Top industry representatives from around the world, including selectors from Berlinale, Sundance, Locarno, and the most important international animated and documentary film festivals, will be guests at this year’s 18th KFF Industry – the largest event for the international documentary and animated film community in Poland. As usual, the programme includes workshops, pitches, presentations, networking meetings, and a digital online video library. New to the programme are events focusing on XR and VR production, as well as V4 Co-pro Meetings – co-production meetings for the Visegrad Group countries.
We now know the programme of this year’s KFF Industry – an event for the film industry that has been organised for nearly twenty years during the Krakow Film Festival. Creators, producers, and international industry members involved with animated and documentary films will come to Kraków at the turn of May and June. The KFF Industry is a place where they present their projects (at three pitching events), meet with experts, make new relationships, or seek funding for their productions.
Selectors from Berlinale, Sundance, Locarno, and the most important international animated and documentary film festivals, including IDFA, CPH:DOX, DOC NYC, Visions du Reel, Hot Docs, DOK Leipzig, Kaboom Animation, and Anima Brussels, will come to Krakow, along with leading sales agents and distributors, representatives of funds and producers from around the world.
For Animators
Animated in Poland is an integral part of KFF Industry – a section of the KFF Industry program focusing on animated films. It includes panel discussions, presentations of animation projects and studios, and one-on-one individual meetings. The animation sections are planned for 29 and 30 May.
On Monday, 29 May, Maarten van Gageldonk – the program director of the Kaboom Festival, the largest animated film festival in the Netherlands – will host consultation and pitching technique workshops.
The Talent Market will be held on the same day. It’s a meeting of experienced producers with young animation creators, prepared in cooperation with SPPA – Polish Animation Producers Association. Scriptwriters, animators, directors, and producers seeking co-producers will have the opportunity to meet with producers and owners of Polish animation studios looking for new ideas and film projects. The Talent Market will include public presentations of the studios and one-on-one meetings.
Animated in Poland will also include discussion panels, including “How to cooperate with an animation studio?” prepared by the Letko studio, and a legal panel led by Marcin Lassota and Wojciech Krawiec from the Lassota i Krawiec sp.j. law firm. This year, attendees will get the opportunity learn about “Legal issues and challenges of film adaptation”.
However, Animated in Poland is primarily an international pitch. On Tuesday, 30 May, representatives of seven animated projects that have been selected for pitching will be able to present the films they are working on to specialists: distributors, sales agents, festival programmers, and representatives of film institutions. On the same day, project representatives will have the opportunity to speak in individual meetings with festival selectors, sales agents, distributors, and commissioning editors from TV stations.
The programme for all those interested in animation will be rounded off with a Master Class by world-renowned Dutch master of animation Michael Dudok de Wit – this year’s Dragon of Dragons award winner.
For Documentarians
One of the permanent elements of the KFF Industry programme is the workshops co-organised with the Władysław Ślesicki Film Foundation that conclude DOC LAB POLAND – the largest program in Poland aimed at documentarians. This year, participants will be preparing for presentations during pitches under the guidance of tutors – international experts: Adriek van Nieuwenhuijzen, long-time head of IDFA Industry, Tereza Simikova – expert from Chicken and Egg Pictures and former head of Industry at CPH:DOX, Ove Rishøj Jensen – producer, consultant and head of FIPADOC Industry and DocCelerator, Rada Šešić, a selector at many significant international festivals, head of the documentary competition at Sarajevo FF and Docu Rough Cut Boutique, and Peter Jaeger, a long-time sales agent, founder of Autlook Filmsales and Jaeger Creative.
The culmination of the workshops will be two pitch sessions: Docs to Go (Wednesday, 31 May) and Docs to Start (Thursday, 1 June). Docs to Start is a presentation of Polish projects in the development phase, while Docs to Go is a presentation of Polish documentaries in the editing or post-production phase. Each of them will end with individual meetings between participants and experts – potential co-production partners, festival programmers and sales agents. This year, additionally – as part of the DOC LAB POLAND & UKRAINE project – Polish creators will be joined by artists and producers from Ukraine. A total of 28 projects will be presented at both pitches.
