The Krakow Film Festival programme would not be complete without stories celebrating the love of cinema itself. Fans of the moving image inhabit the bustling suburbs of Kolkata, yet they may also create cinematic narratives without ever leaving the editing room, weaving a singular, wholly original story from thousands of film fragments. Redlight to Limelight by Bipuljit Basu, a work that transforms lives, and Michal Kosakowski’s bold and experimental Holofiction are both going to be shown in the International Documentary Competition.
The filmmakers behind these two titles strongly believe in the power of cinema. Bipuljit Basu visits subjects for whom cinema serves as an instrument of genuine change, whilst Michal Kosakowski, editing thousands of film fragments into a new narrative, reveals the ways in which cinema moulds our collective memory. These are two different perspectives on the same essential question: why do we make films, and what do films do to us?
Cinema Changes Lives
CAM ON is a small, entirely independent film production company founded by a group of amateurs. Their short fictional works brim with ingenuity and originality. Initially, this passion for filmmaking offers an escape from the reality of growing up and working in a Kolkata brothel. In time, however, it becomes an act of defiance against discrimination and social ostracism.
In Redlight to Limelight, Bipuljit Basu demonstrates that love for cinema is alive and well, and that films can still change lives. For the women working in the brothel, and for their children, the camera represents a real chance of transformation – a fresh start for an entire community. Screenings of CAM ON films become a remarkable experience; not only for those involved in making them or for the audiences, but equally for viewers of this self-reflexive documentary which emerged from the vibrant, teeming heart of India.
Film Shapes Memory
Were you aware that from 1938 to the present day, several thousand feature films have been made about the World War II and the Holocaust? Celebrated, Oscar-winning blockbusters, ambitious auteur statements, and long-forgotten modest pieces have more in common than you might assume. In his extraordinary video essay, Michal Kosakowski gets rid of superfluous commentary, juxtaposing thousands of similar film fragments to construct an utterly unique narrative about a cinema that governs our collective imagination.
Holofiction can be viewed on multiple levels. As an arranged collage of both familiar and lesser-known cinematic images; as an account of the Holocaust refracted through the prism of narrative cinema; or even as an intellectual meditation on the moment when victim becomes executioner – much like the characters portrayed by Daniel Olbrychski and Christoph Waltz.
The screening of Holofiction will be accompanied by a KFF Talks event What Images Do to Us, held under the patronage of the International Federation of Film Critics, FIPRESCI. The discussion will feature the Polish-German documentarian Michal Kosakowski (the film’s director), film scholar Dr Bartosz Kwieciński (author of Obrazy i klisze. Między biegunami wizualnej pamięci Zagłady [Images and Clichés: Between Opposite Extremes of the Visual Memory of the Shoah]), and fellow film critics.
Selected titles from the International Documentary Competition:
- The Arctic Circle of Lust, dir. Markku Heikkinen, 97’ Finland, Germany, Sweden, 2026
- The Fabulous Time Machine, dir. Eliza Capai, 71’, Brazil, 2026
- Silent Flood, dir. Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, 90’, Ukraine, Germany, 2025
- Redlight to Limelight, dir. Bipuljit Basu, 100’, India, Finland, Latvia, 2025
- Holofiction, dir. Michal Kosakowski, 102’, Germany, Austria, 2026
In a recent announcement we unveiled the first titles selected for the International Competition – you can find it here. These are by no means the only productions that are going to compete for the Golden Horn, however – more titles will be revealed soon.
Insider passes for the 66th Krakow Film Festival are now on sale!
The Krakow Film Festival is on the exclusive list of film events qualifying for the Academy Awards® in short film categories (fiction, animation, documentary) and feature-length documentary, the European Film Awards in the same categories, and serves as a qualifying event for the BAFTA Awards.
The Krakow Film Festival is organised with financial support from the City of Krakow, the Polish Film Institute, the Creative Europe MEDIA Programme, and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Culture Promotion Fund – a state purpose fund. The Polish Filmmakers Association serves as co-organiser.The 66th Krakow Film Festival will be held in cinemas from 31 May to 7 June 2027 and online on KFF VOD from 5 June to 19 June 2026.