The 27th One World International Documentary Film Festival will take place from 20 to 25 October 2026 at Kino Lumière in Bratislava, followed by an online edition across Slovakia from 26 October to 1 November. Organised by the non-profit People in Need Slovakia, this year’s edition takes BONDS as its central theme. The organisers apply the word both to ties that restrict freedom and cause harm and to those that connect people and help them build something new.

The programme turns to Russia’s war against Ukraine and to the experience of countries that lived under Soviet domination. It also addresses efforts to defend culture and the non-profit sector against state interference. Festival director Eva Križková says she intends to explore, together with Ukrainian filmmakers, the marks that Russian influence has left on Central European culture and identity. She links the theme to the condition of cultural and civil society communities.

The festival’s new visual identity was created by the Slovak studio Andrej&Andrej and is built around a ribbon, which the organisers describe as an ambivalent image. Its central picture is a photograph from Traces by the Ukrainian director Alisa Kovalenko, who will attend the festival in person. «It is beautiful, delicate and emotional», she told the organisers.

The Turkish-Palestinian documentary For Life by Ahmet Seven also looks at women’s resistance. Israeli policy prohibits Palestinian prisoners from having children, which in practice means the systematic erasure of the Palestinian people. The film follows Hind, who secretly smuggles her husband’s sperm out of prison so that she can have a child with him. The organisers present this wish for a family as a form of resistance that preserves culture and identity across generations.

Early Bird Cinepasses are on sale until 4 October. More information is available at jedensvet.sk.