Again we have received a record number of submissions!
This year’s submission of films to the upcoming 56th edition of Krakow Film Festival ended with a staggering number. Just like last year, over three thousand film productions: short, documentary and animated, came from the most distant corners of the world. The films, which will qualify for four festival competitions and be shown to the audience at the turn of May and June, are chosen by a dozen experts in a very demanding selection process.
The short fictions are the most numerous with 1633 films submitted.
“Among feature films, the interest in the subject matter of refugees is visible, and not only among film-makers from Europe. On the other hand, there is no shortage of short films, whose authors face other demons and challenges – cultural, social ones. On the screen, a whole gallery of characters appears – young protagonists, rebellious or despairing, lonely or in love. Personally, I am very glad about it and I also hope that it would be mirrored in the final selection – among the submissions, one can find interesting genre shorts.” says Dagmara Romanowska, the film critic and member of The Selection Committee.
Documentary films are one of the most important part of the festival programme. This year, as many as 1285 films compete for the qualification for the competition. “The war in Ukraine, the refugee crisis, the growing xenophobia in Central and Eastern Europe, people living on the margins of the society – these are the subjects which are the most recurrent themes in the documentary films submitted to us from all over the world. We try to choose such films which show that not only the world changes, but the documentary film itself,” explains the documentary film section selector, the film critic Anita Piotrowska.
From among over 3322 film proposals from around the world, 321 comes from Poland. The majority of submissions are feature films – 1633, including 101 Polish ones; in the second place as far as number of applications is concerned, there are full-length documentary films (with the running time over 30 minutes) – in this category, there are 744 proposals, including 81 Polish ones. In third place, there are short documentary films (shorter than 30 minutes) – 541 films were submitted, including 83 Polish ones, while animated films are in the fourth place – 404 were submitted, including 56 Polish ones.
The majority of foreign submissions came to us form Germany (316) and France (281). The last place on the podium goes to the USA (252). Next, there are, among others, Spain (226), Great Britain (212), Russia (191) and Italy (141).
In addition, submissions came to us from countries such as: Bahrain, Angola, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, Ecuador, Guyana, Guatemala, Haiti, Cambodia, Cameroon, Kenya, Madagascar, Myanmar, Nepal, the Central African Republic, Cape Verde, Western Sahara, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, the Faroe Islands, São Tomé and Príncipe, Zimbabwe.
The Selection Committee under the guidance of the Festival’s director, Krzysztof Gierat consists of acclaimed film critics, film theorists, filmmakers and producers. The films come to us almost for half a year, with the greatest intensity at the end of the deadline for applications. Usually, a month and a half passes between the end of submission and the announcement of the list of films qualified for the competitions.
The results of the selection will be announced at the beginning of April on our website.