The Docu Talent Award, top prize at Ji.hlava’s Docu Talents from the East showcase, has gone to Ora et Labora (Pray and Work), a Luxembourg-Slovak co-production directed by Dzhovani Gospodinov and produced by Bady Minck and Alexander Dumreicher-Ivanceanu. The seven finalists were revealed Sunday night in Sarajevo as part of CineLink Industry Days, with projects from Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Ukraine. The jury praised the film’s «exceptional access, humanity and irreverence.» The award brings an invitation to the Ji.hlava New Visions Market.

A second prize, the 3,000 EUR DAFilms.com VoD Distribution Award, went to Retuning, directed by Sára Prokopová and produced by Tereza Tokárová, a Slovak film the jury described as charged with resistance to «retuning truth and freedom of expression.» It secures a two-year VOD release across the Americas, Europe, and Asia.

Running since 2005, Docu Talents has launched titles by Laila Pakalniņa, Vitaly Mansky, Bartek Konopka, and Helena Třeštíková, with past selections reaching Cannes, Berlin, Locarno, Rotterdam, and Sundance. Ji.hlava director Marek Hovorka connected the programme to persistent visibility gaps for Eastern European filmmakers, who he said remain «much less likely to be screened» at festivals further west.

Also announced in Sarajevo, Ji.hlava’s Emerging Producers scheme unveiled its 2027 cohort of seventeen Europeans plus a guest producer from Japan. The festival named Montenegro as the industry guest country for its 30th edition, running from 23 October to 1 November, alongside an official Polish delegation. And 110,000 EUR in Ji.hlava/JB Films support is open to Central and Eastern European applicants, with the window closing on 31 August.