Blix Not Bombs | F:act Award

Greta had just turned 8 years old when she watched the unfolding of 9/11 on her TV in Stockholm. In the following months and years she saw her fellow countryman, the diplomat Hans Blix, become a major player in the global crisis, as the head weapons inspector for the UN. Now, in the 21st century of wars, political extremes and climate catastrophes, Greta reaches out to Blix, now 94 years old, to ask if he can help her make sense of the world. Does diplomacy still have a role? Or is he the last of the great negotiators?

Greta Stocklassa's second feature Blix Not Bombs will compete at CPH:DOX for F:act Award, the prize for journalistic films in large format as described by the festival. Producers Radovan Síbrt and Alžběta Karásková of PINK are in charge of this three-country coproduction with CORSO film from Germany and Sisyfos Film Production from Sweden being the co-producers. The development and the production of the film was supported by the Czech Film Fund with altogether EUR 100 000. Furthemore, the film received support from Film Stockholm, Swedish Film Institute and Film- und Medienstiftung NRW. Syndicado Film Sales is handling the sales and festivals.

As a project in the making, Blix Not Bombs was presented at Hot Docs Forum in 2021 and the creative team took part with the film at dok.incubator in 2022 as well. It is Greta Stocklassa's follow-up to her feature lenghth debut Kiruna - Brand New World, which dealt with yet another Swedish issue of displacement of the mining town of Kiruna in North of Sweden and it was world-premiered at Visions du Réel 2019.

Find out more about PINK's activities and its current slate in the article for Czech Film magazine / Spring 2023.

The Killing of a Journalist | Change Makers

This year's CPH:DOX is yet another festival in row and home front on top of that, which will give floor to Matt Sarnecki's feature The Killing of a Journalist, which was presented in world premiere at Hot Docs in Toronto in May 2022. 

The Killing of a Journalist focuses on a brutal murder of a young investigative journalist and his fiancée at their home in Slovakia. Their deaths inspired the biggest protests in the country since the fall of communism. The story takes an unexpected turn when a source leaks the secret murder case file to the slain journalist’s colleagues. It includes the computers and encrypted communications of the assassination’s alleged mastermind: a businessman closely connected to the country’s ruling party.

Matt Sarnecki is a producer and a filmmaker at the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), where he focuses on making of documentaries and investigation explainers. His documentary Killing Pavel, about the murder of investigative journalist Pavel Sheremet in Kyiv, Ukraine, won the Investigative Reporters and Editors Medal in 2017 and the DIG Award (Italy) in 2018.

The Killing of a Journalist is made as Danish-American-Czech coproduction with Signe Byrge Sørensen of Final Cut for Real (Denmark) acting as main producer. Co-producers include Got Fat Productions (Denmark), OCCRP (USA) and Jitka Kotrlová and Zuzana Kučerová of Czech company Frame Films. As a project in the making, The Killing of Journalist was backed by the Czech Film Fund with EUR 36 000. World Sales are handled by Cinephil.