It all started on the island of Bornholm. From 1990 and for ten years we Danes arranged a film festival on this wonderful place in the middle of the Baltic Sea. The name was Balticum Film & TV Festival and the films came from the countries around this Sea, including Poland. During a decade this post-USSR festival became a meeting place for creative documentarians to show films and discuss.

Here I saw ”Hear My Cry” (1991) and ”State of Weightlessness” (1994) by Maciej Drygas and ”89mm from Europe” (1993) ”Anything Can Happen” (1995) by Marcel Lozinski. Just to mention some of the Polish masterpieces which were screened at the old cinema in Gudhjem. It was also here I met the producer Wojtek Szczudlo from Kalejdoskop Film Studio, who became a dear friend, who later joined several workshops that I was in charge of. RIP, dear Wojtek.

After Bornholm I was for years part of the Ex Oriente workshop arranged by the IDF (Institute of Documentary Film) in Prague and met talents like Bartek Konopka and Piotr Rosolowski with their “Rabbit à la Berlin”, a fantastic work that their powerhouse of a producer Anna Wydra managed to bring for an Oscar nomination!

In 2005 I was in the jury of Krakow Film Festival. I was chairing the international jury: 3 out five awards was given to Polish filmmakers – Wojciech Staron’s “The Argentinian Lesson”, Pawel Kloc’s “Phnom Penh Lullaby” with a mention to “Doctors” by Tomasz Wolski.

Why are Polish documentaries so good? Could it be because Polish filmmakers always have an aesthetic choice before shooting starts. They think about form before content, they think about the style of storytelling that could fit this or that theme. They think in images that can carry emotion and information without words. Many directors have developed their film language in short films, like Piotr Stasik with his “7 x Moscow” (2005, 18 mins.), Thierry Paladino with “At the Datcha” (2006, 26mins.) and “Suburban Train” by Maciej Cuske (2005, 18 mins.). Not to forget short doc master Pawel Lozinski. There is a tradition for shorts in Poland contrary to where I come from. We used to have one…

I am sure that the existence of the Wajda School plays and has played an important role for the development of the Polish documentary. It is indeed impressive what has come out of this school that I have had the chance to visit a couple of times. What else to mention than ”Joanna” (2013) by Aneta Kopacz, beautiful as a film and as a hymn to Life and Love!

Three more female directors who has impressed me deeply: Wiktoria Szymanska whose ”The Man Who Made Angels Fly” (2013) with the puppeteer Michael Meschke is magic, Marta Prus meeting with her protagonist in ”Talk To Me” (2015) and Karolina Bielawska’s ”Call me Marianna” (PHOTO). For that no presentation needed, awarded all over the world, last ti me at DocsBarcelona the director got the New Talent Award.

www.krakowfilmfestival.com

If any name is connected to Polish documentary this is the one: Lozinski. Marcel and Pawel. Father and son.

Let me start with the father, who is a bit older than me but we are from the same generation. We have met here, there and everywhere in the last decades, on Bornholm at the Balticum Film & TV Festival, at festivals, at the Wajda School. Our conversations have been in French, easier for him than for me.

When I was asked by the film magazine Sight & Sound to nominate ”My Greatest Docs Ever”, 10 titles should be there, ”Anything Can Happen” was an obvious choice. I wrote this short motivation:

““Anything Can Happen”… is a… playful and clever interpretation of what Life and Death, Joy and Sorrow is – the director’s charming son runs around in a park, where he meets old people and asks them all kind of questions in the direct way that we grown-ups would never dare. The result is touching and great fun at the same time.”

The filmography of Marcel Lozinski is impressive, but let me stop at one that proves him a master in finding the adequate style for a difficult, this time personal subject.

I refer to ”Tonia and Her Children” (Vera and Marcel), that is all held in a very controlled style with close-ups of the three, with faces expressing emotions to what is being read and talked about. … a painful journey in memories for the two, who also have had a complicated relationship as grown-ups…

Pawel Lozinski, a master as well, I met him on Bornholm, where his “Birthday” (“Miejsce urodzenia”) (1992) deservedly took the first prize in that year’s competition. Many say that the film about the holocaust survivor Grynberg is quite as important as Lanzmann’s “Shoah”. I agree.

Pawel is extremely precise in his storytelling. His “Chemo” from 2009 is a unique example of how to deal with a sensitive theme with no sentimentality. Through close-up observations and dialogues between patients, and between patient and relatives, he conveys a beautiful hymn to life. Framed as Life as a Theatre with superb cinematography.

His filmography is impressive and also includes shorts like the lovely “Sisters”, which lasts 12 intense minutes with two, who love each other to the extent, that one of them thinks she is responsible for the other demanding her walking around in their courtyard. Hilarious!

