Blind director and witness from Chinese camps: personalities coming to Prague who are changing the world
Prague is once again becoming a meeting place for remarkable figures from the world of documentary filmmaking and civic courage. The One World Festival will welcome filmmakers whose work does not end behind the camera – quite the opposite. For them, film is a tool for change, a personal testimony and a form of resistance. This year’s guests include legends of Scandinavian documentary, uncompromising activists and directors who embark on painful journeys in search of justice.
One of the most prominent personalities of this year’s edition is Norwegian director Gunnar Hall Jensen. His brutally honest film diaries open up themes of sexuality, relationships, personal crises and toxic masculinity. In the retrospective section The Gunnar Myth, the festival will present his loose trilogy Gunnar Goes Comfortable, Gunnar Goes God and Portrait of a Confused Father – an intimate probe into the life of a man unafraid to question himself.
Ukrainian documentary filmmaker and former soldier Alisa Kovalenko arrives from the Berlin International Film Festival. In her latest film Traces, she sensitively explores the trauma of Ukrainian victims of sexualised wartime violence. She has been documenting Russian aggression for years – already since the annexation of Crimea.
Courage in action is also embodied by Ugandan activist Stella Nyanzi, the protagonist of the documentary The Woman Who Poked The Leopard. Her radical portrait follows an uncompromising struggle against dictatorship, in which poetry and even her own body become tools of political resistance.
The most successful contemporary Bulgarian director, Stephan Komandarev, will personally present his new drama Made in EU, which critically examines working conditions in modern Europe. A very different but equally urgent perspective comes from Iranian documentary filmmaker Nima Sarvestani. In the investigative film Surviving the Death Committee, he sets out on a journey in search of justice for his brother, executed by the Iranian regime.
Other guests will also bring powerful personal stories. Azerbaijani photographer Rena Effendi, a World Press Photo laureate, presents the film Searching for Satyrus, which connects personal determination with family and historical trauma. Canadian director Aisling Chin-Yee will introduce the documentary The Pink Pill: Sex, Drugs & Who Has Control about the fight to develop a female Viagra and the right to orgasm. Taiwanese director Tom Lin will present Yen and Ai-Lee, a sensitive story about returning from prison and the painful effort to reintegrate into society.
An extraordinary journey will also be offered by Kurdish-Iranian blind director Bahman Yazdan Panah, who in the film Out of Frame hitchhikes across Europe and, despite losing his sight, continues to document the world around him. The systematic oppression of the Uyghur minority will be discussed by eyewitness Kalbinur Sidik, the protagonist of the film Eyes of the Machine.
Environmental issues are addressed by the creative duo Petr Lom and Corinne van Egeraat in The Coriolis Effect, capturing the disturbing impacts of the climate crisis in the region of Cape Verde.
A complete overview of all festival guests, including details of when and where discussions with them will take place, can be found here.