Ivars Seleckis at Baltic Sea Docs 2020

A new film project by veteran documentary director and cinematographer Ivars Seleckis will be presented at the 24th edition of Baltic Sea Docs that starts on the 29th of August. The brief description goes like this: ”The documentary “The Land” will reveal the countryside of the 21st century through the individual and personal stories of the five protagonists living in the Latvian countryside and farming their land.” Producer is Gints Grube, Mistrus Media, who also stood behind Seleckis last big success ”To be Continued”.

”Ivars Seleckis began his career the same way many film people do – from the ‘bottom’. Though he had university education, he spent months lugging ‘boxes’ and the heavy film camera around the Riga Film Studio until he was allowed to switch it on. The first scenes he shot that appeared on film were in 1960 – in the documentary, “My Riga” – a film that became the first timid step away from the official propaganda and towards a more humanly intimate poetics. (source: http://nkc.gov.lv/en/uncategorized/ivars-seleckis-2/)”.

Since then, as cinematographer and later on as director, Seleckis name has 

 

appeared on numerous (an understatement!) documentaries during the time of Soviet Latvia and when his beloved country gained its independence. More than anyone the 85 year old Seleckis has documented the landscapes and trades of Latvia – through his eye for people. Of course he is one of the masters in ”Bridges of Time” by Kristine Briede and Audrius Stonys, the wonderful film on the Baltic poetic cinema. And of course he was one of the cameramen in the film ”235.000.000” from 1967, the unique documentary by Uldis Brauns. The film was censored by the Soviet regime – the original director’s cut has been found and a digital restored version is being made. Right Uldis Cekulis and Zane Balcus?

Ivars Seleckis trilogy from Šķērsiela street in Riga has been shown all over the world. The first one is from 1988, ”Crossroad Street”, the second called “New times at Crossroad Street” came out in 1999, and the third one, ”Capitalism at Crossroad Street” is from 2013. A sociological study it is, lovely portraits of lives of those who live in the street – as did (does?) the scriptwriter Tālivaldis Margēvičs.

Way back Ivars Seleckis and his colleague Piepers took me and my wife on a tour to the countryside of Latvia. We drank champagne at a river and visited ”horseradish Peter” and his wife in one of the gardens of Šķērsiela. Seleckis brought along smoked fish and brandy. The couple was very important in the first part of the trilogy. 

2019: A key person from the Latvian Film Centre, Lelda Ozola, has helped Ivars Seleckis through his carreer, so it was only natural that she accompanied him to ZagrebDOX in 2019, where ”To Be Continued” was shown and where festival director Nenad Puhovski gave his ”My Generation” award to the Latvian master. Another piece of memory: When in Zagreb I had to watch a football match with FC Barcelona. Lelda and Ivars joined me. The documentary skills of the latter were demonstrated from start till end of the match. Ivars knew actually very little about football but during the 90 minutes he commented and discovered the rules and tactics of the game, sitting or going close to the tv screen pointing and asking. Curiosity, without that, forget about being a documentarian!

A brilliant filmmaker, a man full of humour, always with a small bottle in his pocket – looking fwd to seeing him again in Riga!

http://www.filmkommentaren.dk/blog/blogpost/4783/

Baltic Sea Docs 2020

Riga, Latvia. 29.08 – 4.09.2020. The 24th Baltic Sea Forum for Documentaries. For “professional filmmakers from the Baltic Sea region, as well as from Eastern and Central Europe”. It started in Denmark, had some years in the Baltic capitals before it found its permanent home in Riga in 2005. I have been “part of the furniture” since the beginning. With pleasure.

There is a film program to be announced later as well as seminars and list of tutors and decision makers, who will take part in an event that this year will be hybrid with some people based in Riga and many people attached to the Zoom presentations and questions and answers.

Project manager Zane Balcus and her team have made the selection of projects, 24 as usual, you can see them all via the link below.

Let me mention names that I already know from previous gatherings:

 

Directors: Alexander Koridze, Georgia (picked up from the recent CinéDOC Georgia pitch), Allaksei Paluyan, Belarus, Una Celma Latvia, Ivars Seleckis Latvia (who pitched at the first edition 24 years ago), Nerijus Milerius Lithuania, Virginija Vareikyte and Maximilien Dejoie Lithuania, Keti Machavariani Georgia, Alina Rudnitskaya Russia, Marko Raat Estonia, Konrad Szolajski Poland.

