Competition: FILMS
The selection panel qualified 30 films and features to the competition of the 26th Media Festival. The documentaries will compete for the Grand Prix – the White Cobra statuette – as well as the prize of 12.000 PLN sponsored by the City of Łódź.
21 x New York / 21 x Nowy Jork
directed by: Piotr Stasik (2016), 70’ /Lava Films/
A documentary essay about the condition of a contemporary man, starring 21 persons the director meets in the NY subway. Piotr Stasik encourages his interlocutors to get involved in surprisingly intimate and open confessions of their dreams and failures. The stories reach us from outside the frame, while hypnotising images appear on the screen.
23 November, 7.30 PM
24 Praska St / Praska 24
directed by: Patrycja Polkowska (2015), 17’ /PWSFTviT/
Scrap metal site. Everyday visited by people who for various reasons found themselves on the social margin, on the verge of poverty. Most of them are ill, with alcohol problems, impractical. Lucyna, the co-owner of the business, not only gives people money due for kilos of metal but also talks to them, tries to get to know them better, advises them on difficult issues and tries to spread a good word.
24 November, 9.00 AM
Actress / Aktorka
directed by: Kinga Dębska, Maria Konwicka (2015), 71’ /Kalejdoskop Film/
Elżbieta Czyżewska – one of the most popular film actress of the 1960s. Her friends and colleagues talk about her unhappy marriage, a battle with alcoholism which she fought and won, her attempts to return to Poland. The background of the story is an impressionist portrayal of New York which Czyżewska regarded as her second homeland.
24 November, 4.00 PM
Bye, Baby / Pa, kochanie
directed by: Marek Rudnicki (2016), 40’ /2001 Marek Rudnicki/
Gienia and Sabina met during the war as teenage orphans sent to unfree labour in Germany. After the war they returned to Poland and soon separated: Gienia settled in Łódź, Sabina fulfilled her dreams and went to America with her husband. In 1966 they started correspondence. There were thousands kilometers as well as an economic differences between them. These two “parallel” lives shared the same little pleasures and problems, petty, daily issues – waiting for the children’s weddings, yearning for their grandchildren, arguments with their husbands.
23 November, 12.35 PM
Communion / Komunia
directed by: Anna Zamecka (2016), 72’ /HBO Polska, Wajda Studio, Otter Films/
A 14-year-old Ola takes care of her disabled father, autistic brother and separated mother. But first and foremost she is trying to put the family together again. She lives on the hope that she might bring her mother back home. The First Holy Communion of Nikodem, Ola’s younger brother, serves a pretext for the meeting with their mother. The teenage girl is responsible for preparation of an ideal family celebration. And Nikodem is watching his close relatives’ actions from his own, unusual perspective.
22 November, 7.00 PM
Continuum
directed by: Witold Szymczyk (2016), 18’ /Witold Szymczyk/
Łódź – the light industrial power. The director confronts archival recordings with today’s appearance of the places that not so long ago used to drive the city life. Empty, dilapidated molochs are all that is left of “live organisms”.
23 November, 12.15 PM
Honey Hunters / Łowcy miodu
directed by: Krystian Matysek (2016), 77’ /Arkana Studio/
We follow an actress Magdalena Popławska as she travels across Europe and Asia, trying to determine if it’s possible to save bees from annihilation. Honey hunters write a joint history of man and bees: staring from modern, urban beekeepers, Bashkir restorers of medieval wild-bee keeping techniques to Nepalese continuators of ancient honey collecting traditions. The camera penetrates into the beehives, showing a fascinating image of live, superbly organised and strongly hierarchical bee societies.
24 November, 7.30 PM
Icon / Ikona
directed by: Wojciech Kasperski (2016), 51’ /Delta Film/
A documentary portrait of patients of a provincial psychiatric hospital in Siberia, which turns out to be a storage place rather that a place of “treatment” for hundreds of patients with severe or incurable illnesses. Behind the tall walls, isolating the protagonists from the world, there are people suffering from schizophrenia, serial killers, old grandmas suffering from Alheimer’s disease and difficult teens. Discrete but at the same time in-depth observation of the patients’ and the caregivers’ daily life become a meditation on impenetrable human nature.
