Krakow in Gdynia: Krakow Film Festival Catching Waves

The film programme of the 43rd Polish Film Festival is in total 50 films starting in the Main Competition, the Visions Apart Competition and the Short Film Competition but also numerous out-of-competition sections. They include films awarded at the Krakow Film Festival.

Thanks to the co-operation of the Polish Film Festival with the Krakow Film Festival, the viewers in Gdynia will be able to see selected films awarded in Krakow this year. The section „Krakow Film Festival Catching Waves” includes five titles, the best documentaries and an animation.

“For the 15th anniversary of the Krakow Film Foundation, we will show in Gdynia the films that we love the most: with sharply outlined characters, strong topics, diligently made, honest. At the film festiwal, we will present various faces of contemporary documentaries and one animated treasure. Do not miss out!,” Krzysztof Gierat, the Krakow Film Festival Diretor, says.

„Of Fathers and Sons”, directed by: Talal Derki
How does the life of jihad people look from the inside? After the film “Return to Homs”, showing the radicalization of protest against the dictatorship of al-Assad, the director has visited his home country again. He managed to get the trust of the family of a Muslim fundamentalist with which he spent over two years, filming their home everyday life and fight against the enemy. Enshadowed by the war, the youngest generation of jihad fighters grows up – deprived of childhood, brain-washed and brutally trained.

„Over the Limit”, directed by: Marta Prus
The 20-year-old Russian, Margarita Mamun, practices rhythmic gymnastics. She is assisted in her preparations for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro by two trainers representing different approaches to success in sports and entering into different relations with her. In an emotional way, the film tells about the psychological costs of extreme sports. It shows how striving for mastery connects with brutal work on the character of the player.

„Unconditional Love”, directed by: Rafał Łysak

The autothematic character of the documentary by Rafał Łysak lets us get closer to the atypical relation of a 20-year-old and his grandmother. The woman cannot accept the homosexuality of her grandson, however, he is still very important to him. Teresa is a woman of settled views, and the traditional religiousness makes her see Rafał’s sexual orientation in moral categories. At the same time, she is worried about his future because she sees no other way of life for the young man outside a marriage with a woman.

„The Sisters”, directed by: Michał Hytroś
Staniątki close to Krakow: there is a female cloister of Benedictine order, the oldest one in Poland, behind an ages-old wall. The nuns are cheerful old ladies, playful and slightly sarcastic with their word games. Related to the place for decades, they tell, with tenderness but with no unnecessary sentiments, the story of their lives in the monastery, of their experience of living as nun, as well as of evanescence and missing youth. The camre watches them at work and at prayer – because everything has its own rhythm here, in accordance with the 1000-year-old Benedictine tradition of „ora et labora”.

„III”, directed by: Marta Pajek
In another part of her triptych, Marta Pajek comes back to the concept of the impossible figure, which this time is supposed to illustrate female-male relationships. The animation, full of eroticism, arouses senses, imagination and tensions. The characters meet in a waiting room, at the end of a spiral hall reminding of a labirynth. Why have they come here? Did they know each other before? It doesn’t matter: what matters is only the game that is just becoming between them – sensual and disturbing at the same time…

More information about the films (CLICK).

The 43rd Polish Film Festival in Gdynia will be held from 17th to 22nd September 2018.