Producers: Oscar Hedin Sweden, Rebecca Houzel, Max Tuula, Maria Gavrilova France, Estonia, Russia, Natalia Libet Ukraine, Andres Maimik Estonia, Matiss Kaza Latvia, Gints Grube, Elina Gedina Latvia, Stasys Baltakis Lithuania, Vladislav Ketkovich Russia, Pertii Vijalainan Finland, Dagné Vildziunaité Lithuania, Antra Cilinska Latvia, Stephane Siohan, Olga Beskhmelnytsina Ukraine, Ivo Felt Estonia, Malgorzata Prociak Poland.

As far as I can read from the brief annotations (again, click below) there are personal, political, social, historical, informative, creative documentary projects to be presented – and there are many new people joining the party… it will be a party and one more hommage to the art of documentary.

ONE project makes me more than curious: “Podnieks On Podnieks” to be directed Anna Viduleja with Juris Podnieks close collaborator Antra Cilinska as producer and produced by Juris Podnieks Studio. Podnieks is one of my heroes in documentary history and I am happy that I had the chance to meet him on the island of Bornholm during the early years of the Balticum Film & TV Festival. 

The description of the film goes like this: ““I am convinced that we can live through several lives. That’s the best thought that intrigues me. And with each passing life we go through some development. I would, no doubt, like to do more in this life. But if I don’t manage, then I will continue in the next one.” This was once said by the outstanding Latvian documentary film director Juris Podnieks who during his lifetime had gained the fame of the fighter for justice. This film will serve as a metaphor – a conversation before infinity and will be built as Podnieks’ story about himself, his films, society and life.”

Juris Podnieks 1950-1992

http://balticseadocs.lv/

CinéDOC Summer School 2020

They had no choice the good people behind the Georgian documentary film festival CinéDOC. They already had organised three summer schools, this was to be the fourth and it had to be online… the intensive workshop dedicated to promising filmmakers from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Intensive? Indeed it was! 12 film projects. 4 tutors. And a (great) team of organisers led by Ileana Stanculescu and Artchil Khetagouri, the two filmmakers and directors of the festival CinéDOC that has not yet taken place because of the pandemic. Postponed. But not this summer school workshop.

Read more…

 

A challenge it is to make a summer school – of course – with five full days of Zoom meetings, a short day with summing up and a small relax for the organisers and the filmmakers, who will be given pitch training and meet a panel of 12: broadcasters, festival programmers, distributors and representatives from similar documentary initiatives. On Sunday July 5th.

The summer school was much better than expected, many of the filmmakers said at the evaluation this morning. Was that because we had no real idea about how hours and hours staring into a computer would work out.

“We” – I was one of the tutors – together with international producers Bulgarian Martichka Bozhilova and Latvian Uldis Cekulis, and Serbian/Dutch editor Srdjan Fink. My worry was more if the technique would work. Would our internet connections be strong enough? Would the Zoom format be good enough? As a technical idiot I had no idea but – there were problems but they were small – all went smoothly.

What did we do? The usual business, I would say from a long life of workshops. We talked, we watched trailers/teasers, scenes, rough material. And again – from my personal point of view – we learned a lot. Again I was invited to have a look into the realities as they are seen and interpreted by emerging filmmakers and filmmakers with more experience. From the three Caucasus countries. 

Working method: the 12 had been divided according to country and experience, into groups of 3, shifting tutors to get different input from different temperaments, tutors and colleagues – and every morning there was a one hour class made by the mentioned tutors. 

It is a great privilege to be asked to be part of a summer school like this. The projects yes, but also to meet young and younger filmmakers, even if it is online (we all prefer to meet face to face) to meet each other from home or in the offices with different backgrounds, different ways of sitting, different ways of talking, smiling, concentrating. Still this is for me the way to evaluate a project: Can this person to whom I am talking and listening, whose face I am looking at, whose visual material I am looking at, can she make it? 

I am writing She, because there were 9 female directors and 3 male!

