Lindeen brought the participants together for the first time in 43 years to talk about Genoves’ manipulative behaviour. “I wanted make a reunion and let them talk about their memories of what happened on the raft,” he said. “We let the subjects make a study of the scientist.” The team aims to deliver the film in the autumn.

Contact: gandini@fasad.se

[link...

Amazon Studios’ Ted Hope to reveal “vision for film”; works in progress winner to receive new award worth more than $100,000.

Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (July 1-9) has announced its industry programme and the projects selected for its works in progress and Eurimages Lab Project awards.

The line-up includes an in conversation event with Ted Hope, head of motion picture production at Amazon Studios, who will offer his future vision for film.

The festival will also host mark 20 years since the death of Czech filmmaker František (Frank) Daniel with a workshop, where Daniel’s teaching methods will be presented by analysing the film Some Like It Hot.

Other events will provide insight into the Czech Republic’s production benefits; panels on approaches to film education in Europe; and the 10th annual conference of Europa Distribution.

In addition, the European Parliament will unveil the 10 films nominated for the 10th Lux Film Prize; the Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program...

Retrospective to include films from Danis Tanovic, Cristi Puiu, Mira Fornay and more.

A total of 50 films are to make up the retrospective Eastern Promises: Autobiography of Eastern Europe at the 62nd San Sebastian Film Festival (Sept 19-27).

The line-up includes movies produced since 2000 in the countries that lived under Soviet influence after the Second World War and include some that were never released theatrically in Spain.

Several directors of films in the retrospective will attend the festival to present their works including Sarunas Bartas (Lithuania), Kristina Buožytė (Lithuania), Marian Crisan (Romania), Mira Fornay (Slovakia), Bohdan Sláma (Czech Republic), Malgorzata Szumowska (Poland) and Anna Viduleja (Latvia).

A book will be published to accompany the retrospective with contributions from journalists and critics across Europe.

The titles are:

Kruh In Mleko / Bread And Milk

Jan Cvitkovic (Slovenia) 2001

A modern classic of Slovenian cinema, the tale of a man who went out for bread and milk and lost himself to alcohol...

Karlovy Vary’s industry days continued today with the Pitch & Feedback initiative, including the new film from My Dog Killer director Mira Fornay, alongside the Docu Talents from the East showcase.

Czech and Slovak filmmakers presented seven projects in development, which are considered to have international co-production potential.

Among these was Cook, F**k, Kill (Frogs With No Tongues), the third feature from Slovakian filmmaker Mira Fornay, described an absurdist drama about domestic violence.

First pitched at the Sofia Meetings in March, the film follows her 2009 feature debut Little Foxes and 2013’s My Dog Killer, which won a Tiger Award at last year’s International Film Festival Rotterdam and was Slovakia’s submission for the Best Foreign-Language Oscar.

Cook, F**k, Kill is produced by Fornay’s company, Mirafox, and is slated to shoot in spring 2015 for release in spring 2016 with a budget of €1.15m.

Fornay said of the film: “I believe that my absurd drama rendered...

Doc Alliance lines up triple day-and-date premiere with Venice winner.

Gianfranco Rosi’s Sacro Gra, the first documentary to ever win the Golden Lion in Venice, has been chosen as the title to mark Doc Alliance Films’ first foray into triple day-and-date releases.

Speaking exclusively to ScreenDaily at this week’s Visions du Réel in Nyon, Doc Alliance Films’ Andrea Pruchová revealed that this coming Monday (May 5), the 2013 Venice winner will simultaneously be shown in six Czech and Slovak cinemas from Prague to Bratislava, at the Doc Alliance online portal DAFilms.com, and on the Film Europe TV channel.

Rosi spent two years filming life along Rome’s main ring road highway, the Grande Raccordo Anulare, for his documentary which is handled internationally by Doc&Film International.

The gala premiere in Prague’s Cinema Světozor will be attended by Rosi in person, with other special events being organised in the other cinemas.

Meanwhile, those...

Karlovy Vary’s industry days continue today with the Pitch & Feedback initiative, now in its second year. Czech and Slovak filmmakers presented projects in development which have international co-production potential.

The jury of experts featured Matthieu Darras from the Torino Film Lab, producer Mike Downey of the UK’s F&Me, Loic Magneron of Wide Management, Riina Sildos from the Baltic Event and Brigitta Manthey of Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

The projects pitched are:

The Red Captain (Cerveny Kapitan) (Slovakia)

Dir. Michal Kollar, prods Kollar, Viktor Taus

A slow burning thriller adapted from the bestelling detective novel novel by Dominik Dan. The film is set in the early 1990s when a homicide detective investigates the former secret service and the religious elite. The first Slovak feature supported by Media single project support.

Little Crusader (Krizacek) (Czech Republic)

Dir. Vaclav Kadrnka, prods Kadrnka, Alice Tabery

The Eighty Letters filmmaker returns with this drama about a father and son’s relationship...

Pouta, Kuky se vrací, and the other winners of the 2011 Ceský lev (Czech Lion) Awards have been announced. The 18th Annual Ceský lev (Czech Lion) Awards “are annual awards that recognize accomplishments in filmmaking and television. It is the highest award of achievement in film awarded in the Czech Republic. The jury is composed of members of the Czech Film and Television Academy (Cfta).” The awards ceremony was held in the Paláce Lucerna in Prague on March 5, 2011. The full listing for the 2011 Ceský lev (Czech Lion) Awards is below.

Best Film

Pouta (Walking Too Fast), Vratislav Šlajer

Best Director

Pouta (Walking Too Fast), Radim Spacek

Best Screenplay

Pouta (Walking Too Fast), Ondrej Štindl

Best Actress

Mamas & Papas, Zuzana Bydžovská

Best Actor

Pouta (Walking Too Fast), Ondrej Malý

Best Supporting Actress

Ženy v pokušení (Women in Temptation), Eliška Balzerová

Best Supporting Actor

Kajínek, Vladimír Dlouhý

Best Documentary

Katka, Helena Treštíková

Best...

Documentary filmmaker and rabble-rouser Michael Moore gave NPR a list of some of his favorite DVDs, even though he admits he doesn't watch DVDs. But hey, just because he's not a potential GreenCine member doesn't mean this isn't a useful list for all of us. GreenCine has all of the films mentioned for rent.

Here's just the first one, and then a link to the whole article on NPR.org.

Czech Dream (2004) You'll be hard-pressed to find a theater playing the documentary project Czech Dream, in which film-school students Vit Klusak and Filip Remunda dress up as CEOs to fake the elaborate opening of a fictional megastore and record the hype surrounding it. The duo uses bogus ad campaigns to reveal the power of consumer culture in the formerly socialist Czech Republic.

 It almost sounds like something Moore would do -- except he says he never could. Moore says because...

Winners of the 48th San Francisco International Film festival were announced at the Golden Gate Awards ceremony on Wednesday, May 4 in San Francisco. The dramatic jury awarded the Skyy Prize for First Narrative Feature, which comes with a $10,000 cash prize, to Miranda July's Me You and Everyone We Know. Italy's Private, directed by Saverio Constanzo, won the international jury's Fipresci Prize. The Golden Gate Award for Documentary Feature went to the Czech Republic's Czech Dream, directed by Vit Klusak and Filip Remunda, who received a $5000 cash prize and an Apple Production Suite. This year's festival screened 57 films from over 21 countries.