The selection committee of the Slamdance Festival has invited a Polish film to take part in the Documentary Programme. The screening in the competition section of Slamdance will be the American premiere of "Icon" by Wojciech Kasperski. A total of fifteen films will compete for the awards in the documentary programme. It is worth adding that “Icon” is the one of four European film in this group. In the Short Documentary Competition there will be shown also a film "Quiet Hours" by Paul Szynol, polish filmmaker. It is a story about Donald Hall, America’s Poet Laureate and winner of the National Medal of Arts, who lives in the fragile space between loneliness and solitude.
”Icon” shows a psychiatric hospital in the Siberian countryside. The place, which so far was inaccessible for film crews, can be shown thanks to its residents, some of whom spent several decades at the hospital. This discreet and, at the same time, insightful observation of the patients’ daily lives transforms into meditation on the human nature, which is not entirely penetrable.
Slamdance Film Festival is one of largest independent film festivals on the world. It is held in Park City, Utah, since 1995. The first edition of the festival was organised by a group of subversive filmmakers, whose films had not been accepted by the Sundance festival. They felt the need to show their films, so they organised a festival with the motto “from filmmakers for filmmakers.” During twenty years of its history, the festival opened the road to fame for such directors as Christopher Nolan, Marc Forster, Jared Hess, Oren Peli, Benh Zeitlin, Seth Gordon, Lynn Sheltona or Lena Dunham. The brand new edition of the festival, the 20th one, takes place from 19th to 25th January 2018.
More information can be found here.