Posted: April 12
It’s been an exciting start to the year at Java Films, and the only way is up as we enter April! Here’s the latest for Spring 2024:
The Click Trap, from Barcelona-based director Peter Porta, will have its World Premiere at Hot Docs (25th April – 5th May), the largest documentary festival in North America.
The Click Trap reveals how the digital advertising economy is also helping to fuel scams, dis- and mis- information and extremist hate online, making dodgy and even criminal “content creators” rich in the process. Drawing on expert testimony, the documentary will investigate what real world impact digital advertising is having on our societies and question whether there’s a safer and more ethical way to do business.
2024 has also been a busy year for our British producers. Following the launch of its UK theatrical run at Bertha DocHouse on 15th March, Phantom Parrot received a brilliant four-star review in The Guardian, adding to other positive coverage in some major European publications. Director Kate Stonehill recently took part in panel discussions at the Movies That Matter Festival (22nd – 30th March) in The Hague, as Q+A screenings continue to take place across the UK.
If British police ask for the password to your phone or computer, you must hand it over to them in accordance with an anti-terror law that came into force before 9/11. When human rights activist Muhammad Rabbani refuses and is prosecuted, a journalist is able to uncover documents proving the existence of a top-secret surveillance programme, code-named Phantom Parrot, designed to copy the personal data of individuals at airports and border crossings. From there, the dominoes start to fall in a dark detective film about technology, surveillance and structural racism.
It was a Java Films double-bill at HUMAN International Documentary Film Festival in Norway (4th – 10th March), as two of our recent features, Tax Wars and Lie To Me, were selected for screenings at the festival!
Directed by Hege Dehli and Xavier Harel, Tax Wars takes viewers behind the scenes of a global effort to put people before profits, hold multinationals accountable, and demand the world’s most powerful corporations pay their fair share of taxes.
Lie To Me also went on to feature in the CPH:DOX lineup at the end of March.
The latest feature from Norwegian production house Hacienda Films tells the story of how tech nerd and blockchain expert Bjørn Bjercke overturned the OneCoin pyramid scheme, the biggest Crypto fraud in history. But more than that, it’s also the story of how and why people keep getting scammed. Why people were so ready to believe in OneCoin and why, even now, so many refuse it believe it was all a big con. What can we learn to spot the red flags?
The list of festival successes for Java’s films in 2024 goes on and on… Erasmus In Gaza won the audience award at the Boston Palestine Film Festival. The Body Politic had its Dutch Premiere at the Movies That Matter Festival. Venezuela: Country of Lost Children appeared at FIPADOC, One World International Human Rights Film Festival, and the Millennium Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Film on Human Rights.
In addition to the incredible films mentioned above, Java Films’ has picked up some notable acquisitions for the season, including True Believer and Apocalypse Rwanda. We look forward to seeing the successes in store for our producers as the year goes on…