The 20^th-anniversary edition of the One World Film Festival (aka the International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival) in Slovakia will be opened by the latest feature by Slovakian documentarian Zuzana Piussi, The State Capture (see the news). In it, Piussi aims to reflect on “the mechanism used by the oligarchy and the mafia to blackmail key players in the system, to influence public perception, and to penetrate police, the judiciary and the government”.

The State Capture has been programmed in the Social Situation and Political Regimes section, which, along with the Interpersonal Relations, Technological Development and Ecology sections, constitutes a subtopic to the central theme, Lost in the Present. “During this year’s birthday celebrations full of high-quality cinematography, not only through the Slovakian titles on screen but also through various discussions, we look back at the past to move smoothly into the present, and then reflect on the ‘here and now’ and our future,” say the organisers, adding: “Thirty years have passed since the Velvet Revolution, and it is time to discuss how our history has affected us – what we took from it, what we have learnt from it, what we have forgotten and what we have overlooked.”

A number of domestic films will vie for the festival’s award in the competition section. Among the competing titles are Peter Kerekes’ latest project, BATAstories [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] (France/Czech Republic/Slovakia); Tomas Krupa’s award-winning intimate portrayal of assisted suicide The Good Death [+lee también:
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entrevista: Tomáš Krupa
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entrevista: Pavol Pekarčík
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ficha de la película] (Slovakia), which follows Slovakian rescuers during the Battle of Mosul; and the feature-length debut by emerging filmmaker Barbora Berezňáková, Never Happened [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] (Slovakia), which examines past socio-political events from a modern-day perspective. The other movies screening in competition are Over the Hills [+lee también:
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entrevista: Martin Mareček
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ficha de la película] by Helena Třeštíková and Jakub Hejna (Czech Republic/France), Vote for Kibera by Martin Páv (Czech Republic), Ticket to the Moon by Veronika Janatková (Czech Republic/Germany), My Century [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Theodora Remundová (Czech Republic) and Ask Your Parents About 89 by Barbora Berezňáková (Slovakia).

The line-up of the One World Film Festival will reflect on current events and broader global issues through a variety of international documentaries. The Ecology section will screen the story of one man’s herculean crusade to procure six million toilets in India, Mr. Toilet: The World’s #2 Man; Werner Boote’s attempt to debunk the myth of “green products” being environmentally friendly in The Green Lie [+lee también:
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ficha de la película]; and Ton von Zantvoort’s portrait of one of the last remaining Dutch shepherds working in accordance with traditional customs, Sheep Hero [+lee también:
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ficha de la película].

Tech has become a daily constant and an inevitable part of people’s lives, and in the Technological Development thematic section, Isa Willinger addresses the thorny topic of the future given the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence in Hi, AI; Ismaël Joffroy Chandoutis investigates the online gaming phenomenon of swatting in Swatted; and Nicolaas Veul and Duco Coops lift the lid on Instagram and the “popularity economy” in #FollowMe. Another section, Interpersonal Relations, offers #Female Pleasure [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], exposing the double standard regarding gender and the female body; Linda Cullen and Vanessa Gildea’s outline of the path to same-sex marriage in Ireland, The 34^th: The Story of Marriage Equality; and Janus Metz and Sine Plambech’s documentary Heartbound: A Different Kind of Love Story [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], about Thai-Danish marriages in a small fishing community in Thy, Denmark.

The One World Film Festival runs from 9-13 October in Bratislava, Slovakia. The full line-up is available here.