Having its international premiere at Ji.hlava, in the Short Joy short film competition programme, is the documentary Thousands of Meters, Hundreds of Hours by director Iva Kunac.

The title, made as part of Restart’s School of Documentary Film, portrays the time-honoured Lepoglava lace and the women who make it. Their lace and their stories serve as the canvas for exploring tradition, identity and heritage, passed down through generations.

The film was produced by Branka Šamija, music is composed by Marko Ruža, while Luka Gamulin was the sound designer.

All films in the short film competition are available for watching online, while the audience decides on the best title. Voting is possible at this link.

Inside by Dorota Vlnová will have its world premiere in the same programme. The film examines the relationship between social attitudes towards motherhood and the intimate, often hidden experience of a woman who decides to have an abortion, confronting the visible condemnation of her surroundings with her unknown inner world.

The sound design is by Ivan Zelić, while Croatian co-producers are Katarina Prpić and Danijel Pek for Antitalent. The producer is Roman Pivovarník (Hitchhiker, Slovakia).

Jabberwocky, the new film by Damir Čučić, will have its international premiere in Ji.hlava’s Fascinations competition. This abstract short mimics the structure of the poem by Lewis Carroll. Through portraits of the director’s children, the family album is transcoded into abstract imprints of light that symbolise the monster.

Damir Čučić co-wrote the screenplay together with Boris Poljak, who also did the cinematography. Goran Štrbac composed the score, while sound design is by Krešimir Šušljek. The film’s producer is Jelena Duh for Sve gore i gore.

Karla Jelić’s short Holy Defiance is screening is out of competition, in the Constellations section. After its world premiere at Sheffield DocFest, the film won the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Documentary Short. With producers Vinko Brešan, Julia Martinović, and Nebojša Slijepčević, it is a Zagreb Film production.

The same section also features the feature-length Croatian minority production To Hold a Mountain by directing duo Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić. Earlier this year, the film was awarded the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. The director of photography is Croatian cinematographer Eva Kraljević, while the Croatian co-producer is Dijana Cetina Mlađenović.

The festival’s industry section, the Ji.hlava New Visions Forum, will feature the presentation of the project Monument of Revolution of director Mladen Ivanović and producer Tamara Puizina. It is an Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb production.

The feature-length project Remember When We Saved the City by director Morana Komljenović and produced by Filmaktiv from Rijeka (Marin Lukanović), will be presented at the Ji.hlava New Visions Market.

The Serbian-Croatian project Symbols of War of director Nenad Mikalački and producers Bruno Stanković and Ivana Pejak will also be featured at the New Visions Market.

This year’s, 30th Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, the largest event of its kind in Central and Eastern Europe, will take place from 23 October to 1 November in the Czech city of Jihlava. The festival is part of the Doc Alliance, a partnership of seven European documentary film festivals aimed at strengthening independent and creative documentary filmmaking in Europe. Find out more about the festival on its official website.