On my FB post you can see everyone taking part in the workshop. On the photo above you see

me, Natuka Gabunia (a Georgian Anna Magnani), Medea Sharikadze (the two women are part of the organising team, warm and superprofessional), Gayne Petrosyan with an amazing personal story about her son who was born a girl, entitled „The Transition“, editor Srdjan Fink, producer Anna Khazaradzetogether with, below, director Luka Beradze, with the absurd „Smiling Georgia“ from a poor region, where teeth were pulled out promising the locals to have them replaced, so far it did not happen, the couple Elene Margvelashvili and Keko Chelidze with a project in early development, „Exposed“, about a 40 year old single mother who builds up her selfconfidence through bodybuilding, Ileana Stanculescu, the always engaged, committed and warm initiator and organiser of it all, Afaq Yusifli, who showed her cinematic skills in a teaser of „Granddaughter“, which will be a short film (general remark: loved to see short films coming up!), Chinara Majidova from Azerbaijan talking from Budapest, about to make a film „My Neighborhood“, the Sovjetski in Baku with material shot over 5 years and finally Turkan Huseynova, also from Azerbaijan, also with a project that has an area in Baku as the location, „Papanin“ and again a short film to be by an obvious visual talent… Personal note: Wow, what a lot of talent from Azerbaijan this year!

If you want to know more about CinéDOC Tbilisi and what the festival is doing in terms of screening films in the capital and around the country go to

https://www.cinedoctbilisi.com

IDFA Director Nyrabia Interviewed

Nick Cunningham, brilliant interviewer and reporter for the trade magazine BusinessDocEurope, has made an interview with artistic director of IDFA Orwa Nyrabia, who as usual talks clear and precise about the situation for documentaries in these times of lockdown. I have picked only a couple of quotes so please read it all, click the link below.

“A thousand persons watching the film at home over a week are not equal to a thousand persons in a cinema watching the same film… To me, watching a good film in a good cinema with other humans is a privilege, a valuable expression of our human civilization… It is a noble experience that I still want to defend within a civilization that is, otherwise, not much to brag about.”

Nyrabia’s concerns lie more with the filmmakers whose new documentaries are being met with a mute response within the virtual ether. “Overall, the on-demand approach to an online festival offer was very difficult to experience for a filmmaker who has been working on a film for years and hoping to be there and feel, see, smell and hear the audience watching their film. During a pandemic, a festival cannot have the full answer to that. A festival can either take place, not take place, or find the statement it wants to make within the context – and the means and technology to make it.”

… ” Film does not exist on its own in the can (or the hard drive). Film exists when it is on a screen with an audience. That other thing we see alone on a smaller screen is something else. It is better than nothing for sure, but it is not a replacement.”

https://businessdoceurope.com/orwa-nyrabia-on-the-return-to-live-for-the-sake-of-filmmakers-and-audiences/?fbclid=IwAR2gZ15voEo-FGiucIvtAWgyC3cUzUvbVGOqoUiYScpdlGMxE_ssLhekkBY

Christine Albeck Børge: Livet mens vi dør

Det her er bare en rigtig god dokumentar, den holder mig fuldt koncentreret fanget denne hele time i sin udfoldelse af den lavmælt kloge flertydige titel som ikke vil være andet end en overskrift, men som i sin underfundighed åbner for skildring af en livsforståelse som på trods er forbavsende rig med de fire medvirkende: en pilot, en operasanger, en embedsmand, en pædagog, fire kloge kvinder alle syge af uhelbredelig brystkræft, dette lille spektrum af nære veninder er dokumentarens hele verden og viden. Og det er bare en rigtig vis dokumentar Christine Albeck Børge således debuterer med. Må der dog bare komme flere fra hendes hånd… 

2

(senere, 17. juni) … og jeg tænker på filmen om at leve før døden og der er talt og skrevet og malet og modelleret og filmet om den tid. Meget, men her er det konkret, kontant, præcist og kortfattet og det er en befrielse. At den sidste tid er en sygdom er så filmens helt klare optagethed – også her har den meget klogt og indlevet at sige, netop her har de fire intenst medvirkende vidner, ja det er de så, og troværdige, rigtig meget og konkluderende visdom og skønhed at fortælle. I kærlige sætninger til os som lever med denne i den sammenhæng indlevede viden at vi skal dø, måske om lidt. ”Lægen sagde tre måneder måske fem” og rigtigt hun døde under filmens afsnit om foråret i det skildrede forløb…

