POLISH DOCUMENTARIES AT THE HOT DOCS FESTIVAL IN CANADA
At one of the biggest festivals on the world, Hot Docs in Toronto, Canada, there will be a strong representation of Polish documentary cinema. Two Polish films will take part in the competition, while as much as 22 films will be shown during the film market Doc Shop 2010.
Hot Docs is the largest documentary film festival in the North America and plays an extremely important role in the international documentary film industry arena. For seventeen years this enormous event has been a great opportunity for meeting film-makers, producers, distributors and film experts. Hot Docs is not only a festival during which documentary cinema from around the world is presented. Within the frames of a widely understood initiative of developing the film industry, the organizers offer film fair, conferences and discussion panels.The main points of the Hot Docs festival include (apart from competition and non-competition programmes, presenting the latest documentary films from around the world):
- Toronto Documentary Forum a set of coproduction meetings followed by a pitching sessions, helping to develop international co-production projects, which are at different stages of making, by providing funds
- Doc Shop, that is film fair in the form of digitalized library, containing over 1500 documentary films
- Doc Shop Online – project offering all year long on-line access to films shown at the festival (initiative addressed to registered producers, distributors, professionals)
- Sales Office – that is a meeting place for people interested in buying and selling the documentary film projects – which is the specific centre of the film market
- International Co-Production Day – a day devoted to meetings of producers, interested in making international projects
At this year's festival the following Polish documentaries will be shown:
- Chemo, dir. Paweł Łoziński (the international competition)
- Six Weeks, dir. Marcin Janos Krawczyk (the international competition)
- War Games, dir. Dariusz Jabłoński (international survey of the best documentaries )
- A Man Came and Took Her, dir. Jędrzej Niestrój, Rafał Przybył ( international survey of the best documentaries)
In addition, within the frames of Doc Shop the audience will have a chance to get acquainted with a wide range of Polish documentary films. The following films will be presented under POLISH DOCS programme:
Six weeks, dir. Marcin Janos Krawczyk
Chemo, dir. Pawel Lozinski
The Lucky Ones, dir. Tomasz Wolski
The Actors, dir. Tomasz Wolski
Mother, dir. Jakub Piątek
Where the Sun Doesn’t Rush, dir. Matej Bobrik
Andrzej Wajda: let’s shoot!, dir. Marcin Sauter, Maciej Cuske, Thierry Paladino, Piotr Stasik
Warsaw Available, dir. Karolina Bielawska, Julia Ruszkiewicz
The Unemployed, dir. Nastia Tarasowa
Flightless Birds, dir. Michal Dawidowicz
Side-Track, dir. Anna Kazejak
Getting On, dir. Renata Gabryjelska
Direction: Iceland, dir. Kalina Alabrudzinska
Agor Dromesko (At the End of Way), dir. Jedrzej Baczyk
Chasm, dir. Wojciech Kasperski
Beautiful Misunderstanding, dir. Pawel Ferdek
The Way, dir. Grzegorz Korczak
Henryk Musialowicz. MAN, dir. Anna Blaszczyk, Robert Kielak
Good morning, Lenin!, dir. Konrad Szolajski
Nowhere Blues, dir. Bartosz Warwas
The Dog Hill, dir. Grzegorz Zariczny
Little Bride, dir. Leslaw Dobrucki
It is noteworthy that Polish films have enjoyed popularity at that festival. In recent years, the Hot Docs audience had an opportunity to watch, among others, short-length documentaries by young film-makers - “Rendez-vous” by Marcin Janos Krawczyk, “By the River” by Magdalena Kowalczyk, “52 percent” by Rafał Skalski or “Cupboard” by Jacob Dammas, and last year “Rabbit a la Berlin ” by Bartek Konopka was recognised as the best middle-length film of the festival, and this award began the series of the film's successes.
More information on the website www.hotdocs.ca