Krakow 2023

Małgorzata Goliszewska’s new feature project, and winner of the SMAKJAM Award at Krakow FF Industry, tells a remarkable story of Grażyna Malczyk, a former opera singer who lost her voice, and who now dedicates her life to treating sufferers of extreme stuttering, and for whom Grażyna’s method represents the last chance for a normal life.

The Industry awards of Krakow 2023 were handed out June 2 within the Docs to Start and Docs to Go categories, for Polish documentary projects in development and in post-production respectively. KFF Industry ran May 29 to June 3. The 63rd Krakow Film Festival runs to 4 June in Kraków, and across Poland on the KFF VOD online streaming platform between 2 and 18 June.

“We are looking for films that address the world's most relevant issues, but also reach back into history if they can have a message that is relevant to today,” Kraków FF director Krzysztof Gierat tells BDE ahead of the 63rd edition of the festival running 28 May to 4 June in Kraków, and across Poland on the KFF VOD online streaming platform between 2 and 18 June.

The prizes of the 63rd Krakow Film Festival were handed out June 3, with Nick Read and Ayse Toprak’s My Name is Happy winning best film in International Competition. In National Competition, the top prize went to Mateusz Pietrak for Basia: Three Short Stories. The Krakow FF Recommendation for the European Film Award in the Documentary category is Songs of Earth by Margreth Olin (Norway).

Polish director Mikael Lypinski talks to Business Doc Europe about his new film Unpaved, sold by Sideways Film and world-premiering in Krakow, in which he once again profiles a community of US folk living in the margins of society, this time within a forest sanctuary in Oregon.

Dutch Jessica Gorter’s new film tells the story of Yuri Dmitriev, a man who has dedicated his life to identifying and naming the tens of thousands who perished during the Great Terror under Stalin. “When I was in the middle of editing The Red Soul I got the phone call saying that he was arrested,” Gorter says. “I guess that was the moment when I really decided, ‘okay, so I need to make this film. I need to know where this is going.’”

In this fascinating behind-the-scenes examination, world-premiering in Krakow, members of the legendary Workcenter theatre collective founded by Jerzy Grotowski – acclaimed as one of the 20th Century’s most influential theatre practitioners - speak frankly for the first time about their experiences related to the work methods he devised, and which were developed by his apprentice and Artistic Director Thomas Richards.