3

(endnu senere, 20. juni) … Jeg har ikke mødt så gribende vidnesbyrd om denne intense tid i livet mens jeg dør siden jeg første gang læste Peter Nolls båndoptager – dagbog fra sin tid mellem diagnose og død, Diktate über Sterben und Tod (Zürich 1984). Det tyske sprog har dette fine ord, Sterben om dette livsafsnit som filmens titel lover og dens indhold strengt respekterer og så Tod som punktum. På dansk hedder det “være døende” men det læser jeg som langt snævrere end Sterben som udvider begrebet til memento mori, de tavse munkes eneste hilsen når de mødte hinanden klosterets gange og sale stødte ind i denne hilsens krav om at leve mens vi dør.

I mine tanker mens jeg så dokumentaren – og især siden jeg så den for de par dage siden, udfolder den sin hemmelige vinkling, titlens bredde i nuet, fortællingens kerne, at hele livet er dette memento mori som ramte mig i mit liv som kræftpatient, med en anden kronologisk lidelse, som kristen med viden om troens indhold, som tilstedeværende ved en brors sidste dage og timer. Det er alt sammen livet som i voksende erkendelse er hele tiden at leve mens jeg dør. Al tid.

Christine Albeck Børge viser mig det så smukt og barskt: ”… jeg går ikke bort, sådan hej, hej og vink fra døren.” Den medvirkende dansklærers afgørende replik som også er placeret i titelsekvensen, ”… nej, jeg dør.” Punktum.

 Danmark, 58 min. 2020. Dokumentaren havde premiere på DR1 den 22. juni og på DRtv har man derefter kunnet streame dokumentaren og vel nogle dage endnu: https://www.dr.dk/drtv/program/livet-mens-vi-doer_190666

Biograffilm Festival Bologna Awards

The first Italian online festival to draw to a close inside a cinema

Biografilm celebrates both the reopening of cinemas in Italy and the winning films of the 2020 edition, which, for the first time, was accessible for free online nationwide in Italy. The festival welcomed a large audience: over 45,000 reservations in the Biografilm Hera Theatre virtual cinema.

“The joy of being back inside the cinema and meeting others in person is enormous, but I am also delighted about the festival’s virtual participation” says the director Leena Pasanen, “our decision to move online was rewarded by an audience who has actively followed our programme, showing their enthusiastic support on social media too. For next year we will carry on working to ensure the possibility of access to the festival for those who cannot come to Bologna. Our industry event for film professionals, Bio to B, also saw an astonishing turnout, with 150 accredited guests able to connect from home from all over the world.”

Biografilm Festival returned to the cinema in time for the Awards Ceremony,

 

on Monday 15 June. The winning films were announced at the Pop Up Cinema Medica Palace, Bologna, followed by a screening of the film Gli anni che cantano by Filippo Vendemmiati, introduced by the director, the protagonist Janna Carioli and the producer Mauro Sarti. A World Premiere in the Biografilm Art & Music section this year, produced with the support of the Emilia-Romagna Region, the film traces the history of “Il Canzoniere delle Lame”, a Bologna band that play political music with a strong social conscience. The film was chosen for the evening for its cultural poignancy, recalling a collective and uniting artistic and civil experience, born in Bologna and grown internationally.

Biografilm Festival takes place with the contribution of the Department of Culture and Landscape of the Emilia-Romagna Region and with the Main Partnership of Unipol Group.

The jury of the International Competition of Biografilm 2020, composed by Luca Ragazzi (director and film critic), Shelly Silver (artist working in still and moving image) and Martijn te Pas (festival programmer and documentary consultant), assigned the following awards:

Best Film Unipol Award | Biografilm Festival 2020, awarded by the jury to the best film of the International Competition

WALCHENSEE FOREVER by Janna Ji Wonders

Hera “Nuovi Talenti” Award | Biografilm Festival 2020, awarded by the jury to the best first feature of the International Competition

