Krakow Film Festival is the most important documentary film festival in Poland. It’s a space where prominent and established filmmakers from all over the world meet newcomers, and the audience can meet the creators and film protagonists in person. It is a festival of special premieres and a stepping stone to international career, but above all a meeting place for everyone who loves cinema in the atmospheric halls of Krakow’s legendary studio cinemas. The festival’s non-competitive program will include plenty of gripping tales and fantastic stories. The heart of documentary cinema beats in Kraków!
In documentary film, we always look for human beings – with their dramas, doubts, moments of happiness, and small victories. We look at their faces, seeing our own anguish and joy as if reflected in a mirror. We see history and the present through the fates of individuals, we want to witness even the largest problems of the world through the eyes of a personalised hero – emphasises Krzysztof Gierat, director of the Krakow Film Festival. In this year’s non-competitive programme, we are presenting that what has impressed us most over the course of four sections: films made among relatives, where the greatest dramas often take place; films about people who, for various reasons, find themselves living on the margins, films about people and their passions, and films by the great masters of cinema.
RELATIVES
All films are told in the first person and filmed by family members, except for the story of Louis Armstrong’s daughter, whose existence was kept hidden from the world by this great musician. Her nickname Little Satchmo (dir. John Alexander) remained. In the dreamlike picture Summer Nights (dir. Ohad Milstein), a father and his young son travel to the land of whispers to talk about fundamental issues. Penelope, My Love (dir. Claire Doyon) is a many-year observation of the director’s autistic daughter and a manifesto of love without limits. In the film Soy Libre (dir. Laure Portier), a sister follows her brother with a camera to capture his relentless struggle for personal freedom. First Class Citizen (dir. Diana Maria Olsson) is an emotional documentation of the director’s struggle to get out of a violent relationship.
OUTSIDERS
Marginalised by their own will or weakness, unwise behaviour, or by cruel fate. They don’t want to give up. The camera follows them closely. The beautiful Indian women in the film Mirror (dir. Siddhant Sarin), with their faces horribly mutilated by acid, try to come back to life and bear witness to the consequences of a heinous tradition. Orthodox Jews try to overcome their addiction in Kosher Rehab (dir. Anna Oliker). Alone and gathered in a centre near Jerusalem, they share their pain and hope with each other. The protagonist of The El-Masri Case (dir. Stefan Eberlein) unknowingly falls into the terrifying underbelly of the war on terror, while the Pole from the shocking documentary Sing and Cry, Cry and Sing (dir. Manu Luksch) is falsely accused and subjected to torture and sexual violence in the United Arab Emirates.
FIGHTERS
This section looks at passionate people who vehently pursue the goals they have set for themselves. They may have different educational backgrounds come from different places but share the same energy needed to overcome obstacles. Black Mambas (dir. Lena Karbe) is an all-female squad fighting poachers in South Africa. They also combat violence against women and their own remorse, because large numbers of their compatriots have to kill to survive. Myanmar (formerly Burma) is a state constantly affected by internal conflicts. The protagonists of the film Rain in 2020 (dir. Yong Chao Lee) live away from them but have to deal with a haunting natural force. For the young Romanians in the film You Are Ceaușescu To Me (dir. Sebastian Mihăilescu), the challenge is to play the role of the nation’s leader before he became a dictator.
MASTERS
They differ in everything, the year and place of their birth as well as their approach to documentary filmmaking, but they are united by their artistic perfection. Their achievements are considered genre masterpieces. Outtakes From the Life of a Happy Man by Jonas Mekas is a record of the fleeting moments of a great artist who received the Dragon of Dragons in Krakow in 2010 and would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year. The screening will conclude with an extraordinary meeting as part of the new KFF Talks section. Marcin Borchardt, an outstanding director and documentary filmmaker, and Professor Bogdan de Barbaro, a renowned psychiatrist and therapist, will talk about happiness.
Mr Landsbergis by Sergei Loznitsa, winner of the Dragon of Dragons in 2018, is a meticulous documentation of Lithuania’s restoration of sovereignty. The film will also be accompanied by a meeting in the KFF Talks section. Vytautas Landsbergis, former Head of State of Lithuania and Adam Michnik, Editor-in-Chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, will discuss the topic of freedom.
Outstanding Israeli documentary filmmaker Tomer Heymann follows the transformation of a boy falsely diagnosed by doctors by sharing his camera with him (I’m Not). The programme also includes a documentary retrospective of Jerzy Hoffman’s works on the occasion of the director’s 90th birthday, prepared in cooperation with the National Film Archive.
RELATIVES
- Summer Nights, dir. Ohad Milstein, Israel, Switzerland, 53’
- Little Satchmo, dir. John C. Alexander, USA, 60
- First Class Citizen, dir. Diana Maria Olsson, Sweden, 57’
- Penelope, My Love, dir. Claire Doyon, France, 88’
- Soy Libre, dir. Laure Portier, France, 78’
OUTSIDERS
- Kosher Rehab, dir. Anna Oliker, Israel, 60’
- Mirror, dir. Siddhant Sarin, India, Lithuania, South Korea, 73’
- The El Masri Case, dir. Stefan Eberlein, Germany, 92’
- Sing and Cry, Cry and Sing, dir. Manu Luksch, Austria, Great Britain, 43’
FIGHTERS
- Black Mambas, dir. Lena Karbe, Germany, France, 81’
- Rain in 2020, dir. Lee Yong Chao, Taiwan, Myanmar, 79’
- You Are Ceausescu to Me, dir. Sebastian Mihăilescu, Romania, 101’
MASTERS
- Are You Among Them?, dir. Jerzy Hoffman, Edward Skórzewski, Poland, 8’
- Two Faces of God, dir. Jerzy Hoffman, Edward Skórzewski, Poland, 16’
- The Children Accuse, dir. Jerzy Hoffman, Edward Skórzewski, Poland, 10’
- The Miracle Fair, dir. Jerzy Hoffman, Poland, 8’
- MR LANDSBERGIS, dir. Siergiej Łoźnica, Litwa, Kingdom of the Netherlands, USA, 248’
- A Souvenir from Kalwaria, dir. Jerzy Hoffman, Edward Skórzewski, Poland, 14’
- Postcards from Zakopane, dir. Jerzy Hoffman, Edward Skórzewski, Poland, 12’
- Sopot’57, dir. Jerzy Hoffman, Edward Skórzewski, Poland, 16’
- I Am Not, dir. Tomer Heymann, Izrael, Guatemala, 100’
- It’s the Hooligans!, dir. Jerzy Hoffman, Edward Skórzewski, Poland, 12’
- Outtakes From the Life of a Happy Man, dir. Jonas Mekas, USA, 68’
Krakow Film Festival is included on the prestigious list of film events qualifying for the Academy Awards in the short film competition (fiction film, animated film, documentary film) and feature-length documentary film competition, as well as recommending films for the European Film Awards in the same categories. The festival also qualifies for BAFTA awards in the short documentary and fiction film category.
The Kraków Film Festival is organised with the financial support of the European Union as part of the “Creative Europe” program, the City of Kraków, the Polish Film Institute, the Ministry of Culture, National Heritage and Sports, and the Lesser Poland Province. The co-organiser is the Polish Filmmakers Association, and the main organiser is the Krakow Film Foundation.
A full program of this year’s Festival and tickets will be available in May 2022 at www.krakowfilmfestival.pl
The Krakow Film Festival will be held in Kraków cinemas from 29 May to 5 June, and online throughout Poland on 3–12 June 2022.