First Listening Day: Human Fates and Moral Dilemmas in the Documentary category
The first day of the festival was in the spirit of documentaries. The jury debated six selected works that opened up difficult topics.
The main programme of the first day of the festival was a public listening of radio works in the Documentary category. The audience included students, those interested in culture, professionals from practice, experts and the creators themselves. The international jury consisted of five experts from the fields of documentary, journalism, directing, dramaturgy and radio: Adéla Komrzý, Damian Machaj, Niki Matita, Ivan Studený and Daniel Velasco.
This year's documentarists dealt with themes of moral dilemmas, strong emotions, human fragility, physicality and love. Olomouc also appeared in several of them. There were powerful and breath-taking stories of ordinary and extraordinary human lives. The final documentary, In the Trailer, by Czech documentary creator Eva Lammelová, was a departure as she ended the listening day with a lighter documentary dealing with sex lives of two seniors, Ilona and František.
The student jury prize this year went to Brit Jensen for her documentary Hotel Hate. The reason for their choice was authenticity and thematic focus. In this piece, Jensen explores female fragility, vulnerability, taboos, prejudice against women, same-sex couples, and harassment by men. The documentary is based on three independent recordings. In these recordings, she was able to record how men make vulgar comments about women and how they treat them. One of the recordings was made in Olomouc. The case ended up in misdemeanour proceedings. The document is supplemented by testimonies of female victims of physical and psychological violence. The author draws attention in particular to the lack of support for these victims.
In these situations, women usually find themselves without the support of those around them. The international jury praised the choice of a strong theme, the text, the creative strategy and the thoughtfulness. "How do we fight prejudice in society? How will we confront such hatred? How will we confront them if we don't listen to what the victims are really experiencing and feeling? If we endlessly relativise what people feel, we won't get anywhere," Ivan Studený commented on the author's creative method.
The most debated documentary was If It Falls, It Falls, directed by Zdeněk Chaloupka. His documentary was made on the two-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine. Chaloupka travelled to Ukraine, where he focused on how the war became part of the everyday life of the Ukrainian people. The jury criticized him for not working with emotions, the script was stylistically strange and the author's work with music and sound elements was also a topic of discussion.
The jury appreciated the scene where he describes the course of the night when you are woken up several times by air alerts. The youngest author in this year's competition was Eliška Mádrová, a graduate of Masaryk University in Brno, with her work Five Stages of Grief. Jiří Slavičínský brought an emotional story to the ears of the audience in the form of an audio diary Let It Go.
The main character Ivan describes his life in a wheelchair, his dreams and how he perceives the world. The last documentary was created by Tereza Reková, who tells the story of Ludmila, who fell in love with an internet scammer.
The winning documentaries will be announced at the closing ceremony of the festival, which will take place on Thursday, October 17, at 20:00.
The author is a member of the student editorial team of the Prix Bohemia Radio website.
