In the end of April the 23rd edition of Hungarian MEDIAWAVE festival will kick off. This year we are happy to discover eleven Polish films in the programme. Nine of them are short films – the majority of which will be screened in the international competition – “Porter from Mewa Hotel” by Michał Janów, “To war we go” by Krzysztof Kasior, “Detail” by Piotr Sułkowski, “Loading” by Zofia Mikołajczak, “Once there was a king” by Tytus Majerski, “At saint Vincent’s” by Stanisław Furman, “Carousel” by Marcin Kamiński as well as “On-off” by Piotr Ludwik. The last one – a documentary “3 days of freedom” by Łukasz Borowski will be screened in the non competitive section. There are precisely 89 films in the competition which laureates will be announced on 4th May. Some of the last year’s students’ productions are still in a good shape – “Without snow” by Magnus von Horn will be screened as a part of Canadian Regard sur le Court, “Frozen stories” by Grzegorz Jaroszuk were invited to Film Festival of the Film Academy of Vienna, “To war we go” by Krzysztof Kasior made it straight to the Film Dresden while “All Souls’ day” will be screened as a part of prestigious Aspen Film Festival. All of them stand a chance of winning the awards. Another one, yet also a student film, “Miruna” by Piotr Sułkowski will be screened at two American festivals – Gardenstate and Visions Film. Four titiles – „The Whisle” by Grzegorz Zariczny, „Drawn from memory” by Marcin Bortkiewicz, „Watermelon” by Tato Kotetishvili and „UFO in Piekary” by Konrad Aksinowicz celebrating its international premiere – will be screened at American Nashville.
As it comes to animation highlights of this month it is worth to mention the 12th edition of Czech Anifest and programming three Polish films – “Games” by Maja Tetłak, “Noise” by Przemysław Adamski and coproduced with Germany “Bear me” by Kasia Wilk. Paweł Prewencki and his “What happens when children don’t eat soup” will represent Poland in the competition of Stuttgart Animation Film Festival. This will be another opportunity for Paweł and his films which so far received three festival awards. It is also worth to mention “Kinefaktura” by Marcin Giżycki and its screenening at Experiments in Cinema Festival . The animation was the only Polish films featured in the programme, that after Ann Arbour, is the second most important experimental film festival in United States.
Although more than two months have passed since “The Whistle” received the Grand Jury Award at Sundance FF, the interest in the film doesn’t seem to fade. In April Grzegorz Zariczny’s documentary will be screened at London Sundance Music and Film Festival, Florida Film Festival and Brazilian It’s all true. It is worth embracing that not only the festivals speak for “The Whistle” popularity but also the awards – the latest was handed over to Zariczny at Lithuanian Vilnius Film Festival.
With no doubt the documentary highlight of this month is a Polish focus at Canadian Hot Docs. Ten Polish documentaries, of which five are shorts, will be screened in the special programme “Made in”. There will be also a significant delegation of Polish producers and directors travelling to Toronto. More on the subject can be found here.
The complete list of April festivals can be found in “at festival’s tab”