POLISH FILMS AT THE FESTIVAL IN GUANAJUATO

Today in the evening starts the 17th edition of the International Film Festival in Guanajuato, Mexico. This year, Polish cinematography is the festival's special guest. In the programme, apart from feature films, there are almost sixty Polish short, animated and documentary films.

Numerous institutions were invited to participate in this year's special programme: Lodz Film School, Wajda School, Munk Studio (Polish Filmmakers Association), ZubrOFFka Film Festival, as well as Krakow Film Foundation. Each of them prepared a separate film programme. Krakow Film Foundation will present in Mexico three film programmes comprising of 25 films. The first one is the screening of films that form a part of Film Promotion Agency’s catalogue and were made by the students of Radio and Television Faculty at the University of Silesia in Katowice including, among others, "All Souls' Day" by Aleksandra Terpińska and "The Fourth Man" by Krzysztof Kasior that are both well known by the festival audience. 

The second programme - a documentary one - consists of two retrospectives of documentary filmmakers and cinematographers - Marcin Koszałka and Wojciech Staroń. On Monday, the following films by Marcin Koszałka will be screened - "Such a nice son I gave birth to", "All day together" and "The Existence", as well as two films by Wojciech Staroń: "Argentinian Lesson" and "The Siberian Lesson". In addition, the programme includes also the latest documentary by Wiktoria Szymańska, called "The man who made angels fly" in which Staroń co-operated as the author of the cinematography. 

The documentary programme is complemented by the screening of short films. Among them, there are films by Piotr Stasik ("The Last Day of Summer"), Tomasz Wolski ("The Lucky Ones") and Marcin Janos Krawczyk ("Six Weeks"). 
 
The third programme is dedicated entirely to animated films. The audience and guests of the Mexican festival will watch ten films from the catalogue of the Krakow Film Foundation, among others, the award-winning "Millhaven" by Bartek Kulas, "Sequence" by Robert Sowa and "Virus" by Robert Proch.

The project is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and Polish Film Institute. Krakow Festival Office and Krakow Film Commission are the partners of the project. The representatives of Krakow Film Foundation in Mexico are Zofia Ścisłowska and Katarzyna Wilk, who is also invited to the jury which will watch the Mexican student films in the "Identity and Belonging" competition. 

The focal point of Polish presence at the festival in Guanajuato is the Polish-Mexican forum, which is held on 31st July. The meeting, held with the participation of both Polish and Mexican representatives of film industry, is intended to bring closer the dominant strategies in the film industry of the two countries as well as prompt a discussion about future co-operation. 

The festival in Gunajuato is the most important festival promoting the works of young directors in Latin America.  Every year, the festival gathers an audience of 90 000 viewers, who - in cinemas and festival venues located in two festival cities, San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato - watch the programme, composed of over 400 films. This year, in the short film competition, the school fiction film by Jagoda Szelc,  "Such a landscape" (produced by Lodz Film School) will compete for awards, while the latest animation by Tomasz Siwiński called "A Blue Room" (prod. Se-ma-for, Sacrebleu Productions) will be screened as a part of the animated film competition. In addition, in the non-competing screening Midnight Madness, there is the animated film "To Thy Heart" by Ewa Borysewicz (produced by Animaso, Serafiński Studio).

You can read more about the International Film Festival in Guanajuato as well as find out more about  Polish presence in Mexico here

The completete list of the short and animated films screened at the festival can be found here, while the list of documenary films is available here