POLISH DOCUMENTARY FILMS AT 60TH KRAKOW FILM FESTIVAL
We already know the titles qualified for best international documentary film competition at Krakow Film Festival. This years edition will take place online from 31 May to the 7th of June.
In this difficult time of quarantine the documentary competition will be your window to the world. It will take our audience to the faraway corners of the world and let them take a close look at the heroes from different cultures, their emotions and problems. Films from prestigious festivals as well as long-awaited world premieres will be competing for a Golden Horn and Silver Horns in front of the international jury. Three Polish productions and one coproduction are among them.
This year we have a considerable number of films from Russia and about Russia. Most of all they reveal a picture of Leviathan in the state of inertia, but the documentary filmmakers offer us also a completely different images of that country. And they do it using great variety of means, Anita Piotrowska, film critic and curator of the documentary competition, says.
One of those films is Maciej Cuske’s “The Whale from Lorino”. His documentary film is a unique journey nearly to the end of the world – to Chukotka. In order to survive, the local tribe is forced to whale hunt. At the same time the heroes of a Swedish documentary “Bitter Love” by Jerzy Śladkowski set off on a river cruise on the Volga to mend broken hearts, experience unforgetable love affairs and save struggling relationships.
Their new films will show Piotr Stasik and Tomasz Wolski. “Altered States of Consciousness” by Piotr Stasik is an intimate portrait of people with autism and Asperger’s syndrome. The director develops a close bond with his protagonists which helps him discover fascinating nooks and crannies of an unconventional imagination. “An Ordinary Country” by Tomasz Wolski is a brutal picture of a life under surveillance in the communist Poland. Controlled conversations and footage from hidden cameras, dirty recordings of interrogations and recruitment attempts as well as video tutorials for the secret service agents make for a gut-wrenching perspective on captive minds.
Films in the international documentary competition of the 60th Krakow Film Festival.
“Acasa, My Home”, dir. Radu Ciorniciuc, 85’, Romania, Finland, Germany
“The Self Portrait”, dir. Margreth Olin, Katja Hogset, Espen Wallin, 70’, Norway
“Sunless Shadows”, dir. Mehrdad Oskouei, 74’, Iran, Norway
“Kunashir”, dir. Vladimir Kozlov, 71’, France
“Bitter Love”, dir. Jerzy Śladkowski, 86’, Sweden/Finland/Poland
“I Love You I Miss You I Hope I See You Before I Die”, dir. Eva Marie Rødbro, 76’, Denmark
“The Painter and the Thief”, dir. Benjamin Ree, 102’, Norway
“Altered States of Consciousness”, dir. Piotr Stasik, Poland
“Higher Love”, dir. Hasan Oswald, 78’, USA
“The Whale from Lorino”, dir. Maciej Cuske, Poland
“The Foundation Pit”, dir. Andrey Gryazev, 70’, Russia
“An Ordinary Country”, dir. Tomasz Wolski, 53’, Poland
The Krakow Film Festival is on the exclusive list of the Academy Awards documentary feature qualifying events and the winner of the Golden Horn is shortlisted for the Oscar selection. KFF also qualifies short films (live action, animated, documentary) for the Academy Awards and recommends them for the European Film Awards.
The programme of the 60th Krakow Film Festival will be moved entirely online! The latest documentary, animated and short films from around the world, awaited Polish premieres and meetings with filmmakers will be available online, from the safety of your own home. The full festival programme will be announced mid-May.
More information about the Krakow Film Festival can be found here.