23 November, 1.40 PM
Ida & Irena / Ida i Irena
directed by: Piotr Morawski (2016), 28’ /Studio Filmowe Kalejdoskop/
Ida Englard was a granddaughter of tzadik from Piotrków. she dreamt about studying philosophy. She survived the Holocaust (as Irena Kisielewska) thanks to a nun, Sister Irena Szpak, who baptised her, taught her prayers and hid her Jewish origin. After the war Ida-Irena became a doctor of sociology, travelled the world and dealt with methodology of teaching marginalised children. She was seeking her own place but most importantly she was trying to determine who she really was and what she believed in. After many years she returns to the convent that gave her shelter.
23 November, 5.00 PM
Jarocin, Rock For Freedom / Jarocin. Po co wolność
directed by: Marek Gajczak, Leszek Gnoiński (2016), 105’ /Stowarzyszenie Film Kraków/
Vibrant story of the Jarocin Festival, expressed by images and sounds. A humorous story of freedom, youth, independence and dreams interweaves with lyrics that change in line with the surrounding world. The film combines black and white archival images, so-far unpublished, amateur recordings, slightly blurred but still vivid memories of legendary rock rebels for whom Jarocin served as a source of inspiration and artistic freedom.
25 November, 10.00 AM
Jurek
directed by: Paweł Wysoczański (2015), 73’ /Black And White Production/
From rags to riches, from a socialist worker to an international media star, from a man who climbs with no gear and money to a full competitor of Reinhold Messner in the quest for the Crown of the Himalayas and Karakorum. Jerzy Kukuczka – modest, expressive, in love with the mountains. Discussions with the family and friends, archival material, photos, recordings, fragments of TV programmes and interviews make up a portrait of the whole Himalayan climbers’ society in the 1980s.
24 November 11.50 AM
Right Side of Cello / Wariacja na wiolonczelę solo
directed by: Aleksandra Rek (2015), 37’ /Wajda Studio/
Dominik Połoński is a cellist, a winner of numerous, national and international awards. He is also the only cellist in the world who plays using only one hand. In consequence of cancer the left side of his body was paralysed in 2004 and although he regained most of his physical powers, the left hand remains numb. The idea he could return to music and his cello helped him during his struggle with the disease.
24 November, 9.50 AM
Siaroża
directed by: Jerzy Kalina (2015), 47’ /Bartosz Bażynów/
Sergiusz Niczypork – a Belarusian, roofer and carpenter, manages an open-air museum in Budy in the Podlaskie voivodeship. Once a dedicated communist, he left the party to join an Orthodox Seminary. His biography is a pretext for a narrative covering the history of Belarusians in Podlasie. This history is marked with a trauma of mass murders in 1945 and 1946.
23 November, 10.00 AM
Somewhere in the Middle of Europe / Gdzieś w środku Europy
directed by: Bogusław Dąbrowa-Kostka (2016), 60’ /Bogusław Dąbrowa-Kostka/
Spring 2012 witnessed a hunger protest “in defence of the Polish School” and “against constraints on the teaching of Polish history”. The hunger strike in Cracow lasted 12 days. One of the protesters was the film author, who documented the strike on daily basis. Thus, he created not only a record of a specific event but also a unique travel in time.
25 November, 2.30 PM
Stand up and Fight / Wstawaj i walcz
directed by: Weronika Pliszka (2016), 30’ /Weronika Pliszka/
In consequence of a railway accident Przemek Wieczorek found himself, as he put it, “in hell”. He lost both hands, his self-reliance and will to live. He discovered the sense of life in sport. His participation in para-taekwondo Wold Championships made him believe again that despite daily problems he could develop and face new challenges.
