On 31st May in ICC 50th KFF’s press conference took place. The main topic was the recently published jubilee album 1961-2010. Check out how the meeting went!
Yesterday, the Krakow Film Festival’s Press Conference took place in the International Cultural Centre. In the atmosphere of memories, we, unofficially, began the jubilee edition of the festival. The conference was opened by the festival’s director Krzysztof Gierat. The meeting of journalists and long-time supporters of the festival was focused on the album, prepared specially from the 50th edition of the festival. The editor-in-chief, Grzegorz Słącz, talked about the general idea of the volume. He also reminisced his cooperation with the late Władysław Cybulski (a film critic and journalist who died on 1st May) whose text for the album about the 60’s was, unfortunately, his last long piece.
Individual decades from the festival’s history were prepared by: Władysław Sobecki, a former jury secretary, Bogusław Zmudziński (the 70’s), Jadwiga Hućkova (the 80’s). Maria Maltyńska (the 90’s) and Tadeusz Lubelski (2000’s). Krzysztof Gierat and Barbara Orlicz-Szczypuła, the Head of Programme Office, shares the anecdotes from last couple of years.
The conference hosted a special guest – a member of the first jury from 1961—Ryszard Karwicki, who gave a little speech, too.
The KFF’s jubilee album 1961-2010 is now available at the Festival Reception Desk in Kijów.Centrum cinema. It’s almost 200 pages of archival photos, memoirs or spicy stories such as top-secret methods of sneaking into the cinema without the ticket 😉 The price: 35 PLN
Check out the PHOTOGALLERY from the press conference.
One of the stories from the 50th KFF Jubilee Album
How to make today’s Young spectator – benefiting freely from a whole, year – round selection of festivals – aware of what Shor Film Festivals meant for a student early in the 1970s? Maybe it will be most convincing to start with the description of the little scenes from the festival – which kindle a mere ghost of a smile today, even though they were highly emotional when they happened – rather than plainly recollect the films which could be seen on the screen of the Kijów Cinema, still smelling with fresh paint and impressing with the elegance of later days of the Gomuła government.
It is a fact difficult to imagine today that in those days you needed your own mysterious way to come into possession of a passs o participate in Kraków festivals. As they could not be bought – due to their strict rationing – they had to be somehow obtained, or even wheedled out. If that failed, there were always other means left, or rather, a combination of a number of resources. The first and most basic was to wait for the end of the first screening by the cinema, on its western side, so as to discreetly mix into the crowd of the leaving spectators once the door was open, and – sneaking past the screen – reach the cinema’s foyer together with those participants who did not intend to leave the premises after the first screening. Once you had managed to get into the cinema, all you had to do was to grasp what the festival offered from early afternoon to the small hours of the night, when the last show ended.
Another way was a significant complementation of the first, yet it required a dab of daring, if not pure cheek. If, once already inside the cinema, you felt eager to help other enthusiasts pining for impressions of the festival, all you needed to do was to borrow two “bearer passes” from one of the official participants, and – with the lady ticket inspectors looking – pass them through a slot in the internal door, which was still there at that time, to one of your friends crowding in front of the entrance. Moreover, during the day, you could leave once or twice with these passes, and return inside after a while, bringing with you another craving cinemaniac.
All these manoeuvres served a noble cause: participation in the most important film event held at the time in Poland providing access to the blossoming short form, experiencing a true apogee in Poland and abroad.