POLISH DOCUMENTARIES AT INTERNATIONAL FESTIVALS IN OCTOBER
As usual, autumn belongs to documentaries. Events dedicated to these films spring up like mushrooms, which makes us very happy since it directly results in numerous screenings of Polish productions. Be sure to check out where and which Polish documentary films will be shown at international festivals in October. There's a lot!
The start of the month brought screenings of 19:91 by Emilia Śniegoska at DenkmalKunst – KunstDenkmal and Judges Under Pressure by Kacper Lisowski at Week of Justice in Estonia. In the coming days, the audience of the Primanima World Festival of First Animations in Hungary will get to see Katarzyna Warzecha's We Have One Heart, while Paweł Łoziński's The Balcony Movie will be shown at Urbanize! Festival in Austria.
The first week of October also marks the launch of the DocLisboa International Film Festival, where Aleksandra Folczak's Waiting Room is going to have its world premiere (we wrote about it here) – and this isn't the only Polish presence at this famous festival. Non-competitive sections will feature Light Years by Monika Proba and The Pawnshop by Łukasz Kowalski. The CinEast Central and Eastern European Film Festival starts in Luxembourg one day after the Portugese festival. Backstage by Ada Smyk has made it into its competition.
It will also be a good month for Kacper Lisowski's documentary. Following the screening in Estonia, the film is going to visit Lithuania and its Inconvenient Films International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival and shortly afterwards the Human Rights Film Festival in Berlin. Then it will go to the Bergen International Film Festival in Norway and Screening in Cinema Lumière in Bruges in Belgium.
In Romania, during the Astra Film Festival, viewers and judges will get to watch Only The Wind by by Zofia Kowalewska and The Pawnshop by Łukasz Kowalski. The latter will also be presented at the International Festival of Documentary and Animated Film DOK Leipzig. The program of this extremely important festival also includes several other Polish films. We've covered it here.
The EUNIC Film Festival 2022 will be held in the first half of the month. One of the films organisers have picked is Paweł Łoziński's The Balcony Movie. The documentary will also be presented at the CiakPolska Film Festival.
The Way by Wojtek Kozakiewicz will be competing for awards at the International Festival of Mountain Films Paprad in Slovakia. We Have One Heart is also up for more awards. Katarzyna Warzecha's animated documentary has found itself in the competitive section of Iceland's The Pigeon International Film Festival.
Polish documentaries will also be screened in warmer countries, for example at the DocsMX International Documentary Film Festival of Mexico City. Its competition will feature The Soil by Zuzanna Solakiewicz and Balcony Concert by Diana and Krzysztof Kadłubowscy. In Australia, The Hamlet Syndrome by Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosołowski will be shown at the Adelaide International Film Festival. In addition to the aforementioned screening as well as the one in Leipzig, the film is also going to be screened at the Cambridge Film Festival.
The Polish capital is also hosting international competitions that feature Polish documentaries. Chernobyl: Men of Steel by Amadeusz Kocan, Volodymyr Tykha's Polish-Ukrainian Ukrainian Volunteer’s Day, and Katarzyna Trzaska's Learning to Fly will all be competing for the title of best documentary feature. In turn, the documentary short competition features Uncle Vakho’s Dream by Joanna Roj and Everything’s Fine, Potatoes In Line by Piotr Jasiński. Fans of Polish films can also expect a whole segment dedicated to the best Polish films of the past season.
In the second half of October, The Soil by Zuzanna Solakiewicz will be shown at WOMEX 2022 Film Programme, while Anna Konik's Silence Heard Loud will be screened at the Social Justice Film Festival.
A current list of festival screenings can be found here.