24 November, 11.15 AM
State of Mind / Stan umysłu
directed by: Daria Lipko (2015), 53’ /Opus Film/
When a neuropsychiatrist, Bosnian Muslim, Senadin Ljubovic, employed another psychiatrist, a Serb Radovan Karadžić, in a clinic in Sarajevo, he did not expect that many years later he would be visiting him in the Hague prison. The trip to the Netherlands provides an opportunity to settle with the past, recollect the meetings and discussions with a former friend who is now serving a prison sentence for war crimes.
22 November, 2.15 PM
The Battle with Satan / Walka z szatanem
directed by: Konrad Szołajski (2015), 77’ /HBO Central Europe, ZK Studio/
All over the world crowds of believers are subject to exorcisms. The number of priests carrying out this ritual is growing. Karolina, Basia and Agnieszka, the heroines of this documentary, are facing serious life problems. They turn to exorcists to regain their inner balance. During their struggle with the evil they are supported by their close ones, spiritual guides and doctors.
25 November, 8.30 PM
The Diary of David Sierakowiak / Dziennik Sierakowiaka
directed by: Michał Bukojemski (2016), 57’ /Digit Film/
Dawid Sierakowiak was 16 when the Litzmannstadt Ghetto was established by Germans. The boy who was a unique talent, well-read, involved in the Jewish community life, started a journal about the ghetto life. This text is a remarkable testimony, reflecting the fate of the Łódź Jews, their suffering and daily struggle for survival. The director leaves the text unchanged and its reading is only supplemented with photos and films from the ghetto. The only commentary comes from Marian Turski, a ghetto survivor, who confirms, compliments the text, leaving the question marks and understatements.
23 November, 5.30 PM
The Wizzard of U.S. / Czarnoksiężnik z krainy U.S.
directed by: Balbina Bruszewska (2016), 23’ /WJTeam/
Contemporary Dorothy from the “Wizard of Oz” is an insecure girl that finds herself in Los Angeles, the grand world of entertainment. She wakes up in the reality which is full of superficial appearances, dishonesty, social ties and games. Balbina Bruszewska applies the collage technique, giving her story about modern world and human relations lightness and satirical tone enriched with statements of women the director collected in LA in 2014.
23 November, 11.30 AM
Two worlds / Dwa światy
directed by: Maciej Adamek (2016), 52’ /Metro Films, Telewizja Polska/
Laura likes Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber a lot. She enjoys rollerskating and meeting with her friend. She is about to take the 6th grade exam. Yet her daily life is full of much harder tests – she buys coal, pays bills, talks to the Social Insurance Institution. Her parents are deaf without speech and in her everyday life she acts as their interpreter, ensuring their only chance for normal functioning in our world.
23 November, 9.00 AM
Viatoris. Between East and West / Viatoris. Między Wschodem i Zachodem
directed by: Iwona Meus-Jargusz, Marek Gajczak (2016), 49’/Stowarzyszenie Film Kraków/
Viatoris is a painter, an artist who travels outlandish regions of Siberia and crowded streets of big cities, leaving behind the “traces” in the form of paintings, notes, ideas. In this case the route itself becomes a destination. The route is marked with paintings, meetings and stories, as well as the artist’s inner conflict.
25 November, 9.00 AM
We Need To Talk / Musimy porozmawiać
directed by: Jędrzej Michalak (2015), 22’ /PWSFTviT/
A film project started from “discussions” the director started to record after his mother’s death. These were monologues in which he talked about the loss, sorrow and the things he didn’t manage to tell. It was a form of auto-therapy which he encouraged other people who lost their close one to take. He gave them a chance to talk openly about their feelings, to go through a specific final farewell and to remove all emotions that accompanied them in the last months, days, minutes spent with the lost one.