A couple of years ago Pawel as producer suggested to his father Marcel that they should make a film together. Pawel wrote a fine synopsis, here is a small quote: “My father and I get into an old camper and head for Paris where, 23 years ago, he dispersed his mother’s ashes in the Luxembourg Garden. Our trip will take two weeks…”. They went on the trip, they came home and as you know, surprisingly, two films came out of it. Both ”Father and Son” films have been awarded, in Krakow with the Silver Horn in 2013. Great filmmakers, a privilege to know them and their works.

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/1599/ (Tonia and her Children, review)

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/2022/ (Marcel Lozinskis works, an introduction)

Oh New York, this urban jungle full of tales and stories. Of people who long for a good life. Or just for a life. Rich and poor, all ages, all colours. All languages. Michael Glawogger (RIP) was there to make his masterpiece ”Megacities”. He allowed Timon Novotny to remake the film with his band, Sofasurfers. There are in these films unforgettable images from New York, filmed by the superb cinematographer Wolfgang Thaler. Unforgettable portraits of outsiders, who fight to survive. Danish director Jakob Thuesen made his best documentary ”Under New York” in the subway 20 years ago with homeless people. Stories which move you. Another Danish director Pernille Grønkjær, famous for her ”The Monastery” was there a few years ago to catch people with a ”Love Addiction”. And British Gary Tarn, who looked at the Big Apple with the eyes of a blinded man in almost psychedelic ”Black Sun”. And many, many others to remember in documentaries and in fiction… Martin Scorcese, just to mention the most prominent.

And now Piotr Stasik comes with his 71 minutes long 21 x New York, the opening film of the Krakow Film Festival. For me an international breakthrough for him with a feature documentary, that places him in the first division of European documentary directors.

I was sceptic, I had to admit. There are, as mentioned, loads of films on New York, this city that we urban cowboys love to go to – to feel the pulse of Life when it is high, to see, to go by underground, to look at people first of all. Yes, at ”all the lonely people where do they all belong” as the Four Fab sang. In New York you can find them, for sure.

What is it that makes Stasik’s film so attractive… Everything actually. It is a musical composition with a superb score, with use of music of very different nature, with a sound design that includes all that comes from the subway trains with an editing and a rythm, that is carried by the director’s fascination and ability to bring the film to a level of reflection on human existence. ”Time is Up”, one cries, Big Bang Two will arrive at a place on this earth of ours, where there is a constant longing for Love. In the film we meet characters, who have failed in creating relationships, who have dates, that work and do not work, who think they have found Love and then is was ”only” sex. With shots from inside the tube as the backbone of the way the film is built, but also with scenes that make you smile like the wonderful scene (he is wonderful) with the 13 year old boy in conversation with a grown-up man, who tells him that ”Men Follow the Penis”. A conversation on a bench in a park – a reference to Lozinski’s ”Anything Can Happen”? More subtle is the Japanese (or is he Chinese?) young man, who walk around and observe, with his thoughts on our existence as a voice-off. It is mesmerising!

Stasik, if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere!

The Krakow Film Festival is over for me. I have – with this one – delivered the agreed texts for the festival newspaper and I have watched the films in the Documentary Competition to give marks together with other critics. I have enjoyed the festival and yet… I was not there in persona! I had to stay home with my wife, who had a knee injury. We had both been looking forward to be in Krakow again after more than 10 years. A film festival is a place to celebrate Film, meet all the people involved, talk about films, have fun, I did not have that pleasure, alas. I was not for the masterclass of Marcel Lozinski, I did not take part in the 20 year celebration of Kieslowski, I did not meet brothers and sisters from Sweden, who make great documentaries for the moment. I would have loved to shake hands with and hug… No, I stop now!

But thanks to the professionalism and generosity of press spokeswoman Anna E. Dziedzic, with whom I have been in daily contact, and who have directed me to photos, texts, etc. on FB, Youtube, instagram and the website, I have felt the festival and am able to make this concluding text, a kind of conclusion, my impression of the competitive programme and the selection for that category, that included 19 films.

Like most documentary festivals it is obvious that the selection committee has been searching to cover themes of today: The war in Ukraine (“Alisa in Warland”, stupid title but fine film by a film student), “The Burden of Proof”, one more film about the big immigration issue in current Europe, “Employment Office”, I could repeat the sentence from before, unhappy people who are looking for a job and meet bureaucracy, “Life on the Border”, children in refugee camps depicting their situation in often very moving short clips, they are victims of ISIS, a film about Boris Nemtsov…

“I am looking forward to real life”, says the bearded, old man in the fine Canadian film “Manor” (PHOTO). “Here we don’t live, we just exist”, he says, as the psychiatric hospital, where he has stayed is closing down. I was very impressed by this well made, warm documentary as I was to see Wojciech Kasperski’s stunning “Icon” from a psychiatric hospital in Siberia. I remember his “Seeds” from 10 years ago, he is able to bring a philosophical element into his observation of human beings, who are outside our so-called normality.

