Krakow 26

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.

In the Synthetic Sincerity lab, researchers are looking to inject authenticity into AI characters, using characters from director Marc Isaacs’ own documentaries to do so. In return, they allow him to film the process. In his own playful way, Isaacs is asking some very challenging questions about our evolving relationship with AI, and where reality begins and ends. That said, the documentary may be hi-tech in concept, but decidedly low in budget. “I made this film for £8,000. There is something about the independence that gives you,” Isaacs tells Business Doc Europe.

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.”

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.

"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.”

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.”

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.”

Tristan da Cunha may be the most remote inhabited island on the planet, but it is nevertheless the place where Loran Bonnardot, a piano-playing doctor from Paris, is determined to settle. His existentialist journey, part-fictionalised, is chronicled by Swiss director Tobias Nölle. “I saw in Loran a castaway from our hyper-competitive society, seeking an authenticity we’ve lost, on an island secluded from our war-torn world; a dream I wanted to transform into a cinematic experience,” he says. The film won The Golden Horn for Best Film in International Competition at Krakow 2026.

The 66th edition of Krakow Film Festival opens May 31 with Marc Isaacs’ Synthetic Sincerity, ahead of seven days of frenetic doc activity, both for public and Industry. During the festival, one of the oldest events within the international calendar dedicated to doc (and animation), audiences have the opportunity to watch around 200 films from across the planet, with documentaries competing in International and National Competitions. Festival director Barbara Orlicz-Szczypuła and Artistic Director Anita Piotrowska talk to Business Doc Europe.

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.”