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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...

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,...

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...

It may be tough to watch, but this Czech documentary about grooming and social-media sex predators is a worthwhile, well-made investigation into an urgent issue

This is a disturbing, deeply upsetting Czech documentary about the threat of online child abuse. It is not something I would normally choose to watch and it left me feeling sick to the stomach. But it is an important film on an urgent issue and perhaps should be required viewing for parents.

The set-up is like a reality TV or tabloid gotcha. Film-makers Barbora Chalupová and Vít Klusák cast three young-looking actors to play 12-year-old girls. For 10 days in bedrooms built in a studio, the “girls” live chat and message men on sites such as Facebook and Skype, where they are groomed, coerced and blackmailed. The women work to a code of conduct: they’re not allowed to make approaches, only to respond to messages...

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,...

Mobile phones and internet technology are so ubiquitous these days that it's easy not to give them a second thought, even when they're in the hands of a child - but this documentary from Czech directors Barbora Chalupová and Vít Klusák comes as a sharp reminder that not all the worlds they open windows to are benign.

Even the bald facts presented via intertitles at the start of the film, which note that 41 per cent of children say they have received pornographic images online from someone, every other child chats with strangers and one in five would not refuse a meet-up, may come as a shock to some. These may be specifically Czech figures, but it's fair to assume that the picture is broadly similar in many developed countries and, in the UK, for example, in 2019, the Home Office estimated there were 80,000 people who presented a...

Barbora Chalupová and Vít Klusák's film about online predators dominated the domestic box office last year, becoming the first documentary to do so. The year 2020 will go down in history as an annus horribilis for many industries, including the movie theatres. Owing to measures brought in to battle the spread of the coronavirus, theatres shut down and distribution plans were altered several times, with premieres postponed until the following year. While the local box office in the Czech Republic cratered by 65% compared to the previous year (see the news), the lack of US imports actually benefited domestic productions. Theatres in the Czech Republic were closed down from 13 March-10 May and again from 12 October until the end of 2020. A domestic documentary about online predators directed by Barbora Chalupová and Vít Klusák, Caught in the Net, rocketed to the top of the domestic box office (see the...

Other winners at the Sarajevo-based TV documentary festival include Caught in the Net by Vít Klusák and Barbora Chalupová, Neighbours by Nerminka Erić, and Dino Mustafić's Transforming Tomorrow. The third edition of Ajb Doc, a Sarajevo-based festival dedicated to TV documentaries and organised by Al Jazeera Balkans, wrapped last night with Molly Stuart's Objector (USA) winning the Main Award. The film tells the story of a 19-year-old Jewish girl who refuses to do her military service, bravely opposing the Israeli ideology and system. A Special Mention went to Vít Klusák and Barbora Chalupová's Caught in the Net (Czech Republic/Slovakia), which world-premiered at Prague One World and reveals how online child abuse has become a widespread threat. In the Ajb Screening Selection, the Best Film Award went to Bosnian filmmaker Nerminka Erić's short Neighbours, about the inhabitants of eastern Bosnia and western Serbia who, three decades after their own war,...

The Al Jazeera Balkans Film Festival, dedicated to TV documentaries, will take place 11-15 September online and on location in Sarajevo. Ajb Doc Film Festival, organised by TV broadcaster Al Jazeera Balkans, in cooperation with Al Jazeera Media Network (Ajmn) and Al Jazeera Media Institute, is set to take place for the third time from 11-15 September, on locations in Sarajevo and online at www.online.ajbdoc.ba. The competition programme will present 12 documentaries adapted for TV broadcasting, while six regional films will be screened in the Ajb Screening programme and soon thereafter broadcast on Ajb television. Another three famous international titles in the Last Minute Cinema section complete the programme. The competition line-up includes Vít Klusák and Barbora Chalupová's Czech box office hit Caught in the Net (Czech Republic/Slovakia), Jonas Bruun's Nordisk Panorama audience award winner Humanity on Trial (Denmark), Eva Mulvad's Toronto entry Love Child...

The documentary about online predators has helped the Czech box office to reawaken after local cinemas started reopening with restrictions in place. The shuttering of cinemas following the Covid-19 outbreak disrupted the theatrical run of the Czech documentary Caught in the Net (co-produced by Slovakia) in domestic cinemas. Directed by Barbora Chalupová and Vít Klusák, the doc captures the unsavoury details of the online abuse of minors and became the talk of the town during its crowdfunding and pre-premiere promo campaigns. After the original premiere on 27 February, it took only seven days for Caught in the Net to become the most-visited Czech documentary at the local box office, dethroning the movie that had occupied the number-one spot for years, Citizen Havel by Pavel Koutecký and Miroslav Janek. In late April, Chalupová and Klusák’s film had a dry run for its big-screen comeback, as Caught in...

