Krakow 21

A powerful and compelling doc that plays like a drama feature at times, No Hero At All is a striking real-life story of a young disabled Polish man with a petty criminal past who is also a promising alpine skier potentially good enough to make the Paralympics.

International Documentary Competition winner named as Far Eastern Golgotha while Golden Hobby-Horse went to Walk with Angels during the Krakow FF awards ceremony June 5. The audience award was granted to Polański, Horowitz. Hometown. Plus all Industry awards.

After an eight-hour phone conversation, Russian filmmaker Julia Sergina and the charismatic, outspoken, ranting and highly unusual taxi driver Viktor decided to work together on a doc. The resulting film screens in Krakow Documentary Competition. The director flags down BDE to explain more.

For two years Polish doccer Zofia Pręgowska has been following Trotsky and Natalia, a couple desperately in love but fundamentally at odds. He is a dreamer and a non-conformist. She is a practical home builder. He wants to go abroad to street busk. She wants to get a loan and buy a house. Can their love survive their differences?

Doc Lab Poland, the documentary component of KFF Industry, kicks off June 2 as local doccers pitch their projects (in post-production) during the Docs to Go! programme. The following day the Docs to Start session! sees the pitch of a dozen brand new Polish projects. KFF Head of Industry Katarzyna Wilk discusses her professional event with Business Doc Europe.

Shot over four years and currently in late production stage ahead of a January 2022 delivery, My Place Ozerna is a story of two women, one who has her whole life ahead of her, the other nearing her final farewell, and the profound emotional effect that each person has on the other.

Memories both welcome and traumatic are at the moving and involving heart of a film that charts the emotional return of Roman Polański and Ryszard Horowitz to the streets of Krakow that they knew so well as children.

Polish director/producer Anna Konik presented her latest project during Krakow 2021. Set in London, Silence Heard Loud tells the stories of seven people who have been fighting a desperate battle for freedom and dignity.

The hybrid 61st Krakow FF kicks off May 30, running 8 days through June 6 and presenting 170 films across 3 competition and 12 non-competition sections. Festival director Krzysztof Gierat guides BDE through a film programme which emphasises the “protagonists' determination in their search for the truth and their fight against adversity.”

The documentary, directed by Mateusz Kudła and Anna Kokoszka-Romer and selected for Polish Competition, will premiere internationally May 30 with the film’s subjects Roman Polański and Ryszard Horowitz in attendance.