POLISH DOCUMENTARIES AT THE HOT DOCS FESTIVAL IN CANADA

At one of the biggest festivals on the world, Hot Docs in Toronto, Canada, there will be a strong representation of Polish documentary cinema. Two Polish films will take part in the competition, while as much as 22 films will be shown during the film market Doc Shop 2010.

Hot Docs is the largest documentary film festival in the North America and plays an extremely important role in the international documentary film industry arena. For seventeen years this enormous event has been a great opportunity for meeting film-makers, producers, distributors and film experts. Hot Docs is not only a festival during which documentary cinema from around the world is presented. Within the frames of a widely understood initiative of developing the film industry, the organizers offer film fair, conferences and discussion panels.


The main points of the Hot Docs festival include (apart from competition and non-competition programmes, presenting the latest documentary films from around the world):

- Toronto Documentary Forum a set of coproduction meetings followed by a pitching sessions, helping to develop international co-production projects, which are at different stages of making, by providing funds

- Doc Shop, that is film fair in the form of digitalized library, containing over 1500 documentary films

- Doc Shop Online – project offering all year long on-line access to films shown at the festival (initiative addressed to registered producers, distributors, professionals)

- Sales Office – that is a meeting place for people interested in buying and selling the documentary film projects – which is the specific centre of the film market

- International Co-Production Day – a day devoted to meetings of producers, interested in making international projects


At this year's festival the following Polish documentaries will be shown:

- Chemo, dir. Paweł Łoziński (the international competition)

- Six Weeks, dir. Marcin Janos Krawczyk (the international competition)

- War Games, dir. Dariusz Jabłoński (international survey of the best documentaries )

- A Man Came and Took Her, dir. Jędrzej Niestrój, Rafał Przybył ( international survey of the best documentaries)


In addition, within the frames of Doc Shop the audience will have a chance to get acquainted with a wide range of Polish documentary films. The following films will be presented under POLISH DOCS programme:

Six weeks, dir. Marcin Janos Krawczyk

Chemo, dir. Pawel Lozinski

The Lucky Ones, dir. Tomasz Wolski

The Actors, dir. Tomasz Wolski

Mother, dir. Jakub Piątek

Where the Sun Doesn’t Rush, dir. Matej Bobrik

Andrzej Wajda: let’s shoot!, dir. Marcin Sauter, Maciej Cuske, Thierry Paladino, Piotr Stasik

Warsaw Available, dir. Karolina Bielawska, Julia Ruszkiewicz

The Unemployed, dir. Nastia Tarasowa

Flightless Birds, dir. Michal Dawidowicz

Side-Track, dir. Anna Kazejak

Getting On, dir. Renata Gabryjelska

Direction: Iceland, dir. Kalina Alabrudzinska

Agor Dromesko (At the End of Way), dir. Jedrzej Baczyk

Chasm, dir. Wojciech Kasperski

Beautiful Misunderstanding, dir. Pawel Ferdek

The Way, dir. Grzegorz Korczak

Henryk Musialowicz. MAN, dir. Anna Blaszczyk, Robert Kielak

Good morning, Lenin!, dir. Konrad Szolajski

Nowhere Blues, dir. Bartosz Warwas

The Dog Hill, dir. Grzegorz Zariczny

Little Bride, dir. Leslaw Dobrucki


It is noteworthy that Polish films have enjoyed popularity at that festival. In recent years, the Hot Docs audience had an opportunity to watch, among others, short-length documentaries by young film-makers - “Rendez-​​vous” by Marcin Janos Krawczyk, “By the River” by Magdalena Kowalczyk, “52 percent” by Rafał Skalski or “Cupboard” by Jacob Dammas, and last year “Rabbit a la Berlin ” by Bartek Konopka was recognised as the best middle-length film of the festival, and this award began the series of the film's successes.  

More information on the website www.hotdocs.ca