Still from Jacek Stożek's "Out of reach", photo: press release
Jakub Stożek's documentary Out of Reach recognised as the best documentary at the short film competition of one of the most important events in Latin America devoted to documentary cinema - the "It's All True" International Documentary Film Festival
For nearly two weeks in two Brazilian cities, the sixteenth edition of the festival presented the best documentary films of Brazil and the world. The festival programme was broken up into a National section and an International section, with two Polish films featured in the latter: Jakub Stożek's Poza zasięgiem / Out of Reach as well as Paweł Łoziński's Inventory. In total 92 films from 29 countries were screened. Stożek's film won out in the Short Film category. The winner in the international feature film category was You Don't Like the Truth – 4 Days Inside Guantánamo by Luc Côté and Patricio Henriquez.
The international jury included: Portuguese documentary film maker Graça Castanheira, Canadian-Iranian journalist and filmmaker Maziar Bahari and Sean Farnel, programme director of the Hot Docs festival in Toronto. Their award for Out of Reach s among several recent distinctions for the Polish film - it received an honourary mention at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011, a special award at AU Docudays in Kiev and the prize for best short documentary at DOCSDF 2010 (Festival Internacional de Cine Documental de la Ciudad de México).
Out of Reach has been called a breathtaking emotional cinematic experience. "The film offers a rare insight into the life of a family through a combination of a dramatic turn of events and engaging characters who fully trust the filmmaker," according to the festival jury. It is a story about two sisters, Karolina and Natalia, who try to reconstruct their identity after growing up without their mother and commanded by a dominating father. When Natalia's health begins to deteriorate, the two decide to search for their mother, Bożena, who left them when they were very young and is supposedly living in Paris. Followed by the film's director, Jakub Stożek, Karolina (the older sister) searches for someone she hasn't seen for 14 years and whose telephone always goes straight into voicemail.
More information about the festival can be found at: www.itsalltrue.com.br
Source: It's All True, Stopklatka.pl