The documentary competition programme is definitely characterized by seriousness. I could have wished for a bit more stylistical playfulness like there is in Piotr Stasik’s excellent New York film, in “Homo Sacer”, in the amazing Brazilian “Curumim” and in “The Nine” that has a social focus and a surprising way of telling a story about outsiders.

On the other hand, I don´t want to forget Swedish Sara Broos and her “Reflections” that is both very personal, joyful and painful at the same time, and on a constant search for a style, a way of telling a story, to make an aesthetic choice. Which are what so many Polish documentarians do and which is what a festival like the Krakow Film Festival wants us to appreciate. We do!

Last night the award ceremony was held at the 56th Krakow Film Festival. Projects in development, participating in the impressive Industry section, were honored and supported, and there were decisions made by juries in the many festival sections. I saw the films in the International Documentary Competition so I will limit myself to comment on that – a full list of prize winners can be found on the website of the festival.

The jury for the Documentary Competition chose to give the Golden Horn to the director of the best film, Zosya Rodkevich for the film “My Friend Boris Nemtsov”, a popular and – allow me to say that – political correct decision. The Silver Horn for best medium length went to Massimo Coppola for the charming “Romeo and Juliet” and the one for the best feature-length documentary film to Canadian Pier-Luc Latulippe and Martin Fournier for the film “Manor”. 

I was part of a 6 person critic’s panel that gave marks to the 19 films in this competition – published in the festival newspaper. I had “Manor” as one of the 4 I gave top points, whereas the two films that were number 1 and 2 on the critics list, both original and innovative in their cinematic language, Polish Piotr Stasik’s “21 x New York” and Brazilian “Curumim” by Marcos Prado were surprisingly not on the list of the jury. Stasik’s film with top points from all 6 critics! A great film, if he is disappointed, it is understandable.

The fourth one of my favourtites, Wojciech Kasperski’s “Icon” received the Fipresci prize, and was awarded as the best film in the National Polish Documentary Competition, plus it was recognized for its editing, for raising social awareness and for its cinematography.

The Award for the best cinematography funded by the HBO Polska went to Lithuanian Kristina Sereikaitė for the film “Dead Ears”, directed by Linas Mikuta.

And another partly Lithuanian film “I’m Not from Here” by Chilean Maite Alberti and Lithuanian Giedre Zickyte got the Prix EFA Krakow 2016 as best short film and qualifies therefore to the European Film Award.

One small consolation for the best film – according to me – Best producer in the National Polish Competition was Agnieszka Wasiak, Lava Film for her work on “21 x New York”.

www.krakowfilmfestival.pl

Apart from the already mentioned, see below, main award for Martin Solá’s “The Chechen Family”, the director Marcela Zamora received The Amnesty International Catalunya Award and the Jury’s Special Mention for her touching “The Room of Bones”. It is a film that has this story according to the site of the festival:

“A bold look at the social violence in El Salvador. The mothers who have lost their kids to youth gang wars look for their bodies in the Legal Medicine Institute, where corpses with no names or identifiable relatives pile up daily. During the last decade murdered people have amounted to tens of thousands. Forensic anthropologists in El Salvador face the titanic job of recovering human remains hidden in clandestine graves throughout the country. The majority are young, victims of various types of violence: attacks between youth gangs, people who vanish during their attempt to emigrate to the USA, and inside the deepest graves are victims of the bloody civil war which took place between 1980 and 1992.”

Photo: Marcela Zamora (left) with award and friend Maria Cille, one of many great DocsBarcelona staff members.

Also awarded, again one should say, was Polish Karolina Bielawska for her “Call me Marianna” in the New Talent Category

and Jorge Caballero for “Patient” in the Latitud category. Also this Latin American film deserves to be introduced to a European audience:

“Patient is the word that defines us when we need to follow medical prescriptions or we have to stay calm while we wait. In Colombia, a patient is not only someone who suffers an illness and hopes to overcome it, but also those who take care of that person and fight daily against an absurd bureaucratic system to make sure their loved ones receive what they need. Nubia is patient, and despite living anguished by the loss of her daughter to an aggressive cancer, she manages to navigate with admirable firmness the rambling processes of the Colombian health system.”

DocsBarcelona has screened 46 documentaries and most of the directors and protagonists have been in Barcelona to present their films. The nineteenth edition has increased its viewers by a 30%, overcoming for the first time the barrier of 10,000 spectators (the total assistance will be closed in a few days with DocsBarcelona online final numbers). In addition, the professional activities have gathered 980 professionals and more than 1,300 people have visited the exhibition “Seguir con vida”. (Doctors Without Borders, ed.)

www.docsbarcelona.com