53RD KRAKOW FILM FESTIVAL - NATIONAL COMPETITION

The list of films selected to the National Competition of 53rd Krakow Film Festival has been announced. 23 Polish documentaries will compete for the awards. Many of them will have their world premieres in Krakow.

 The national competition is one of the four competition sections of the 53rd Krakow Film Festival, which begins on the 26th May and lasts until the 2nd June. Films produced in Poland, documentaries as well as short features and animations, could enter the fight for the Golden Hobby-Horse. In the end, out of 266 applications 42 films were chosen to compete: 23 documentaries, 12 animations and 7 feature films.

In the competition, there are films made both by recognized authors like „Wszystko jest możliwe” directed by Lidia Duda, the winner of the previous edition or „Zabójca z lubieżności” made by the often-awarded Marcin Koszałka; as well as by debutants, for example: Filip Dzierżawski’s „Miłość” or Bartosz M. Kowalski’s „Moja wola”. It is worth mentioning that „Miłość” is also the Polish representative in our new feature film competition – DocFilmMusic.

Polish documentaries have been also selected to the International Short Film Competiton. Films that will be screened in this section are: “Mother 24/7” directed by Marcin Krawczyk about a painting of Black Madonna of Częstochowa travelling from one family to another and “When I Am A Bird” by Monika Pawluczuk, a film telling a story about an older woman from a Burmese tribe, who only now put around her neck metal ‘rings’ to earn her living as a tourist attraction in Thailand, where she ran away with her sons and husband, while her daughter remained in Burma oppressed by troops of the junta. 

A major event of the national competition will be the premier of the new film by Jerzy Kucia, the winner of the Dragon of Dragons award from four years ago. „Fuga na wiolonczelę, trąbkę i pejzaż”, is his first film in 13 years, as the master of animation produces pictures in long intervals.

Coming back to Kraków with new films, there are Marcel and Paweł Łoziński. Their joint RV journey to France was supposed to serve as canvas for one documentary, but in the end two pictures were produced: Paweł Łoziński’s „Ojciec i syn” and Marcel Łoziński’s „Ojciec i syn w podróży”. A similar motive of travelling together, this time of a master and his apprentice, appears in Piotr Stasik’s „Dziennik z podróży”. On of the protagonists is Tadeusz Rolke, a forerunner of Polish documentary photography.

Figures well-known from public life will be appearing on the screens of Krakow cinemas. Marcin Latałło made a film about an outstanding theatre director, Krzysztof Warlikowski; the portrait of the artist is presented by, among others, Magdalena Cielecka, Maciej Stuhr, Danuta Stenka, Andrzej Chyra and Isabelle Huppert. The daughters of an accomplished documentarian and editor who passed away five years ago, Katarzyna Maciejko-Kowalczyk (the author of, among others, „Benek Blues” awarded in Kraków with the Golden Dragon and the Golden Hobby-Horse), have decided to finish the film started by their mother in 2007. As the result, a very personal film was produced - „Pożegnanie” is a picture about the passage of time, remembrance and love towards mother. Anna Więckowska reached back to the events from 2008, to an accident in which a Polish tabloid, „Super Express”, journalist Jarosław Zabiega died while Maciej Zientarski, a famous automotive journalist sustained serious injuries. The film is a story about a man who was a king of life, did what he loved, lived a colourful and intense life he wanted, and within few second he lost everything.

Viewers who like to be surprised and are looking for houmorous accents in cinema will enjoy: „Cyrograf” by Igor Mołodecki, whose protagonist collects … human souls; „Inny film” by Brygida Frosztęga-Kmiecik, a picture about a group of disabled people making a film which was inspired by the first Polish filmotherapy workshops lead by Gliwice Film Club; „Self(less)-Portrait” by Matej Bobrik, which presents the relationship of the director with the two closest women in his life: grandmother who lives alone and with whom he stays in touch only by phone and his Japanese girlfriend with whom he decides to get married; also „Sposób na kryzys” by Ivo Kardel, a contemporary and documentary version of Stanisław Bareja’s TV series „Alternatywy 4” (4 Disjunction Street).

While more serious subjects are touched upon in the film produced on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – „Campo di Fiori” directed by Michał Nekanda-Trepka, a film inspired by a poem of Czesław Miłosz and with Miłosz in the background, and „Rotem” by Agnieszka Arnold, whose protagonist survived the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and then, like the characters from Tarantino’s „Inglorious Basterds”, tried to revenge on the Nazis. The screening of Arnold’s film was planned for the opening of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

The films selected to all four festival competitions were chosen by the Krakow Film Festival selection committee working under the director Krzysztof Gierat. Documentaries were recommended by: a film critic Anita Piotrowska, film scholars: Jadwiga Hućkova and Marta Hauschild as well as a producer Dariusz Kowalski. Documentary short film were selected by: a director Marta Minorowicz and film scholars: Joanna Ostrowska and Tomasz Bielenia. The largest circle of selectors watched feature films: a film critic Anna Bielak, scriptwriter Joanna Pawluśkiewicz, director Grzegorz Jaroszuk, film scholar Tomasz Natora and scriptwriter Łukasz M. Maciejewski. Animations were looked at by: film scholar Mariusz Frukacz and director Robert Sowa. All Polish films were reviewed by Jerzy Armata, a film critic.

A full list of seleceted films is available here.