56. Krakow Film Festival starts on Sunday!

On May 29, Sunday, starts the 56th edition of Krakow Film Festival, one of the oldest and the most recognisable events dedicated to documentary, animated and short films. During 8 days of the festival, the viewers will have a chance to watch, in 4 competitions and 12 non-competing sections, over 250 films from Poland and around the world, the majority of which will be shown in Poland for the first time.

The grand opening gala of the Festival, which is held in the cinema Kijów.Centrum at 6 p.m. will be honoured with the world première of the documentary film “21 x New York City” by Piotr Stasik. It is an intimate portrait of the city and its inhabitants. We get acquainted with the protagonists in the New York City subway, and we follow them to the surface in order to learn more about their lives, desires, passions, hopes and dreams – sometimes squandered, and sometimes still waiting for fulfilment. The documentary film by Stasik, a remarkable story about loneliness accompanying people living in the Western society of the 21st century, will be evaluated by the Juries of two festival competitions: Polish and international documentary film competitions.

This year, the special guest at the Festival is Swedish cinematography – within the section “Focus on Sweden,” the latest documentary and short films will be shown, as well as a programme for children and teenagers and a selection of student films. The section will be inaugurated on Monday, May 30 at 6 p.m. by the screening of the film “The Swedish Theory of Love” with the participation of the author – the well-known, uncompromising director Erik Gandini. The documentary film is an attempt to confront the stereotypical, extremely idealistic perception of Sweden (and the Nordic countries in general) as the land of happiness. In his cinematic essay, the director strives to examine this view. He is looking for a flaw, meticulously exploring the real nature of the Swedish society. It turns out that it sometimes happens that the price of absolute freedom and complete independence is a keen sense of loneliness and alienation.

One of the most interesting events of the first days of the Festival is undoubtedly the screening of the monumental work by Sergey Miroshnichenko “Rings of the World,” opening this year’s series “Olympic Games in the eyes of the masters” on Monday, at 20:30 in the cinema Kijów.Centrum. The Olympic Games in Sochi are the most expensive Olympic event in history, which was meant to show the power of Putin’s Russia by their scale. Splendour also flows from the film, showing the meticulous preparations, beautiful landscapes and spectacular, breath-taking shots of sport disciplines. However, the Olympic athletes shine brighter against this background – dreaming about medals, overcoming their fears and weaknesses, raising the spirit of sports above social and political divisions. The director will participate in the screening and the open discussion with the audience.

This year’s Dragon of Dragons award, for the contribution to the international documentary cinema, goes to Marcel Łoziński, an eminent director, documentary film-maker and educator, one of the best known and most frequently awarded Polish film-makers in the world, the winner of countless film festivals and many prestigious awards. The official presentation of the award is held on May 31, Tuesday, at 6 p.m. The ceremony will be accompanied by the screening of three unique films by the artist: the 1994 Academy Award nominee “89 mm from Europe,” 2009 award-winner at Krakow Film Festival “Poste Restante,” and “Anything can happen,” which was chosen the best Polish documentary film of the century this year.
In addition, within the frames of this year’s edition of the Festival, Krzysztof Kieślowski retrospective will be held to honour the 20th anniversary of the artist’s death, and a review of films dedicated to Andrzej Wajda, on the occasion of the master’s 90th birthday.

Innumerable films screenings are accompanied by meetings with film-makers, workshops and exhibitions (the photo exhibition “Krzysztof Kieślowski. Photographs from the city of Lodz”, the exhibition about the Czech science documentary in the 20th century in the form of a video installation), concerts (Brodka, Krakow Street Band, Terrific Sunday) and events for the film industry, Industry Zone.
In response to the expectations of the viewers, a new series is created this year – Critical mornings, that is, close meetings between critics responsible for the selection with the authors of the films which they selected.

In the third edition of the series Docs+Science, there appears a review of the most interesting science documentary films and meetings with experts. In the open-air cinema Kino pod Wawelem, 5 documentary and feature films under the banner of “Beatlemania” will be shown. The author of the programme “Sounds of Music,” Piotr Metz, selected films which confront the phenomenon of one of the most influential music bands in the history of music.

Traditionally, there are also screenings of films awarded at the partner festivals (“Festival Award Winners”), Polish documentary, animated and short films, directed both by young film-makers and by acclaimed directors (“Panorama of the Polish Film”), the review of short films nominated for the European Film Award in 2015 (“Short Matters!”), screenings for children and teenagers (Kids & Youth), the most famous documentary films of the last year from the most diverse corners of the world (“World Stories”), films made in European countries (“Somewhere in Europe”).

In four competitions, 114 films will vie for the recognition of the jury and the audience. The best productions from all corners of the globe will participate in the International documentary film festival, International short film festival, in the music documentary film competition DocFilmMusic and in the National competition.

This year, Krakow Film Festival will host about 850 Polish and international visitors: directors, producers, festival representatives and over 25 000 viewers.

56th Krakow Film Festival is held from May 29 to June 5, 2016.
Detailed programme and the tickets available on: www.krakowfilmfestival.pl