As soon as on May 26 starts the 59th Krakow Film Festival. As every year, the festival will be accompanied by many industry events, dedicated to film professionals present at the festival. We would like to invite you to familiarize yourself with the programme.
One of the main events of the KFF Industry is KFF Market– a digital video library, in which, throughout the entire festival week, one can watch the latest films from around the world, which are looking for cinema, festival and television distribution. In this year’s catalogue, there are about 250 documentary, short and animated films, including the festival’s competition films and sections prepared by the partners: Institute of Documentary Film, DOK Lepizg, Swiss Films, Visions du Reel, Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, Festival dei Popoli and Finnish Film Foundation.
In this year’s programme of KFF Industry, there is also a place for animated films. Within the frames of the section Animated in Poland, there will be a pitching of Polish short animated films in the final stage of production. The representatives of the selected projects will have a chance to show their excerpts and to talk about their films, before they are shown at Polish and foreign film festivals. Animated in Poland includes also three other events. Co-organized with SPPA Talent Market is the place where producers meet new talents. Screenwriters, animators, directors and producers looking for a co-production will have the chance to meet with producers and owners of the animation studios based in Poland, who are looking for new ideas and projects. For those interested in combining the drawing and the film there will be a workshop on storyborading. During the workshops, participants will try to define a good storyboard. They will learn the basics of working with a storyboard, they will see examples of different types, techniques, software and methods of use in various industries, with particular emphasis on animation. The legal panel co-organized with Kancelaria Lassota will be dedicated to the proper ways of acquisition of rights by the animation producer with particular emphasis on copyright and related rights to individual elements – the graphic layer, music and text.
An important event will be the Master Class of this year’s winner of the Dragon of Dragons award at the 59th Krakow Film Festival – Caroline Leaf, an acclaimed animated filmmaker. During the Master Class, the director will tell about his style of work. Her animated story telling films are known for their emotional content and graphic style, closely tied to the innovative animation techniques that she invented. They are made by manipulating beach sand on a lightbox or finger painting on glass under the camera lens, and scratching directly into film emulsion.
For the fifth time in Krakow will be held one of the DOC LAB POLAND sessions, co-organized with Władysław Ślesicki Film Foundation. DLP is a series of workshops and consultations for directors and producers of Polish documentary films which ends with two pitching sessions: DOCS TO START and DOCS TO GO!. DOCS TO START is a presentation of Polish projects at the stage of development, whereas DOCS TO GO! is a presentation of Polish documentary films at the stage of editing or post-production. Both sessions eventuate in the meetings with festival programmers and sales agents. This year 21 projects were chosen to be presented. Organized for the producers looking for production partners, DOC LAB POLAND Co-production Market includes individual meetings with international decision makers from the film industry and foreign producers, who are open to co-operation with Poland.I n the production case study of the award winning feature documentary film – multi‑winner of the last year’s edition of the Krakow Film Festival – “Over the limit” directed by Marta Prus the producer Maciej Kubicki will tell about all the steps in the challenging financing and production process.
The special guest at this year’s 59th edition of Krakow Film Festival is Finnish cinema. The programme “Focus on Finland” includes screenings of selected latest Finnish documentary, short and animated films. An important event of the section is the Conference, the aim of which is to present the model of contemporary Finnish n cinema (starting from the most important movies and directors, through film institutions and festivals, ending with production and financing of documentary films). The guests of the panels are Finnish producers, distributors, TV editors, representatives of institutions financing film projects and representatives of Finnish film festivals. Key note speakers include, among others, Erkko Lyytinen (Yle), Sari Volanen (Yle), Suvi Paavola (Finnish Film Foundation), Piia Nokelainen (Finnish Film Foundation), Pekka Uotila (Finnish Film Foundation), Niklas Kullström (Hillstream Pictures), Jukka-Pekka Laakso (Tampere Film Festival).
There is another event – sneak previews of Polish documentary films, closed to the public – DOCS TO BUY. After the screenings, there will be meetings between producers and international online and VOD distributors, invited specially for this occasion. Traditionally, the KFF Industry Meetings will be held. These are daily consulting individual meetings with experts (distributors, sales agents, buyers, film festival programmers), dedicated to filmmakers, producers and people working in film distribution. These meetings will be followed by KFF Industry Drinks – daily informal networking meetings accompanied by a glass of wine. Their attendance confirmed programmers of Berlinale, Cannes FF, Venice FF, Hot Docs, Visions du reel czy Doc Fortnight of MoMA in New York And also the most important sales agents of documentary, short and animated films.
The partners of KFF Industry 2019 are: Władysław Ślesicki Film Foundation, TVP – Polish Television, Krakow Festival Office, Krakow Film Commission, MOS, Małopolska Voivodeship Public Library, Institute of Documentary Film, Kancelaria Lassota, Krakow Technology Park, Sound Mind, Audiovisual Technology Center.
You can find more details and the complete programme here.