The leitmotif of the 49th Kraków Film Festival, mainly in the sections presenting feature-length documentaries (Competition, Kraków Documentary Premieres, Sound of Music, Roots), will be journeys as a source of knowledge and reconciliation, the object of dreams and fascination with a different world, but also journeys as a dramatic return years later.
The core of the festival are competitions for documentaries, animated films, and short feature films competing in three categories: Polish short film, international short film, and feature-length documentary. This year's festival contest will review 90 titles. The Polish competition will see 20 documentaries, 7 animated films, and 4 feature shorts vying for the Gold Lajkonik award. The documentary section of the Polish competition promises to be especially interesting, with leading Polish documentary directors such as Ewa Borzęcka,
Maciej Drygas,
Marcel Łoziński, Andrzej Titkow, Tomasz Wolski,
Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz, and Zespół Paladino presenting their latest projects.
The themes of the international competition will include serious issues - such as the heartbreaking story of a Nicaraguan family's life on a rubbish dump (Family 068) or a picture about domestic violence and the victim syndrome (Leaving), through insightful contemplation of the sense of the bull run in Pamplona (Red Sands), to a totally funny lesson in the anatomy of gags (Anatomy of a Gag), and an animated film about animals making music in the forest (KJFG No. 5).
There are twelve entries in the youngest contest of the Kraków Film Festival, for feature-length documentaries, including one representing Poland. This year the Gold Horn award for the best feature-length documentary will be granted for the third time. The competing projects include Kim Longinotto's Rough Aunties, about a group of women in South Africa and their unwavering stand to protect abused children, the Indian film Bilal presenting the life of an extraordinary family of blind parents bringing up their mischievous children, and an original musical documentary on the problem of immigration and living in a multicultural society (99% Honest). The Polish film industry will be represented in the feature-length documentary competition by
Marcin Koszałka's film about female prisoners. This year the documentaries for the competition were selected by Anita Piotrowska, film expert and journalist, and Krzysztof Gierat, director of the Kraków Film Festival.
The festival films will be available not only to Kraków audiences. Thanks to the Cineman internet cinema, selected films from the feature-length documentary section and from out-of-competition screenings will be shown, for the first time and free of charge, on the internet as well, on the www.cineman.pl website. This portal will have a special section dedicated to the Kraków Film Festival, accessible throughout the festival's duration.
The Kraków Film Festival also includes visits from celebrity guests. On the festival's opening night Paul Mazursky, U.S. film director and five-time Academy Award nominee, will personally present his latest film, Yippee: A Journey to Jewish Joy. Therefore the festival programme also features a retrospective of the Maestro's films, screenings of projects by Kucia's students, and a special discussion between Kucia and the creators of soundtracks for his films, on the relations between animation and music. Apart from this, throughout the festival week, films in the competition will be evaluated by three panels of judges, chaired by
Zbigniew Rybczyński (international competition), Bogdan Dziworski (Polish competition), and Sergey Miroshnichenko (feature-length documentary competition).
Out-of-competition and special screenings will be held during the festival under the joint title "Kraków Documentary Premieres", presenting films picked out at world festivals. This year the organizer's choices include a journey to an Indian reservation in South Dakota, to politically minded Lima, along Israeli highways. The "Sound of Music" cycle will present films with good music, about music and musicians, among them a documentary about the legendary Zaire '74 music festival which featured the likes of James Brown, BB King, Bill Withers, Celia Cruz, and famous boxers Mohammad Ali and George Foreman, and a film telling the story of today's greatest Russian rock star - the famous Sergei Shnurov, leader of the Leningrad band. Audiences will also be able to take a trip around Europe with the members of Joyside, a punk-rock band from China.
A series of films in the "Jewish Roots" section will form a new cycle at the festival, presenting themes from the extraordinarily colourful and multi-faceted culture and tradition of Judaism. This year's pictures invoke such motifs as klezmer music, the problem of anti-Semitism, and contemporary relations between Jews and Poles.
This year is the 40th anniversary of the death of
Krzysztof Komeda; to commemorate the occasion, the organizers and eminent film expert Prof. Marek Hendrykowski have prepared screenings of films with Komeda's music. This review will be a representative sample of Komeda's output, with over twenty titles testifying to the unique talent and skills of the great musician.
Every year the Kraków Film Festival develops and expands its sections targeted at the film industry. Among the events organized as part of the Industry Zone is the Kraków Film Market, this year held for the fourth time. This is the only initiative in Poland, and one of few in Central and Eastern Europe, promoting shorts, animated films, and documentaries. The main aim of the Market is to offer and present these cinematic forms to producers and film distributors, representatives of festivals and TV stations from all over the world. The organizers wish mainly to promote Polish productions and assist the Polish film industry in making a presence for itself on the international market, as well as promoting the work of young, debuting filmmakers. However, due to substantial interest from the foreign film community, the Market's video library also includes films from all over the world, which lends the event an international flavour. Apart from the Market, the Industry Zone will include many exciting screenings, meetings, presentations, and discussion panels. One major event this year will be a two-day forum of international distributors dealing exclusively with short films and documentaries.
Screenings will be held at the Kijów.Centrum, Pod Baranami, and Mikro cinemas. In the evenings, festival participants will be able to have a good time at the Festival Clubs: Filmowa Cafe and Pauza.
For more information go to pages
www.kff.com.pl.