The Krakow Film Festival () is one of Europe's oldest events dedicated to
documentary
A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
,
animation
Animation is a filmmaking technique whereby still images are manipulated to create moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Animati ...
and other short
film
A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...
forms.
It is one of the only five FIAPF accredited documentary and short film festivals in the world.https://fiapf.org/festivals/accredited-festivals/documentary-and-short-film-festivals/
Kraków Film Festival has been organised every year since 1961. The Artistic President of the festival is .
It was in
Kraków
, officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...
Krzysztof Kieślowski
Krzysztof Kieślowski (, 27 June 1941 – 14 March 1996) was a Polish film director and screenwriter. He is known internationally for ''Dekalog'' (1989), ''The Double Life of Veronique'' (1991), and the Three Colours trilogy, ''Three Colours'' ...
Piotr Dumała
Piotr Dumała (born 9 July 1956 in Warsaw) is a Polish film director and animator.
He is noted for his animation technique. While training to be a sculptor, he discovered that scratching images into painted plaster could be a beautiful way to cr ...
, and
Zbigniew Rybczyński
Zbigniew Rybczyński (; born 27 January 1949) is a Polish filmmaker, director, cinematographer, screenwriter, creator of experimental animated films, and multimedia artist who has won numerous prestigious industry awards both in the United Stat ...
, winner of the
Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film
The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film is an award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as part of the annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, since the 5th Academy Awards (with different names), covering the year ...
for the film ''
Tango
Tango is a partner dance and social dance that originated in the 1880s along the Río de la Plata, the natural border between Argentina and Uruguay. The tango was born in the impoverished port areas of these countries from a combination of Arge ...
'', made their debut.
Yet, such renowned documentary and animated filmmakers were not the only ones to participate and win prizes in Kraków, for the international festival laureates included also numerous artists who made their names as feature film directors:
Pier Paolo Pasolini
Pier Paolo Pasolini (; 5 March 1922 – 2 November 1975) was an Italian poet, film director, writer, actor and playwright. He is considered one of the defining public intellectuals in 20th-century Italian history, influential both as an artist ...
,
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog (; né Stipetić; born 5 September 1942) is a German filmmaker, actor, opera director, and author. Regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema, his films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unusu ...
Jaromil Jireš
Jaromil Jireš (10 December 1935 – 24 October 2001) was a director associated with the Czechoslovak New Wave movement.
Work
His 1963 film '' The Cry'' was entered into the 1964 Cannes Film Festival. It is often described as the first film o ...
,
Claude Lelouch
Claude Barruck Joseph Lelouch (; born 30 October 1937) is a French film director, writer, cinematographer, actor and producer. Lelouch grew up in an Algerian Jewish family. He emerged as a prominent director in the 1960s. Lelouch gained critical ...
,
Patrice Leconte
Patrice Leconte (; born 12 November 1947) is a French film director, screenwriter and comic strip writer.
Life and career
Leconte grew up in Tours, and began making little amateur films at 15. He went to Paris in 1967 and studied at Institut des ...
,
Mike Leigh
Mike Leigh (born 20 February 1943) is an English screenwriter, producer, director and former actor with a film, theatre, and television career spanning more than 60 years. His accolades include prizes at the Cannes Film Festival, the Berlin In ...
, and the recent
Oscar
Oscar, OSCAR, or The Oscar may refer to:
People and fictional and mythical characters
* Oscar (given name), including lists of people and fictional characters named Oscar, Óscar or Oskar
* Oscar (footballer, born 1954), Brazilian footballer ...
laureate,
Jan Svěrák
Jan Svěrák (; born 6 February 1965) is a Czechs, Czech film director and screenwriter. He is the son of screenwriter and actor Zdeněk Svěrák, with whom he collaborated on his most successful films. He is among the most recognized Czech filmm ...
.
Since 1998, the Festival grants an international life achievement award called the "Dragon of Dragons". Its first laureate was Polish documentary maker .
Jan Švankmajer
Jan Švankmajer (born 4 September 1934) is a Czech retired film director, animator, writer, playwright and artist. He draws and makes free graphics, collage, ceramics, tactile objects and asse ...
* 2002 –
Werner Herzog
Werner Herzog (; né Stipetić; born 5 September 1942) is a German filmmaker, actor, opera director, and author. Regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema, his films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with unusu ...
Allan King
Allan Winton King, (February 6, 1930 – June 15, 2009), was a Canadian film director.
Life
Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, during the Great Depression, King attended Henry Hudson Elementary School, in Kitsilano.Jerzy Kucia
* 2010 – Jonas Mekas
* 2011 – Piotr Kamler
* 2012 – Helena Třeštíková
* 2013 – Paul Driessen
* 2014 – Bogdan Dziworski
* 2015 –
Priit Pärn
Priit Pärn (born 26 August 1946 in Tallinn) is an Estonian cartoonist and animation director whose films have enjoyed success among critics as well as the public at various film festivals.
Pärn formerly worked as a plant ecologist; his car ...
Piotr Dumała
Piotr Dumała (born 9 July 1956 in Warsaw) is a Polish film director and animator.
He is noted for his animation technique. While training to be a sculptor, he discovered that scratching images into painted plaster could be a beautiful way to cr ...
Godfrey Reggio
Godfrey Reggio (born 1940) is an American director of experimental documentary films.
Life
Reggio was born in New Orleans in 1940 to a Catholic family. He left home at age 14 to join the Catholic Christian Brotherhood. He became a monk, and spe ...
The unique character of the Krakow Film Festival derives not only from the programme of the competition screenings, the Dragon and Hobby Horse prizes awarded by an international and Polish jury, the Prix UIP Kracow, the
FIPRESCI
The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for ''Fédération Internationale de la Presse Cinématographique'') is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the wor ...
, and the FICC awards or numerous other prizes granted outside festival regulations, but also from the programme of accompanying events.
Film Festival
A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theater, cinemas or screening venues, usually annually and in a single city or region. Some film festivals show films outdoors or online.
Films may be of recent ...