One World Interactive

This is the first year that the One World Interactive category will be a competitive section. Additionally, it is moving to the Lucerna Gallery, where the individual installations have been designed by artists Mia Milgrom and Max van Olffen. Six interactive projects and four 360° films transport us to realities found in the chilling present, the near future, and little-known human experiences.

Zády k nám stojí na terase dvě osoby, které se drží za ruce. Koukají před sebe na rozpixelovanou krajinu. / Two people are standing on the terrace with their backs to us, holding hands. They are looking at the scattered landscape in front of them.

Political prisoners in Venezuela’s El Helicoide prison experience hell. The testimony of victims who have managed to escape was used to create the virtual El Helicoide Historical Memory Museum, which enables viewers to share their experiences at first hand. The project The Shape of Us is both a dramatic virtual story and a real physical warm-up exercise as it offers scenes of a future landscape destroyed by human ignorance. Stop and reflect on your relationship with nature – sometimes all you have to do is stretch upwards or crawl through a dark tunnel and you’re in a world full of green.

It’s fun to play with dice in virtual reality, but what do you do when the controllers, and consequently our own hands, stop listening? The project Control Negative uses the options offered by virtual reality to test our patience and make us feel a real loss of control.

The Czech contribution to the category – the animated film Darkening – is the personal story of the project’s creator who, together with you, fights the demons of depression using his voice. In Lou we relive an autistic boy’s childhood and first day of secondary school in an interactive animated project co-created by people with autism.

The virtual reality projects are in English.

For the Darkening project, it is possible to set the language to the original Czech.

Films in category One World Interactive

Film

All Unsaved Progress Will Be Lost

Take a mysterious ride through a dead city slowly but surely revealing its horrific past.

Film

Control Negative

What would it be like if we lost control of our own bodies? In this interactive VR project, we can safely try it out.

Film

Darkening

How does a young person suffering from depression perceive the world? The first Czech virtual reality project of its kind attempts to answer this question. It allows us to look into the protagonist’s mind, to experience and understand the pain of his soul.

Film

El Helicoide Historical Memory Museum

A tour of a virtual Venezuelan museum showcasing one of the world’s worst prisons.

Film

Endless VR Segue

A queer poem about gender transformations, hallucinogenic desires, and uncanny relationships.

Film

Lou

What all goes on in the head of a young person with autism? The development and creation of this interactive VR project involved people with the disorder. The film thus conveys their experiences through the example of one boy.

Film

On the Morning You Wake (to the End of the World)

An award-winning VR project that uses new technologies to reconstruct the 2018 event when Hawaii came under the false threat of a nuclear missile attack.

Film

Plastisapiens

Of plastic you are made, and to plastic you will return. An environmentally toxic VR simulation with the taste of oil, full of fossils and tentacles.

Film

The Shape of Us

In this eco-magical VR project we can immerse ourselves in our planet’s womb, from which Mother Earth’s voice warns us of impending doom. Playfully, we engage our whole body to try to save her.

Film

This Is Not a Ceremony

How do the scars of colonialism affect the indigenous peoples of North America? And can they be cured by a magical ceremony?

Other Thematic Categories

Ve skupince lidí ve vesnici v Africe stojí uprostřed žena s dítětem. Má béžové šaty a volně přehozenou oranžovou látku. Dítě drží na sobě a kojí ho. / In a group of people in a village in Africa, a woman and her child stand in the middle. She is wearing a beige dress and a loosely draped orange cloth. She is holding the baby and breastfeeding it.

Competitive Film Category

International Competition

The International Competition traditionally offers the newest and most hotly anticipated films that combine powerful themes with original cinematography.

Za vysokým plotem, nad kterým vede ochranný drát z žiletek, stojí dav mužů s tmavou pletí. Křičí a zvedají ruce nad hlavu. / A crowd of dark-skinned men stand behind a high fence with razor wire running over it. They shout and raise their hands above their heads.

Competitive Film Category

Right to Know

The competitive Right to Know section offers audiences stories about fundamental human rights violations that should not go unnoticed. The category provides space to films about inspiring activists who are battling to improve conditions in their countries.

Investigativní novinářka Pavla Holcová sedí na židli uprostřed tmavé kanceláře. Vedle ní je stůl s papíry a za ní knihovna s šanony. / Investigative journalist Pavla Holcová sits on a chair in the middle of a dark office. Next to her is a desk with papers and behind her a bookcase with binders.

