Last year, as many as five documentaries won festivals which enable them to apply for an Academy Award. Still in 2017, the documentary film “Opera about Poland” won the qualifying award at the Ji.hlava Documentary Film Festival in Czech Republic. Also the short documentary film “How to become a Pope?” by Justyna Mytnik won qualifying award in 2017, at Warsaw Film Festival in Poland. Krakow Film Festival gave the chance for the Academy Award to the documentary film “The Sisters” by Michał Hytroś, and the victory at Yamagata Film Festival in Japan and distribution in USA allowed the feature-lenght documentary film by Anna Zamecka, “Communion” to apply for the nomination. The award at Camerimage Film Festival in Poland for “Zhalanash – Empty Shore” by Marcin Suter made it possible for the film to compete for the most important award for short film.
In recent years, the Academy appreciated Polish productions. Last year, “Close Ties” by Zofia Kowalewska and “Starting Point” by Michał Szcześniak in 2015, which were included on the shortlist, had a chance for a nomination. In 2014, two short documentary films: “Our Curse” by Tomasz Śliwiński and “Joanna” by Aneta Kopacz were nominated for the Academy Awards. Earlier on, in the short documentary film category, the films “The Children of Leningradsky” by Hanna Polak and Andrzej Celiński (2005) and “Rabbit a la Berlin” by Bartosz Konopka and Piotr Rosołowski (2010) won the nominations.
We keep our fingers crossed so that this year the words “And the Oscar goes to …” would be addressed to one of the Polish films.