57th Krakow Film Festival

The 57th edition of Krakow Film Festival took place between May 28th and June 4.The festival, which originally began as a short film festival in 1961, has evolved into a festival of feature length documentary films. Along with the long documentary films, this edition of the festival also featured a short film competition of documentary, animated and fiction films, as well as music documentaries, focusing on a variety of genres from classical, electronic and pop, to rock music.

The national competition introduced the latest achievements of Polish filmmakers. The sidebar programmes focused on latest German cinema and on two Polish masters of animated films, Witold Giersz and Daniela Kraków Szczechury. The documentary competition boasted 18 films with duration times varying from about 1 hour to close to 2 hours.

In its entirety, the programme of Kraków Film Festival was a real challenge for film lovers, who were facing difficult choices since it was humanly impossible to see everything that caught one’s fancy.

The festival director Krzysztof Gierat and his team have indeed assembled a programme, where “films” – as the festival motto suggests – “depict personal views on the world and the humans of today. There is a story behind every person. Every story can be told in a variety of ways.” This motto also reflects beautifully the humanistic traditions of Kraków, the town where one of the oldest universities in Europe still survives.

The overall impression from the festival programme contents was that of an overall retreat into the private sphere since many a film were about characters, seen within the confines of their near and dear ones – family and close circle of friends. (Antti Selkokarim, edited by Christina Stojanova)

Festival: www.kff.com.pl