International docs showcased in Krakow
The 51st Krakow Film Festival (KFF) has been in full swing since last Monday.
The event, one of the most important in Europe for documentaries, animation and short narrative films, has a seven-day line-up of 223 films (42 narrative films, 49 animated works and132 documentaries). As every year, the KFF is also offering a series of events for professionals (Industry Zone).
Among the 20 titles in the feature-length documentaries competition, two Polish films stand out. Pawel Kloc’s Phnom Penh Lullaby, which was unveiled at Switzerland’s Visions du Réel Festival (see news), portrays a modern-day "wandering Jew", torn between his idealistic and innocent outlook and the debauched reality of a society on the margins of which he chooses to live his new life.
Meanwhile, Tomasz Wolski’s Doctors explores behind the scenes of the operating theatres and surgeries of medical specialists with their internal hierarchies, difficult decisions and other financial problems.
The competition also includes, among others, Bente Milton and Mikkel Stolt’s Danish film My Avatar and Me; Julie Moggan’s Brit production Guilty Pleasures; Jennifer Fox’s Finnish/US/Swiss/German/Italian co-production My Reincarnation; James Nicholson’s French feature Nobody Knows My Name; and Hungarian director Ágnes Sós’s Invisible Strings: The Talented Pusker Sisters.
The Krakow Film Market (May 24-28) has this year selected 300 films (out of 1,500 submissions). To support filmmakers and what festival organisers term "socially-engaged and honest documentary films", the Dragon Forum has been set up. This is a workshop for pitching completed documentaries to distributors, producers, broadcasters and other film institutions.
Finally, this edition’s “special guest” is Dutch cinema with a conference entitled “Focus on the Netherlands” in the line-up.
(Translated from French)
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