Kirsten Johnson
Director and cinematographer Kirsten Johnson, who was awarded the Jury Prize for Innovation in Nonfiction Storytelling at Sundance for her latest film, will present her thoughts on the transformation of film from the celluloid to the digital era during her Masterclass at Ji.hlava.
Tsai Ming-liang
Another guest of this year's Ji.hlava will be the award-winning director, a leading representative of the Taiwanese New Wave, Tsai Ming-liang. Seven of his films, as well as a Masterclass, will be offered in the Tribute: Tsai Ming-liang section. The programme includes the classic Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003), a cinephile farewell letter to Taipei cinema (Critics' Award at the Venice Film Festival), as well as the later Where (2022), which belongs to the director's famous “Walker” series of films, the hero of which is a Buddhist monk walking very slowly. Between slow cinema, conceptual art and performance, his films deal with themes of loneliness, time and memory. The Tsai Ming-liang retrospective was supported by the Ministry of Culture Taiwan and the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Prague.
Roberto Minervini
Back in 2020, Ji.hlava presented a tribute to Roberto Minervini, a celebrated Italian director based in the USA, which was eventually only held online due to the covid pandemic. This year, Minervini will attend Ji.hlava in person to share with audiences his working methods during a Masterclass. He will also introduce his latest films The Damned, depicting the US Civil War in 1862 (Directing Award in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes this year), and his earlier documentary Stop the Pounding Heart (2014), about a strongly religious Texas family of goat farmers. “My approach hasn't changed. I work with narratives and build stories around them,” Minervini explains his approach to directing, which is specific to the intermingling of documentary and fiction filmmaking techniques.
Andrei Ujică
After thirteen years, Romanian director Andrei Ujică returns to Jihlava, where his Autobiography of Nicolae Ceauşescu won the Best Central and East European Documentary Award in 2010. This time, Ji.hlava audience can look forward to TWSD – Things We Said Today, which premiered a month ago at the Venice Film Festival. This cinematic essay explores what is still present today of the divided America of the 1960s. Andrei Ujică, one of the most original filmmakers working with archival and found-footage material, will detail his method during his Masterclass.
Albert Serra
The Catalan film director and author of last year's Ji.hlava trailer, Albert Serra, will also present his new film Afternoons of Solitude in person. The film about the toreador star Andrés Roca Rey is an aesthetically captivating probe into the world of corrida. The film depicts not only the preparatory rituals and flashy costumes, but above all the famous bullfighter in the bull ring. The explicit depiction of the violence perpetrated in this controversial tradition raises the question of whether the animal or the human is the originator of the brutality of corrida.
