The Conference on Ethics in Documentary Filmmaking, held at the Ji.hlava International Documentary Film Festival, is an open platform for academics, industry professionals, creatives, and the public to examine ethical questions central to non-fiction cinema. Its mission is to bridge practice and theory, foregrounding relationships between filmmakers, protagonists, audiences, and films. The forum advances dialogue through panels and discussions on responsibility, consent, representation, and the limits of intervention.

The 2025 edition focuses on «Creative Control and Authorship in the Age of AI.» Sessions assess how #artificial intelligence# shapes authorship, control, accountability, trust, and authenticity—whether AI functions as a tool or a co-creator. Practical guidance addresses maintaining human responsibility, transparent labeling of AI-generated content, and the use of open-source tools. The program includes an academic panel on authorship and AI, a keynote by director-scholar Dominic Lees on changing dramaturgy in the AI era, and a student coffee session on ethical dilemmas, authorship, representation, and audience trust.

Previous editions established the conference’s scope: 2024 examined responsibility for selecting and shaping subject matter within individual, institutional, and political-economic contexts; 2023 addressed working with archival, found, and home-video materials amid historical and contemporary crises; and 2022 focused on power dynamics in documentary filmmaking, including authorship boundaries, institutional influence, and responsibilities toward collaborators.