FOCUS ON POLISH DOCS IN COLOMBIA

On December 5th the BogoShorts Short Film Festival begins in Bogota. This year the festival will welcome a strong representation of 26 Polish movies: nine in the competition sections and the rest in the special Focus on Polish Docs programme.

​Five Polish productions got into the international documentary competition: ”Close Ties” by Zofia Kowalewska, ”Volte” by Monika Kotecka and Karolina Poryzała, ”Urban Cowboys” by Paweł Ziemilski, ”Three Conversations on Life” by Julia Staniszewska and ”Between Us” by Maciej Miller. In the short fiction competition we will see ”Time to Go” by Grzegorz Mołda, and in the animated competition: ”Pussy” by Renata Gąsiorowska, ”Foreign Body” by Marta Magnuska and ”Cosmos” by Daria Kopiec.

Apart from the films competing for the festival awards, the audience in Bogota will have a chance to see over twenty Polish documentaries in the Focus on Polish Docs programme. This section will present not only Polish documentary classics but also new films from the younger generation of directors, which already gained recognition at international festivals.

First section called Masters of Polish Documentaries onsists of films made by Polish documentary masters: ”The Musicians” by Kazimierz Karabasz, ”The Primer” by Wojciech Wiszniewski, ”The Sisters” by Paweł Łoziński, ”The Hospital” by Krzysztof Kieślowski, ”A Few Stories About Man” by Bogdan Dziworski, ”89 mm from Europe” by Marcel Łoziński and ”Inventory” by Paweł Łoziński.

In the second section Colombian audience will have a look at the contemporary documentary shorts made by young, ambitious and talented Polish filmmakers. Some of these films have already won awards at the prestigious festivals like Sundance, IDFA or DOK Leipzig and have been either nominated for the Oscars or shortlisted by the Academy.

During the Young Talents screening we will see ten Polish films, produced during the last five years, that have been achieving success at international film festivals: ”Object” by Paulina Skibińska, ”The Whistle” by Grzegorz Zariczny, ”Rogalik” by Paweł Ziemilski, ”A Documentary Film” by Marcin Podolec, ”Super Unit” by Teresa Czepiec, Oscar nominated ”Our Curse” by Tomasz Śliwiński, ”Freestyle Life” by Adam Palenta, ”Polonaise” by Agnieszka Elbanowska, ”Education” by Emi Buchwald, ”Daniel” by Anastazja Dąbrowska and ”Last Season” by Sławomir Witek.

The festival in Bogota will also host a special meeting with Paweł Łoziński, documentary director, screenwriter and producer, whose films keep winning awards at various festivals. His last productions were ”Father and Son” and ”You Have No Idea How Much I Love You”.

There will be to more Polish guests at Bogoshorts: Katarzyna Wilk from the Krakow Film Foundation and Zofia Kowalewska, the director of the film ”Close Ties” that takes part in the competition.

Krakow Film Foundation is an organizer of Focus on Polish Docs prepared as a part of Polish Docs / Polish Animations Intercontinental project supported by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and Polish Film Institute.

More information available at the festival website.