The 63rd Krakow Film Festival kicks off May 28 ahead of eight days of frenetic festival and Industry activity. More than 200 documentaries, shorts and animations are programmed across 4 competitive and 16 non-competitive sections.
The festival opens with Margreth Olin’s Songs of Earth, in which the director (with a camera) accompanies her father on foot through the wild, mountainous regions of western Norway, across all four seasons of the year, following in the footsteps of her ancestors in order to answer the question: where am I from?
Fifteen titles will compete in International Documentary Competition, including two films from Poland which receive their world premiere (Unpaved by Mikael Lypinski and Radical Move by Aniela Gabryel). Much lauded international titles include CPH:DOX Grand Prix winner Motherland (Sweden, Ukraine, Norway) by Hanna Badziaka and Alexander Mihalkovich; Is There Anybody Out There? (UK) by Ella Glendining, and My Name is Happy (UK, Turkey), directed by Nick Read and Ayse Toprak. The festival will also world-premiere Dutch Jessica Gorter’s The Dmitriev Affair, about the silencing of a Russian campaigner exposing the extent of mass extermination during Stalin’s purges.
“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,” comments Kraków FF director Krzysztof Gierat. “We are looking for stories about protagonists who struggle with everyday life, about their loved ones, their country, about people who are unconventional, multidimensional, often weak. We choose films made with passion, distinguished by using the most appropriate means of expression.”
He cites, as examples, The Dmitriev Affair, which he describes as “a very important film for the current situation about an activist of the Russian association Memorial who is being suppressed by the Putin regime,” and Radical Move about a theatre centre where “the successor of theatre shaman Jerzy Grotowski tries to put his master’s rather questionable methods into practice.”
Not surprisingly, Polish docs feature prominently across the festival’s competition and non-competitive strands. In the National Competition 41 candidates will contend for four Golden Hobby Horses in the categories of a Medium/Feature-length Documentary Film and Best Short Doc categories, as well as in the Fiction and Animated Film competitions. The Polish Panorama section presents 8 new docs while many other local productions pepper the other sections, such as Jakub Piątek’s Pianoforte, about the esteemed Chopin Piano Competition and its highly talented contestants, in the festival’s Illumination section.
“Polish cinema still quite often looks for themes abroad, such as the aforementioned Radical Move or the other Polish representative in the international competition, Unpaved,” says festival director Gierat. “Both films are similar in their own way, as they speak of an escape from banal life, from the hustle and bustle, from patterns and rituals imposed by civilisation. They speak of people searching for their own rituals by getting to know themselves.”
“Among young filmmakers, this search for oneself, one’s own identity is dominant,” adds Gierat, “as exemplified by It’s Only/Not Only A Body…Or A Short Film About Freedom (Michał Hytroś) or Agata’s Faces (Małgorzata Kozera), both of which also speak of overcoming illness, pain, facing the challenges posed by fate. There are still sporadic films in Polish cinema that deal with the problems of our political reality, social stratification, the division of Poland into two different worlds. We await with interest and impatience projects about the situation on the Belarusian border – we know that such are being made.”
Barbara Orlicz – Szczypuła, Head of Programme Dept, outlines the importance of the festival as an international documentary hub. “The Krakow Film Festival keeps its importance for the regional producers and filmmakers, not only from Poland, for whom the festival is the most important event for presenting the latest Polish productions, but also for the Ukrainian filmmakers and professionals from CEE countries,” she stresses.
“This is the place where they can meet, talk, discuss and present the films, with easy access to the decision makers who visit the festival,” she continues. “On the other hand, for professionals from western Europe, the festival is a window into the production from the region and, at the same time, a good place for promotion and distribution of the international films. This is where it is easy to initiate co-productions and any collaboration in the field of documentary film.”
KFF Industry
Core to the Industry offer at Krakow FF are two pitch sessions: Docs to Go (Wednesday, 31 May) and Docs to Start (Thursday, 1 June). Docs to Start is a presentation of Polish projects in development phase, while Docs to Go is a presentation of Polish documentaries in the editing or post-production phase. Each will end with individual meetings between participants and experts – potential co-production partners, festival programmers and sales agents. This year, as part of the DOC LAB POLAND & UKRAINE project – Polish creators will be joined by artists and producers from Ukraine. A total of 28 projects will be presented at both pitches.
Spanish film is the special feature at the 63rd edition of the Krakow Film Festival. There will be two events of Focus on Spain as part of KFF Industry that will get you to know Spanish documentary films better. On Thursday, 1 June, there will be a Polish-Spanish co-production round table with the participation of producers from Poland and Spain. Then, on Friday, 2 June, there will be a presentation and panel on the production and financing of documentary films in Spain. The industry events dedicated to Spanish documentaries are prepared in cooperation with KIPA – the Polish Producers Alliance, and ICAA and Basque.Audiovisual.
The CEDOC – Central European Documentary Co-Production Market is organised for producers who are looking to partner international decision-makers and potential co-producers who are looking to co-operate with Poland. The meetings in a one-on-one and round table formats will take place on Friday, 2 June.
This year the V4 Co-Pro Meetings will also form part of the market – featuring co-production meetings for film professionals from the Visegrád Group countries. The aim is to encourage contacts between producers and filmmakers from the region to collaborate in film production. Those attending V4 Co-Pro Meetings will also meet with Ukrainian producers to discuss co-production possibilities. The KFF Video Library includes over 150 documentary, short and animated films, selected by the festival’s partners at DOK Leipzig, East Silver, Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival, and Festival dei Popoli. The KFF Video Library also gives participants the opportunity to watch films from the 63rd KFF program.