THE EARTH IS BLUE AS AN ORANGE (ZEMLIA BLAKYTNA NIBY APEL’SYN) by Iryna Tsilyk

Special Mention – Hera “Nuovi Talenti” | Biografilm Festival 2020

NOODLE KID (LA YI WAN MIAN) by Huo Ning

WAKE UP ON MARS (RÉVEIL SUR MARS) by Dea Gjinovci

The jury of the Biografilm Italia Competition, composed by Roberta Mattei (cinema and theatre actor) Cristina Rajola (documentary producer and expert in international co-productions) and Ester Sparatore (artist and documentary filmmaker), assigned the following awards:

Best Film Award | Biografilm Italia 2020, awarded by the jury to the best film of the Biografilm Italia Competition

OUR ROAD (LA NOSTRA STRADA) by Pierfrancesco Li Donni

Special Mention | Biografilm Italia 2020

IN A FUTURE APRIL (IN UN FUTURO APRILE) by Francesco Costabile e Federico Savonitto

The Audience Award | Biografilm Festival 2020, the best film as voted by the public of Biografilm Festival 2020, went to: 

SELF PORTRAIT (SELVPORTRETT) by Katja Hogset, Margreth Olin, Espen Wallin

Go to the website to check the Indsustry awards: 

https://www.biografilm.it/en/

Biograffilm Festival Bologna

16th edition, June 5-15, with Finnish Leena Pasanen as the new director for a festival that has the subtitle ”International Celebration of Lives”. There is an international competition with 12 films (with films like Danish „It Takes a Family” by Susanne Kovács, ”Sing me a Song” by Thomas Balmes, ”The Earth is Blue as an Orange” by Iryna Tsilyk from Ukraine – and two Italian films that I have seen:

”Faith” by Valentina Pedicini, the opening film, a strong card to play by the new director; the film won the main award at DocsBarcelona, I saw it at IDFA and remembered ”the former Zelig student, who actually prepared the film, when she was in the school in Bolzano. She made a short film at that time, 11 years ago. “I was young at that time, 11 years later I felt mature enough to go deeper, stay longer at the place-“. And she did together with cameraperson Bastian Esser and his assistent Lucia Alessi – both of them also Zelig students…”. And I – teaching at the school – remember the three talents very well.

The other Italian film in competition is Francesco Cannavà’s “Because of my Body”, first film, produced by experienced Raffaele Brunetti, a film made with respect and care with two amazing characters. No need to give an annotation, as the one from the festival website is precise: “Because of a serious motor disability, Claudia cannot move without being helped by her mother. At the age of 20 she is still a virgin and wonders what sexual pleasure could possibly be like. But one day Marco, a Love Giver, comes into her life. Marco has just attended the first course to help disabled people to discover their own bodies and sexuality, an unprecedented event, on the margins of legality. Supported by a team of specialists, Claudia and Marco embark on a series of meetings which become ever more intimate. However, the project is subject to protocol which includes a rule that is difficult to enforce: never fall in love.” 

Yes, the meetings become “ever more intimate”, sometimes challenging my modesty but it’s never flat, it is gentle and beautiful – show me my clitoris, one scene, painting the body, blue for what you don’t find appealing, another scene, red for sexually appealing, she drives her car in a fantastic scene that conveys her joy on her way to Marco, who more and more becomes “the one and only”. It’s not easy – the mother suffers, Claudia suffers as does Marco in a film full of life and fine moments.

There are 8 more Italian films being presented – in an Italian competition. I will be back with comments on a couple more.

https://www.biografilm.it/en/

IDFA returns to cinemas in November

(with the) Program extended by limited online screenings
 

The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is planning its 33rd edition. With Dutch cinemas now re-opening, IDFA is looking forward to holding the festival in theaters from November 18th to 29th, albeit with potentially reduced capacity. The festival’s competitions will remain intact, to be presented in cinemas and extended with limited virtual cinema screenings and events. 

IDFA competition and audience screenings

 
to be continued…

IDFA will once again offer a launchpad for new films. Every film selected for IDFA 2020 will premiere in cinemas, with a number of online screenings to follow. Limited tickets and scheduled screening times will be central components of IDFA’s virtual cinema model, ensuring the films are available to Dutch audiences who cannot attend in person. 

As always, prestigious international juries will be invited to judge the festival’s various competitions. Whereas 300 films and projects were selected for previous editions of IDFA, this year’s festival will screen around 200 titles. All program sections will stay intact except for the thematic focus programs and IDFA on Stage.