Competitive Film Category

Czech Competition

This year, the Czech Competition has brought together some exceptionally interesting films that focus on the inner struggles of their protagonists.

Competitive Film Category

One World Interactive

Ukrajinští vojáci stojí na troskách rozbombardovaného domu. Jeden z nich odnáší pryč malé dítě. / Ukrainian soldiers stand on the ruins of a bombed-out house. One of them is carrying away a small child.

Thematic Film Category

Ukraine

On 24 February 2022, the world changed. Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine and unleashed an open war under the propagandistic label of “a special military operation”. More than a year later, the war is still going on. One World has put together a special category to look at the roots of the situation in Ukraine through the means of five films, and presents raw eyewitness accounts directly from the Ukrainian war front.

Uprostřed tmavé místnosti plné starých kabelů svítí oltář s Madonou a dítětem. Na něj kouká postava s kuklou celá v černém. Červeně jí svítí oči. / In the middle of a dark room full of old cables, an altar with a Madonna and a Child is lit up. A hooded figure in all black looks on. Her eyes glow red.

Thematic Film Category

New Gods

Faith gives people strength and helps them feel safe, whatever the object of that faith is. What the word conveys goes far beyond the religious meaning we probably think of most often in this context. In the New Gods category, we reflect on both the new and the old idols that people look up to today.

U kuchyňského stolu sedí hubený bílý muž pouze v trenkách, ve škobku má nohu, kterou mu klečící žena omývá. Na stole jsou svíčky a cigarety, v pozadí svítí televite. Na lednici je nápis Ježíš tě miluje. / A thin white man sits at the kitchen table in only his shorts, his leg in a slipper, which a kneeling woman washes. There are candles and cigarettes on the table, and a TV is on in the background. On the refrigerator is a sign that reads Jesus loves you.

Thematic Film Category

Relationships

There are very few things that can be viewed from as many different angles as interpersonal relationships. The protagonist of the film Too Close experiences the influence surrounding relationships have on her family as she tries to find peace for herself and her children. Not only does she have to deal with the constantly nitpicking villagers, but her ex-husband, who was previously convicted of sexually abusing her daughter, is stealthily sneaking back into her life.

Žena stojí sama zády ke kameře a kouká do dálky na rýžové pole a kopce. / A woman stands alone with her back to the camera, looking into the distance at a green rice field and hills.

Thematic Film Category

Female Power

Women’s rights are human rights. However, even in the twenty-first century, they are suppressed by the social system, traditions, and legislative paragraphs. The protagonists of the films in this category have decided to confront injustice and fight for the rights of the next generation of women, often at the cost of their own safety.

Uprostřed je starý ošuntělý billboard s nápisem ledovec. V pozadí jsou kopce a pláně islandské krajiny. / In the middle is a shabby old billboard with the word glacier on it. In the background are the hills and plains of the Icelandic landscape.

Thematic Film Category

Sustainability

Our planet is under increasing pressure from civilisation, and climate change is one of the biggest issues of our time – unless we start living more sustainably, neither we nor future generations will have a bright future. This is why for many years One World has been bringing together the themes of ecology and sustainability into one larger programming section.

Mladý africký chlapec s čelovkou na hlavě se na laně spouští do hluboké černé díry pro vodu. /A young African boy with a headlamp on his head descends on a rope into a deep black hole for water.

Thematic Film Category

Uprooted

A selection of films from countries in Africa, as well as Latin America and Asia, charts the hardships of local inhabitants. How did many of them find themselves in a situation where they are not free to make decisions for themselves, have internal struggles related to the search for their own identity, and have to witness ongoing exploitation?

Dva chlapci se sklání k rybářské sítí a koukají, co ulovili. Stojí u potoku na zelené louce kousek od lesa. Svítí slunce. / Two boys leaning against a fishing net to see what they have caught. They are standing by a stream in a green meadow near the forest. The sun is shining and the sky is blue.

Thematic Film Category

Docs for Kids

One World also remembers to cater for its youngest audience members. In the Docs for Kids category, it presents films that give children the opportunity to learn about the stories of their peers from around the world.

Tři mladé ženy si fotí tzv selfie. Usmívají se, za nimi svítí neony a billboardy města. / Three young women are taking selfies. They are smiling, with the neon and billboards of the city lit up behind them.

Thematic Film Category

Social Media

What do a recruiter for Islamic State, a teenage Instagram star, and an amateur porn actress have in common? The films in the Social Media category reveal the surprising nuances of the word “influencer”, and the everyday reality of life surrounded by social networks.