7th Krakow International Festival of Independent Cinema

Searching the internet for ‘Krakow and Film Festival’, the first hits concern the 54-year old film festival dedicated to documentary, animated and short fiction films. But for seven years now the city of Krakow has another annual film event: Off Plus Camera, a festival that gains popularity with each edition. That is no surprise. This very well organized festival has — besides a strong Main Dramatic Competition of 12 international films, as well as a Polish Feature Film Competition and some satellite programmes (like a ‘best of fest’ or ‘catching up’; films that for various reasons haven’t been distributed in Poland — another important task: to stimulate independent music. And so a crowd of brilliant alternative artists came over to play their music on stage. For ten days, from 2-11 May, the beautiful old town of Krakow turned into a lively and vibrant place, where directors, musicians and audience mingled. Also important to the festival is the presence of international stars in their Main and Polish juries. This year the festival welcomed, amongst others, American actresses Joan Allen and Parker Posey and director Mike Newell. But the crowd went mad when the British actor Benedict Cumberbatch appeared. He wasn’t a contributor to any jury but was probably the most awaited guest of this latest edition.

The FIPRESCI jury in Krakow watched 12 international pictures during four days — a rewarding task, because the selection was pretty good. Yet it was not difficult to reach a unanimous verdict: the FIPRESCI Prize went to the Norwegian picture Blind, the feature film debut by Eskil Vogt. (Clementine Van Wijngaarden)

Krakow International Festival of Independent Cinema:
www.offpluscamera.com/en