It’s today that starts the 52nd KFF. Marley with participation of the film director, Kevin Macdonald will open the projections. During these 7 days, we will see almost 250 films from all over the world.
It’s today that starts the 52nd Krakow Film Festival. Marley with participation of the film director, Kevin Macdonald will open the projections. During these 7 days of the festival, we will see almost 250 films from all over the world. The festival will end on 3 June. The Award Ceremony will be conducted by Maciej Stuhr.
We solicited for the Polish premiere of Marley since its first screening during this year’s Berlinale in February. In March, it was already agreed that Krakow would be the best place to show the film for the first time in Poland.
Marley was being prepared for 6 years. The film directing was first offered to Martin Scorsese, then to the director of The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme. Finally, it was Kevin Macdonald who succeeded in gaining trust and acceptance of Marley’s family. Ziggy Marley, the artist’s eldest son, played a huge part in the process of the film creation. During the Opening Ceremony in Krakow, we will have an opportunity to see the result of the director’s work, received with enthusiasm during its presentation in Berlin.
The Krakow Film Festival will award the films in two main international competition categories: Documentary Competition and Short Film Competition, as well as in the National Competition category. 2 475 films altogether applied for this year’s edition. From among them and many others seen at foreign festivals, the selecting commission chose 104 films to take part in the competition in these 3 categories.
The pool of awards equals 220 000 PLN. The most important awards are: Golden Dragon for the best short film, Golden Horn for the winning documentary and Golden Hobby-Horse for the best film in the National Competition.
The choice of last year’s most interesting documentary and short film productions will be shown out of competition. As part of the 12 regular thematic sections, we will present, among others, films numerously awarded at the most important festivals all over the world, pictures nominated for the European Film Awards and Krakow Film Premieres section, showing the films that often have their Polish or world premieres right now in Krakow, and particularly popular section The Sounds of Music, which has its second localization, except the cinema screening room, at the open air cinema situated near the Wawel castle.
After the last year’s presentation of Israeli and Dutch cinema, this year’s special guest of the festival will be Italian cinematography. The most interesting Italian documentary productions may be seen as part of the Focus on Italy section.
This year’s Dragon of Dragons award will be given to the author of over 50 documentaries and the prizewinner of an impressive amount of international film festivals – Helena Třeštíková. During the night of the Award Ceremony, we will see one of her most famous films, René. We have also prepared the retrospective of Třeštíková’s films.
Over 600 guests from all over the world are accredited to the festival – among them, 130 directors who will meet the audience and take part in workshops and business conferences organized as part of the Industry Zone. The Krakow Film Festival is also a great opportunity for young filmmakers from all over the world to present their new projects. Marian Marzyński, the first prizewinner of the festival, will come from the USA, Yoram Gross- acclaimed local Disney from Australia, Leo Kantor cooperating with the festival since years and Jerzy Śladkowski from Sweden. The new generation of the documentarians will be joining them – Jan Czarlewski from Sweden, and Agata Maciaszek from Spain.
The Krakow Film Festival is one of the oldest events in the world dedicated to documentary, animated and short feature films. The festival history reaches 1961, and since then, every year the festival gathers film authors and loyal spectators around one of a few organized on such a big scale reviews of these genres, representing several dozens cinematographies from all over the world. Prestige of the festival is confirmed by the list of impressive accreditations granted among others by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF), the European Film Academy (EFA) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). Thanks to that, the festival prizewinners receive direct nominations for the European Film Academy awards and for the Oscars in the short film category.