OCTOBER FESTIVALS
October is the peak of the film festival season. This month, Polish documentary films will be screened in over 40 screenings at 20 film festivals around the world.
In September, the Milwaukee International Film Festival began, in the competition section of which the documentary “The Supreme” by Katarzyna Gondek will be shown. This film will also be present at two other American festivals, Chicago International Film Festival and Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival. In both cases, these are competition screenings.
Just like in September, "Our Curse" will be the most frequently shown Polish documentary film abroad. In October, the film will participate in seven film festivals abroad. Five times, it will have the opportunty to compete for festival awards - it will be shown in the competition sections at the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival, Sapporo International Short Film Festival, Heartland and Woodstock film festivals in the USA and at the Astra Film Festival in Romania. In the competition at the last of the aformentioned festivals, “Our Curse” will compete with "Domino Effect" by Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosołowski. In addition, the documenary by Tomasz Śliwiński will be shown in the non-competing sections at the festivals IndieCork Festival in Ireland and Annual Imagine Science Film Festival in the USA.
The audience of Imagine Science festival will also have the opportunity to see the film “To fly or not to fly,” directed by Aniela Gabryel. This documentary can boast three screenings abroad in October. In addition to the screening in the USA, it will participate in the competition at the Tehran Short Film Festival , and Aljazeera International Documentary Film Festival in Qatar.
Polish representation at the Aljazeera festival will be exceptionally numerous this year. In addition to “To fly or nor to fly,” the films “Sati” by Bartek Świderski, “Left Side of the Face” by Marcin Bortkiewicz and “Seven Men At Different Ages” by Sławomir Witek will compete for the festival awards.
“Left Side of the Face,” just like “To fly or not to fly,” will appear at three festivals abroad this month. In addition to the Aljazeera festival, the film by Marcin Bortkiewicz was qualifed for the competition sections at the International Short Film Festival Vilnius Shorts and Cineast Central and Eastern-European Film Festival in Luxembourg.
This year, in the competition of the Cineast festival, there are four Polish films. In addition to “Left Side of the Face,” the viewers in Luxembourg will have a chance to see “Survey about men” by Mateusz Głowacki, “Father and Son” by Paweł Łoziński and “It’s Only A Dream” by Jakub Michnikowski.
“Abu Haraz” by Maciej J. Drygas, “A Visit” by Matej Bobrik, and “Seven Men At Different Ages” by Sławomir Witek will have two October screenings each. The film by Maciej Drygas will be screened in the competitions at the Festival Ânûû-rû Âboro in New Caledonia and Bozcaada International Festival of Ecological Documentary in Turkey. “A Visit” will compete for awards in Portugal, at FIKE International Short Film Festival and in France, at Un Festival C’Est Trop Court. The documentary by Sławomir Witek, in addition to the aforementioned screening at the Aljazeera festival, will also participate in the competition section of Festival Les Enfants Terribles in Belgium.
The following films also have a chance to win awards in October: “Everything is possible” by Lidia Duda - at the Sofia Biting Docs festival in Bulgaria, “Love” by Filip Dzierżawski - at Seattle Polish Film Festival, “Joanna” by Aneta Kopacz - at the German festival DokumentArt, “The Governance of Love” by Adela Kaczmarek - at Filmets Badalona festival in Spain and “A Diary of A Journey” by Piotr Stasik - at International Film Festival of Fine Arts in Szolnok in Hungary. The last of the aforementioned festivals invited “Samosiuk. The Independent Film Republic” by Adam Lewandowski and “Madame Tyson” by Edward Porembny to participate in non-competing screenings.
Polish documentary will be represented by the highest number of films at the festival DOK. Leipzig. “6 Degrees” by Bartosz Dombrowski, “Starting Point” by Michał Szcześniak, “Domino Effect” by Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosołowski and "15 Corners of the World" by Zuzanna Solakiewicz qualified for various competition sections. In the non-competing screenings, the following films will participate: “Super Unit” by Teresa Czepiec, “One Man Show" by Jakub Piątek and “Walking Under Water" by Eliza Kubarska, “Leaders” by Paweł Ferdek and "I am Kuba" by Åse Svenheim Drivenes.