Dragon of Dragons 2025
Jean-François Laguionie to Receive the Dragon of Dragons AwardSmoków 2025
Winner of the Palme d’Or in Cannes, the French César, and both the Silver and Golden Dragon at the Kraków Film Festival, Jean-François Laguionie is set to return to the capital of Lesser Poland. Jean-François Laguionie is going to receive the Dragon of Dragons and lead a masterclass The occasion will be accompanied by a retrospective of his remarkable, painterly films.animacji.
The Kraków Film Festival Programme Council has selected French animation maestro Jean-François Laguionie as the recipient of the 2025 Dragon of Dragons award. For six decades, Laguionie has continued to explore new compositional possibilities in animated storytelling. His early films – Noah’s Ark (Silver Dragon, 1967) and A Random Bomb (Golden Dragon, 1969) – earned recognition at the Kraków Film Festival, while Rowing Across the Atlantic (1978) secured him the Palme d’Or at Cannes. His latest feature, A Boat in the Garden, is set to premiere this year. – explains Tadeusz Lubelski, Chair of the KFF Programme Council.
The oneiric journeys of Jean-François Laguionie
Dagmara Marcinek
Jean-François Laguionie’s cinema is an invitation to travel into the unknown. It can be done both literally — since the protagonists of his films traverse mountains, deserts and oceans, lands full of surprising adventures and fantastic characters; and figuratively — as Laguionie’s films are surreal journeys through unexplored corners of imagination, where the boundaries between the real and the unreal are virtually non-existent.
Read the article “The oneiric journeys of Jean-François Laguioni” by Dagmara Marcinek.
Born in 1939 in Besançon, France, Jean-François Laguionie initially pursued drawing, painting, and theatre. He studied stage design at the École de la rue Blanche in Paris before turning to acting. In 1963, he met Paul Grimault (1904–1994), one of France’s most celebrated animation directors. That encounter prompted Laguionie to alter the course of his artistic development. Grimault became his mentor, providing him with studio space and imparting not only the technical aspects of animation but also the principles of constructing narratives. Most importantly, he demonstrated that animation need not be confined to merely entertainment; it could also serve as a profound artistic medium exploring human emotions and experiences.
As part of his visit to Kraków, Laguionie will lead a masterclass.