Kendal Mountain Film Festival was held for the sixteenth time, developing with every subsequent edition. Every year, it presents more and more films, which are more and more diverse. However, what has not changed is the main focus of the festival, that is, mountain films. This year, as many as two awards at the festival went to Polish documentary films.
The title of the Best Mountaineering Film went to the documentary film "Jurek" by Paweł Wysoczański. The film tells about the Polish Himalayan mountaineer, Jerzy Kukuczka, who died tragically. The documentary film does not, however, concentrate on the mystery of his death, but shows a person, who climbs up, higher and higher – in a literal, but also metaphorical and symbolic sense. From a bootblack to a millionaire, from a socialist worker to an international media star, from the man who climbs without any money and equipment to the real competitor of Reinhold Messner in the competition to climb the Crown of the Himalayas and the Karakoram.
In Great Britain, "The Place" by Julia Popławska received the award for the best sound. The people responsible for the sound include: Radosław Ochnio and Piotr Knop from TOYA Studios, as well as the soundmen from the film set: Grzegorz Liwiński and Marcin Cichoń. The documentary film depicts the highest workplace in Poland, where night observation of the surrounding world incessantly goes on. The employees of "the Place" suspended out of time and space, are unshakeably on their posts, in spite of any adversity and surprising situations.
The full list of award-winning films is on the festival's website.