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...

Feature doc about online sexual predators has broken records in the Czech Republic and prompted police investigations.

Aerofilms’ Caught In The Net, a crowdfunded feature documentary about online sexual predators has broken box-office records in its native Czech Republic, outperforming Hollywood blockbusters and also prompting police investigations.

It sold 115,000 tickets during its opening weekend, larger than the openings of Joker (103,167) or Fast & Furious 8 (113,460). It has easily surpassed the previous local record for a documentary in the Czech Republic which was held by 2008’s Citizen Havel, also released by Aerofilms, which sold around 60,000 tickets.

Caught In The Net has...

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 upcoming Slovakian omnibus film by Miro Drobný serves as a warning against the perils of the online world, such as cyberbullying, sextortion and “killfies”. After the Czech psychosocial experiment and documentary about online predators Caught in the Net (see the news) by Barbora Chalupová and Vít Klusák, Slovakian filmmaker Miro Drobný has now finished his project Who’s Next? (subtitled Internet Kills), which touches on a similar topic. Drobný is behind a number of educational and informative projects, such as the animated series Ovce.sk (screened in over 26 countries), which teaches children and parents alike about the perils of the online world, as well as a documentary biopic about the titular Slovakian rapper Rytmus: The Street Dream, which enjoyed a strong opening in 2015. For his omnibus docudrama Who’s Next?, Drobný is marrying the preventative and educational dimension of his previous projects with a wider audience appeal, with a principal.

Meet Dalibor. He's an industrial painter from the Czech Republic, still living with his mom even though he's almost 40 years old. Dalibor is a neo-Nazi, who doesn't believe that concentration camps were used to kill anyone. He spends his free time drinking with a friend, playing video games, and making weird YouTube videos with cheesy voice distortion and cheap video filters. The White World According to Daliborek is a documentary that follows Dalibor (he's called Daliborek in the English title) as he shows us around his world. While at first it seems like no one is challenging him, slowly but surely he is confronted by the truth. I've never come across anything like this documentary before, it's utterly fascinating and impressively calm. Directed by Czech filmmaker Vít Klusák, The White World According to Daliborek is shockingly incredible in so many ways. I don't know how Klusák convinced Dalibor to let him document his life,...

The final film from Krzysztof Krauze and new project from Giorgi Ovashvili to play in main competition.Scroll Down For Competition Line-ups

The 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 30 - July 8) has unveiled the competition titles in its Official Selection, East of the West and Documentary sections.

Main competition

The 12-strong main competition will comprise eight world premieres and four international premieres, including Birds Are Singing In Kigali (pictured), the final film from Polish director Krzysztof Krauze, who died in 2014.

The project, which depicts the consequences of the Rwandan genocide, was completed by his co-director and wife Joanna Kos-Krauze.

Other films in competition include Boris Khlebnikov’s new drama Arrhythmia, Václav Kadrnka’s Little Crusader, Peter Bebjak’s criminal thriller The Line and Giorgi Ovashvili’s Georgian historical drama Khibula. Ovashvili returns after winning the Kviff Crystal Globe for Corn Island in 2014.

East of the West

The East of the West strand will open with Ilgar Najaf...

The final film from Krzysztof Krauze and new project from Giorgi Ovashvili to play in main competition.Scroll Down For Competition Line-ups

The 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (June 30 - July 8) has unveiled the competition titles in its Official Selection, East of the West and Documentary sections.

Main competition

The 12-strong main competition will comprise eight world premieres and four international premieres, including Birds Are Singing In Kigali (pictured), the final film from Polish director Krzysztof Krauze, who died in 2014.

The project, which depicts the consequences of the Rwandan genocide, was completed by his co-director and wife Joanna Kos-Krauze.

Other films in competition include Boris Khlebnikov’s new drama Arrhythmia, Václav Kadrnka’s Little Crusader, Peter Bebjak’s criminal thriller The Line and Giorgi Ovashvili’s Georgian historical drama Khibula. Ovashvili returns after winning the Kviff Crystal Globe for Corn Island in 2014.

East of the West

The East of the West strand will open with Ilgar Najaf...

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...

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...