Krakow 26

In Magic Hour, world-premiering in Krakow, director Marcin Borchardt profiles the brilliant Polish DoP Piotr Sobociński who struggled with the extreme stresses of working within the Hollywood system. He died of a heart attack while still in his creative prime. “That was perhaps the most unsettling discovery for me,” Borchardt tells Business Doc Europe. “I found countless shots of anonymous hotel interiors and temporary spaces filmed between productions. It was as if the camera had unintentionally captured the psychological cost of that career and that lifestyle.”

The Netherlands-based Italian filmmaker discusses his new feature documentary, selected for Krakow FF Int’l Comp, about the ongoing febrile political situation in Armenia. “The moment I got interested in Shahen was when I realised the pressure this young guy was under,” recalls director Marco De Stefanis of his activist subject. “He was keeping up the fight while his father was in prison. I felt really sorry for a guy that age that doesn’t have the same youth I had.”

David Bim, winner of the first Marcel Łoziński Documentary Award for his debut feature To the West, in Zapata, discussed the film with Business Doc Europe before the June 3 ceremony. “I had never made a film before, and from that perspective, every obstacle imaginable existed,” he said. “But there is something I consider fundamental for me, not only as a filmmaker but also as a person: that my life and my work remain coherent with one another.”

"The funniest jokes are those told with a serious face," producer Ivanna Khitsinska tells BDE of Ivan Sautkin’s deeply ironic, anthropological investigation into the sense of kinship felt by some Ukrainians with Taras Shevchenko, esteemed poet and Father of the Nation. “Today, international audiences often encounter Ukraine almost exclusively through news about war, destruction, and geopolitics. DNA of the Nation offers a completely different way of seeing the country — through humour, intimacy, absurdity, and deeply human everyday situations.”

While working on a book about ageing, Poland's most beloved linguist, Professor Jerzy Bralczyk, embarks on a cruise with his beloved wife Lucyna. The journey becomes a reflection on love, growing old, shared dreams and the art of enjoying life until the very end. “Their love is mature, funny, tender and completely unsentimental,” producer Marta Dużbabel tells BDE. “They still argue, tease each other, laugh together and support one another. We see many films about falling in love. We rarely see films about staying in love.”

In Polish Siarhei Marchyk’s new project, at rough cut stage and presented at Krakow Industry, Cameo, a young Ukrainian soldier, eager to fight, learns he is about to become a father, and must decide whether or not to desert, choosing between duty and the future of his family. “I spent six months embedded with Cameo's mortar unit,” director/producer Marchyk tells BDE. “The camera was present not only during combat operations but also during moments of vulnerability, boredom, fear, friendship and love. This level of access is one of the film's greatest strengths.”

In her short film Hidden, Polish director Monika Kotecka examines the emotions of fear and anxiety, using archive culled from the Educational Film Studio in Łódź, and the application both of polyphonic voices and a soundscape derived from bodily sounds, such as breathing and heartbeat. Severe anxiety, we are told, affects 4.4% of the world’s population. “I didn't want to make an autobiographical film,” Kotecka tells Business Doc Europe. “But of course my own experiences were, let's say, an important starting point.”

Polish filmmaker Paweł Łoziński speaks to Business Doc Europe before the presentation of the inaugural Marcel Łoziński International Documentary Award, devised by Kraków Film Festival and the Polish Documentary Film Directors Guild in honour of his late, great father. Paweł is Marcel’s son, and sat on the jury which will hand the new prize June 3 to Cuban filmmaker David Bim for his debut effort To the West in Zapata. “It is a documentary about the power of love, something essential that allows the protagonists to endure the hardships of their lives,” says Paweł of Bim’s film.

Poland’s vibrant documentary sector, and that of Ukraine, will once more be in the frame at KFF Industry, the professional arm of Krakow FF, with attention again focussed on the Docs to Start and Docs to Go presentations of 21 new and ambitious projects. “It seems only natural that, since Ukrainian filmmakers have been cut off from opportunities for artistic and professional development, we should help if we are in a position to do so,” Industry boss Katarzyna Wilk tells BDE of KFF’s solidarity with neighbouring Ukraine.

Brazilian Eliza Capai’s delightful feature documentary engages the talents of a group of young girls, living in one of the poorest parts of Brazil, to examine the business of…well, being young girls (as well as some other big topics, such as death and religion and their future lives). Despite their poverty, such is director Capai’s confidence in her protagonists, who operate as de facto co-creators of her film, we could be watching any kids from any city in the world, and from any socio-economic background. “We were in this fluidity of creation,” Capai delightedly tells BDE.