24 November, 9.20 AM
You Have No Idea How Much I Love You / Nawet nie wiesz jak bardzo cię kocham
directed by: Paweł Łoziński (2016), 80’ /Łoziński Production/
The films presents a drama of two women: a mother and a daughter that are bound by a difficult, complicated feeling. The key event for the heroines is a meeting with a third person, someone strange, with whom they become close and who becomes an experienced therapist. His main tools are words and empathy. The director invites us to attend therapeutic sessions. Old faults and deeply hidden emotions slowly resurface during the intimate discussion between the three people. Will it be possible for them to break the circle of long-time traumas?
25 November, 6.30 PM
Zud
directed by: Marta Minorowicz (2016), 85’ /Zero OneFilm, Otter Films/ Poland, Germany/
Mongolia. Severe climate, vast steppes, large hills and among them a family living on horse breeding and sheep grazing. But the problems in this barely realistic scenery are very contemporary. A man borrowed one million tugirk and the bank does not want to prolong the term of payment. – The horse is the only hope – the man tells his 11-year-old son. They start to tame a wild horse to be able to race, win a prize and give the money back.
22 November, 3.10 PM
Competition: FEATURES
Chernobyl / Czarnobyl. Wstęp wzbroniony
directed by: Armin Kurasz (2015), 53’ /TVN/
A document presenting the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone 30 years after the nuclear power station failure. The film authors reached the witness of the past events, confronted their memories of work in a prosperous plant and vibrant Prypiat with contemporary image of wild and mysterious Exclusion Zone.
24 November, 2.00 PM
Escape from Hell / Ucieczka z piekła
directed by: Ernest Saj (2016), 57’ /Saj Independence Film for TVP/
When Jugendamt – organisation for management of youth and children in Germany – separates a son or a daughter from their biological parents, the parents are deprived of their parental rights. The film also tries to show the parents’ drama and determination. What are the people deprived of their children capable of?
25 November, 12.30 PM
Gateway to Freedom / Brama do wolności
directed by: Inka Bogucka (2016), 10’ /TVP Kraków/
Monika, Marlena, Anna. What they have in common is the fact that they have started an amateur theatre in the Nowa Huta prison. The perform for children in kindergartens and for patients of a hospice. They hope in this way they might show the better side of themselves. And the yearning after the family and the work for others is supposed to help each woman go beyond their earlier selves, to transgress their inner imprisonment in their sense of guilt.
25 November, 12.30 PM
Life Worth Living / Warto żyć
directed by: Monika Meleń (2015), 12’ /TVP Kraków/
Many people have heard about Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) only recently when the Internet was full of films with people damping buckets of ice cold water over their heads to manifest their support for the ill ones. For Mrs Bożena the diagnosis came out of nowhere and was received like a sentence – two years left. Paweł – a founder of ALS Association – heard the same diagnosis on the threshold of adulthood. Their collaboration resulted in the establishment of a telephone helpline as well as a support network whose members not only support each other in their fight for life but also in their drive to fulfil their dreams.
24 November, 2.00 PM
Misfit / Inny
directed by: Alicja Grzechowiak (2016), 19’ /TVP Białystok/
They call him Gwizdek (a whistle) because he can whistle even the most elaborate tunes in a beautiful and spotless manner. He works as a guard. He lives away from people, near the woods, in company of his dogs and cats. He graduated from a university and had good prospects for the future. The doors to career in music industry were wide open but still he consciously resigned from money and fame and did not want to join in the race.
25 November, 12.30 PM
The Illness Continues / Choroba jeszcze nie minęła
directed by: Tomasz Patora (2016), 27’ /TVN/
There is a place in Poland where it only takes a moment for a person to lose all their rights and privileges. This is a detention ward of a psychiatric hospital which should accept only dangerous, ill and deranged criminals. The number of people sent forcibly to special hospital wards can be as high as several hundreds. And once you get drawn in by the system, you may often spend years deprived of your rights, freedom and dignity.
24 November, 2.00 PM