Thursday, 1 June, will see the Meet the Festival Programmers and Sales Agents presentations with the participation of representatives of international film festivals and foreign sales agents, combined with KFF Industry Meetings – individual consultation meetings with invited guests. The meetings are aimed at festival creators, producers, or persons responsible for promotion and distribution, who are looking for potential venues for premieres and further screenings of their films worldwide.
Spanish film is the special feature at the 63rd edition of the Krakow Film Festival. There will be two events of Focus on Spain as part of KFF Industry that will get you to know Spanish documentary films better. On Thursday, 1 June, there will be a Polish-Spanish co-production round table with the participation of producers from Poland and Spain. Then on Friday, 2 June, there will be a presentation and panel on the production and financing of documentary films in Spain. The industry events dedicated to Spanish documentaries are prepared in cooperation with KIPA – the Polish Producers Alliance, and ICAA and Basque.Audiovisual.
CEDOC – Central European Documentary Co-Production Market is organised for producers who are looking for foreign partners. It’s Poland’s only such series individual co-production meetings with international decision-makers in the film industry and foreign producers who are open to cooperation with Poland. The meetings in a one-on-one and round table formats will take place on Friday, 2 June. This year, V4 Co-Pro Meetings will also be part of the market – featuring co-production meetings for film professionals from the Visegrád Group countries. The aim is to encourage contacts between producers and filmmakers from the region to collaborate in film production. Those attending V4 Co-Pro Meetings will also meet with Ukrainian producers to discuss co-production possibilities. Meeting participants will take part in individual consultations with invited experts from television stations, platforms, production companies, and sales agencies.
A novelty during this year’s KFF Industry will be the New Narratives (&) XR event dedicated to virtual reality. The event, prepared in cooperation with KIPA and vnLab operating at the Łódź Film School, is aimed at producers and creators in the field of immersive media. During the panels, they will share their experiences and talk about the challenges encountered while developing their VR projects. In the second part, we will hear about the process and the role of creative producers and establishing new relationships in the field of action with financing institutions.
At the end of the KFF Industry, on Saturday 3 June, there will be the annual Filmmakers’ Meetings, as well as documentary and animation panels prepared by the Polish Filmmakers Association in collaboration with the Krakow Film Foundation.
KFF Industry also includes KFF Video Library – a digital video library, where you can watch the latest films from around the world throughout the festival week, which are looking for cinema, festival, and television distribution. This year’s catalogue includes over 150 documentary, short and animated films, carefully selected by our partners from: DOK Leipzig, East Silver, Thessaloniki International Documentary Film Festival, and Festival dei Popoli. What’s more, KFF Video Library gives participants the opportunity to watch films from the 63rd KFF program.
Every year, about 800 industry guests from all over the world participate in KFF Industry. This year, we also expect a similar number of international creators, producers, experts, consultants, sales agents, distributors, representatives of film funds, television stations, and film festivals, who will come to Krakow at the end of May.
Detailed KFF Industry program and full schedule.
Partners of KFF Industry 2023: Władysław Ślesicki Film Foundation, Polish Animation Producers Association, Visegrad Fund, KIPA, Institute of Documentary Film, Sound Mind Studio, Fixafilm, Crew United Polska, Lassota Krawiec sp.j.,
Co-organiser: Creative Europe Desk Polska.
The project was made possible with financial support from: Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, City of Krakow, Polish Filmmakers Association, and Visegrád Fund.
Media patrons: Film&TV Camera, Polish Docs, Polish Shorts, Polish Animations, SFP Film Magazine, Business Doc Europe, Modern Times Review, Film New Europe.
KFF Industry is organised and produced by the Krakow Film Foundation. The event takes place during the 63rd Krakow Film Festival.
Ph. Tomasz Korczyński / KFF