52nd Krakow Film Festival already behind us.
52nd Krakow Film Festival already behind us. This year’s edition gathered nearly 600 guests, including a record number of 130 directors representing several dozens of world cinematographies. During these 7 days, 250 films were screened on 7 screens. How to produce a film, promote and sell it were the topics of discussions between participants of the Industry Zone accompanying the festival, here also the Cinema Fairs took place.
Among regular festival participants, Denmark, France, Germany, United Kingdom or USA, in the group of accredited guests there were also representatives of Brazil, Japan and South Korea to be found. A distinctive number of 7 Israeli films was invited, which confirms the strong position of the cinema from that country.
It is already tradition of the Krakow Film Festival that on the competitive list, near promising debutants there are also names often receiving awards. It was also this year when Vitalij Mansky and Danis Tanović entered the competition among other film makers.
Owing to the fact that directors of the films shown in non competitive sections turned up in large numbers, the Krakow festival became a perfect place for meetings and presentations of the most interesting projects of international and national film makers scattered throughout the world. Marian Marzyński, the first laureate of the festival, arrived from the USA; Yoram Gross, acclaimed the local Disney, from Australia; and Leo Kantor and Jerzy Śladkowski, connected with the festival since years, from Sweden. Representatives of the new generation of documentarians Jan Czarlewski from Switzerland and Agata Maciaszek from Spain joined them.
Moreover, representatives of the most important and the biggest world film festivals arrived to Krakow: Adriek van Nieuwenhuyzen from IDFA in Amsterdam, Grit Lemke from DOK Leipzig, Alessandro Marcionni and Sergio Fant from Locarno Film Festival.
Representation embraced also the festivals in Nyon, Odense, Florence, Jihlava, Geneva, Helsinki, Tallin or Kiev as well as the Korean DMZ Docs.
A festival novelty of this year’s edition was a “Get with the Programme“ discussion panel, during which selectionners and programmers of international festivals gave advice and tips relating to a promotional strategy and festival distribution. Torene Svitil, member of the American Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, sat on the short film competition jury. During the meeting being part of the Industry Zone, she advised how to seek effectively an Oscar nomination for a documentary and a short film.
All accredited guests could use a digital videoteca, and for the first time, the Polish films will be available online till the next festival edition.
The organizers of the Krakow Film Festival have a weakness for music since years, which proved a film opening the festival- a Polish premiere of “Marley“ by Kevin Macdonald. One of the strong points of the festival programme, enjoying great popularity, is non competitive section “Sounds of Music” presenting the newest musical documentaries from the whole world. Following a musical fascination, the festival organizers will invite musical film makers do take part in DocFilmMusic competition next year for the first time. The competition will be part of the next 53rd edition of the Krakow Film Festival.
I’ve been intending to organize a separate festival of film music since years. The concept of the musical documentaries competition appeared 7 years ago, which would be natural expansion of our favourite section. And the first laureate of the youngest in terms of seniority documentary competition in Krakow was a musical film “Jimmy Rosenberg: The father, the Son and the Talent”, the only thing we could do was to place this competition as part of the Krakow Film Festival- says Krzysztof Gierat, the festival director.
This year, struggling in three competitions was accompanied by ten non competitive sections. After the presentation of the Israeli and Dutch cinema in previous years, this year the Italian cinematography was a festival special guest. The latest achievements of Italian cinema were presented as part of the “Focus on Italy” section, and its representatives took part in the conference.
We already know it today, that next year, it will be Switzerland taken up on a festival invitation to present its best films, and it’s that country on which attention of festival organizers and guests will be focused.
The novelty of this year’s edition of Industry Zone was a presentation of Polish documentaries in their pre-production phase. As part of “Docs to Go!” there were 9 projects of Polish documentaries, which producers and directors had a chance to get last pieces of advice from the industry experts before finalizing the production.
Shared initiative of the Polish Film Institute and the Krakow Film Foundation arouse interest mainly among representatives of the international film festivals and certainly will be continued next year. As part of the Dragon Forum pitch, there were 23 projects presented and two of them received advisory and production support on the preparation stage: Romanian “Iho“ by Eliza Zdru and Polish “Uratowane z potopu“ by Konstanty Kulik and Marcin Jamkowski. The representatives of television, production companies and film festivals from the USA, France, the UK, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium sat on the pitching committee. From among pitching participants there will be projects chosen to be presented on IDFA and DOK Leipzig festivals at the organizers’ expense. The HBO channel also granted its award.
Major events of the Industry Zone was a master class of this year’s Dragon of Dragon laureate, Helena Třeštíkova, and a seminar on building narration in a film held by Ove Rishøj Jensen of the European Documentary Network from Denemark.
That is all about the festival edition ended last week. Next year, one of the most important film events will take place between 26 May and 1 June. For information of those, who have no calendar in their hands, coming up to the festival guests‘ expectations the next festival edition will start on Sunday and end up on Saturday.
On the festival website www.krakowfilmfestival.pl you can find more information on the recently ended the 52nd festival edition, including a photo gallery, 8 successive editions of festival chronicle and 12 recordings of festival studio, where you can find interviews with the festival guests.