Despite limited seating in theaters this year, IDFA will give priority to the real-life cinema experience, ensuring filmmakers get their deserved stage. IDFA 2020 will expand its theatrical offering with a sub-selection of 20 films, to be screened in over 60 theaters throughout the Netherlands. Beyond the cinema halls, supplementary online screenings at fixed times will allow local audiences to choose their preferred route through the festival. In response to the economic challenges of this year, IDFA 2020 will give priority to supporting filmmakers as their films go online, and to theaters as films go theatrical, through a revenue-sharing model. 

Introductions and live Q&As will remain central to the festival screening experience, whether in cinemas or online. All filmmakers in the selection will be warmly welcomed in Amsterdam. All screenings and events will follow the required health measures in place in November.

IDFA DocLab, the festival’s new media program and exhibition space, will return to Tolhuistuin this year, where several live events will also take place. Additionally, DocLab will present events for 30 or 100 visitors at other locations such as ARTIS Planetarium.

August 1st is the submission deadline for all films completed after April 30th, 2020. For all performances and interactive/immersive new media projects, the submission deadline is July 1st.
 
IDFA Industry
This year, IDFA Industry will continue to connect a global network of documentary film professionals. Accredited guests who can travel are welcome to join the program in Amsterdam. During the festival, professional activities such as industry talks, sessions, and meetups will take place both in Amsterdam venues and online, ensuring they are available to accredited guests around the world. All will be organized with the highest hygiene measures and within the distancing and crowd limitations of the moment.
The markets IDFA Forum—running November 23rd to 27th—and Docs for Sale will take place online. Wherever possible, other industry activities will combine virtual and in-person formats. In addition to selecting a new line-up of high-profile projects, the Forum will present a range of extra projects this year to support filmmaker teams looking for co-production and co-financing partners. Docs for Sale will offer new documentary films from this summer onwards in addition to previously released titles that have regained new relevance in 2020. Both the Forum and Docs for Sale will open for entries on June 12th. Accreditation will open in August.

IDFA’s new talent development program IDFA Project Space is set to launch at the end of June. The program will offer creative and professional development to selected filmmakers from the IDFA Competition for First Appearance, the IDFA Bertha Fund, and IDFAcademy.

Finally, IDFAcademy during IDFA—taking place November 19th to 20th  and 23rd to 25th—will move to an online program in order to best accommodate filmmakers from all over the world. At the same time, IDFA Project Space will offer a continuation for selected filmmakers who are present in Amsterdam in November.

IDFA 2020 will take place in theaters from November 18th to November 29th and will be extended online.

Photo from the opening film last year: Sunless Shadows by Mehrdad Oskouie

Krakow FF Awards Intl. Doc Competition

… and Fipresci Award

Having watched all the competitive films the International Documentary Jury of the 60th Krakow Film Festival consisting of: Łukasz Żal – chairman (Poland), Renata Santoro (Italy), Tod Lending (USA), Eva Mulvad (Denmark), Martin Horyna (Czech Republic) has decided to award the following prizes:

 

THE GOLDEN HORN for the director of the best film – Radu Ciorniciuc for Acasa, My Home (Romania, Finland, Germany)

‘Acasa, My Home’, is awarded the The Golden Horn for its remarkable and complex storytelling that is presented from the children’s perspective of a Roma family. This extraordinarily intimate and authentic film artfully captures the multiple layers of the social, emotional and political realities the family wrestles with as they struggle to maintain their way of life, dignity, sense of self-determination and cultural identity. It is highly unusual when a single documentary film, such as this one, is able to successfully examine and explore so many important aspects of the human condition within one beautifully crafted story. 

THE SILVER HORN for the director of the film with high artistic value – Maciej Cuske for The Whale from Lorino (Poland)

‘The Whale of Lorino’ is awarded The Silver Horn for its immersive experience where metaphorical imagery and sound let us plunge into the reality of a native Siberian village located in a distant, forgotten corner of Russia. The film at times makes us uncomfortable and disturbed, while at other times we feel deeply connected. The director uses a circular narrative structure that challenges the audience to interpret their experience of the community and confront their own prejudices. In the end, this extraordinary film beautifully captures the cultural relationship between man and the environment, and paradoxically shows us that the men who hunt endangered whales for subsistence, are also living lives that are on the edge of extinction. 

