Krakow 21

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.

In Joanna Ratajczak’s Krakow FF project, after the death of Mong, the head of a Congolese clan, his biological daughter Monica becomes the new leader of the family – despite having grown up in an all-white Communist village in the Masuria district of Poland. Her new circumstances instil in her a need to find and unite other illegitimate members of the clan.

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.

Norwegian Magnus Skatvold gets to grips with legendary New York cop Bob Leuci who exposed corruption in the NYPD in the 1970s, inspiring filmmakers such as Sidney Lumet. But the man Skatvold came to know wasn’t the hard-boiled and divisive whistleblower, rather a genial grandfather in his 1970s. Skatvold explains all to BDE.

A delightful and gently profound meditation on the deep-rooted relationship between nature and humanity, Zuzanna Solakiewicz’s beautiful and gentle film resonates with sound, music, voices and history.

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.

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?

To call Walk With Angels a tough documentary to make is somewhat of an understatement. During shooting in the townships surrounding Johannesburg, Polish director Tomasz Wysokiński had a shotgun pointed in his face and saw someone murdered in front of him. He tells all to BDE.

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.

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.