DECEMBER FESTIVALS

In December, when the end of the year comes, the festival craze quiets down. In spite of this, almost twenty Polish films will be shown on the cinema screens at nine festivals in Europe and Asia.

On the 3rd December, in Chinese city of Guangzhou the documentary film festival GZDOC starts. The selection commission of this festival selected three Polish films to the competition: the film made in Munk Studio "My father Lazaro" by Marcin Filipowicz, and "Decrescendo" by Marta Minorowicz and "Paparazzi" by Piotr Bernaś, both of them produced by Wajda Studio. Another Asian festival taking place in December is International Short and Independent Film Festival Dhaka 12. In the capital of Bangladesh, among the competition film one can watch "World according to Hania and Staś" by Tomasz Jurkiewicz.

A lot will happen in the Balkans. In the competition at the ninth edition of the Slovenian animated film festival Animateka "Paperbox" by Zbigniew Czapla takes part. The festival fore-runner, "Written in ink" by Martin Rath will compete for the laurels in the competition section at yet another Slovenian festival - International Student and Video Film Festival. On Croatia, at Human Rights Film Festival in Zagreb, the film recently awarded in Iran, "Tonia and her children" by Marcel Łoziński qualified for the competition. The festival of films touching upon the issue of human rights will also taken place in Prishtina in Kosovo - in the competition section, the viewers will have a chance to watch "Doctors" by Tomasz Wolski.

In France, the thirtieth edition of Tous Courts Aix-en-Provence festival takes place. In the competition section, there is the Polish-German-Chinese co-production "Next" by Adam Janisch. For a couple of days, Milan will turn into the capital of films and television programmes about sports, and that is thanks to the FICTS Fest festival, which takes place there for the thirtieth time already. The viewers of this festival will have a chance to get acquainted with the story of Polish speedway rider Krzysztof Cegielski, told by Grzegorz Milko in the film "Broken Dream" by Krzyszotof Cegielski.

Finally, we go back to Poland, where from 7 to 16 December the International Film Festival WatchDocs takes place. Human Rights in Film. In this year's edition of the festival, there are two Polish films: "Vera Gran” by Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz and "Bad Boy - high security cell" by Janusz Mrozowski. In the non-competing sections, over ten Polish documentaries will be shown, among them, "My notes from the underground" by Jacek Petrycki, "Tonia and her children" by Marcel Łoziński, and "Kotan's children" by Mirosław Dembiński.