THE SILVER HORN for the director of the film on social issues – Mehrdad Oskouei for Sunless Shadows (Iran, Norway)

‘Sunless Shadows’ is awarded the Silver Horn for being an outstanding cinematic piece of work on an important social issue. With precision, authenticity, sensitivity and creative elegance the director presents dramatic stories of domestic violence, hidden traumas, and the collective responsibility of a patriarchal society for the crimes committed by its young female individuals who are in prison for having committed murder. As great art often finds a way to combine the laughter and the tears, we find ourselves both crying and laughing in the company of these remarkable girls who courageously face death sentences while living in an Iranian prison. 

SPECIAL MENTION for Hey! Teachers! directed by Yulia Vishnevets (Russia)

For the richness of a multi-faceted story set in a seemingly ordinary backdrop, and for the insightful, bitterly ironical take on how the Russian public education system can sometimes break down the idealism of certain teachers whose altruistic goal is to educate and improve the lives of their students. 

The FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) Jury consisting of: Jan Storø (Norway), Jihane Bougrine (Maroko), Nachum Mochiach (Israel) has decided to award the International Film Critics Prize to Margreth Olin, Katja Hogset, Espen Wallin for The Self Portrait (Norway)

‘The Self Portrait’ is the kind of movies that hits you from the beginning and stays with you. It’s a perfect example of real-life cinema boasting both authenticity and aesthetic vision. Heart-breaking and relevant, both brave and emotional, it is a powerful documentary about illness and art where photography can change our vision of life.

The Krakow Film Festival recommendation to the European Film Award in a documentary category: 
The Self Portrait, dir. Margreth Olin, Katja Hogset, Espen Wallin (Norway) that also got the AUDIENCE AWARD.
Punta Sacra, dir. Francesca Mazzoleni (Italy)

More awards read

https://www.krakowfilmfestival.pl/en/60th-kff/awards/

Krakow FF Back to the Cinema

This is a copy paste from the Krakow FF website of today:

The 60th Krakow Film Festival invites you to screenings of award-winning films at the Pod Baranami Cinema in Krakow!

The pioneering decision to organize this year’s entire Krakow Film Festival program on the web was a success! The virtual cinema screening rooms has been packed to the brim from the first day of the festival! An enthusiastic, numerous audience participates in meetings with the creators and special live events. The organizers receive thanks and praises coming from all over the world. The Krakow Film Festival has prepared a unique surprise for the viewers. On the last day of the film holiday, you are invited the cinema!

Traditionally, on Sunday, the last day of the festival, the organizers invite the audience to an unforgettable marathon of films awarded in all festival competitions. This year will be no dofferent. Sunday screenings in the virtual cinema will start at 11.00 a.m. CET and will last until late evening. The last tickets are waiting for viewers.

The Krakow Film Festival decided to immediately react to the lifting of some restrictions on cinema activities and invite the audience to screenings of the winning films on 7th of June and have the audience fill all the rooms of the friend Pod Baranami Cinema. Thus, KFF will become the first festival in Poland realized entirely online and in the cinema!

We have often said that despite the great excitement with the new formula of this year’s festival, we can’t wait to get back to the cinemas. We are happy that this can happen much earlier than we thought. Thanks to this, the finale of our festival will be truly unique and will certainly go down in history, emphasizes Olga Lany, spokeswoman for the Krakow Film Festival.

Screenings in the cinema halls of the Krakow Pod Baranami Cinema (at the Main Square and in the Małopolska Garden of Arts) will start in parallel with the virtual screenings – at 11.00. Tickets are PLN 15 and they will only be available at www.kinopodbaranami.pl and at the cinema ticket offices. A detailed screenings program will be announced after the closing ceremony of the festival, which will take place on June 6 at 7.00 p.m.. Immediately after the Gala, selected award-winning films will also be shown: films of the winner of the Golden Hobby-Horse in the Polish competition, winner of the Golden Dragon in the short film competition and winners of the Golden and Silver Horn in the international documentary competition.

Photo: Romanian documentary “Acasa, My Home” by Radu Ciorniciuc. Could be one of the winners of tonight and thus one to be shown in the cinema tomorrow.