Eight excellent and new documentary films for young viewers screened at five European film festivals. For the third time, the Krakow Film Festival is participating in the international project Docs4Teens – Building Bridges.
Docs4Teens – Building Bridges is back and bigger than ever! We’re very happy that – thanks to our initiative – new and extremely diverse documentary films are able to reach young viewers in several European countries – comments Magdalena Walo, coordinator of the Kids&Youth Fest section at KFF.
Docs4Teens – Building Bridges, a new European festival network, was established in 2021 on the initiative of the Krakow Film Festival – together with the festivals Dei Popoli (Italy), FIPADOC (France), and Docudays UA (Ukraine). This year, another festival joined the project – Porto/Post/Doc from Portugal. The network’s main aim is to promote documentaries among young people, as well as to support the international distribution of European documentaries aimed at adolescents.
In this year’s edition, a total of 8 documentaries aimed at a teenage audience will be screened. Selected films encourage reflection on current, sometimes difficult, topics such as war, climate change, or growing up.
The films will be screened in 2024 at the following festivals: Dei Popoli (Italy, November), FIPADOC (France, January), Porto/Post/Doc (Portugal, November), Docudays UA (Ukraine, June), and the Krakow Film Festival (Poland, May-June).
Films selected for the third edition of Docs4Teens:
- In The Rearview, dir. Maciek Hamela (Poland, 85′)
- Children of the Border, dir. Janne Vasarainen (Estonia, 17’)
- We Will Not Fade Away, dir. Alisa Kovalenko (Ukraine, Poland, France, 100’)
- Girl Away From Home, dir. Simon Lereng Wilmont, Alisa Kovalenko (Denmark,, Norway, 22’)
- Pourquoi on se bat, dir. Camille Etienne, Solal Moisan (France, 70’)
- The Unicorn in Snowpants Suddenly Ran Off, dir, Philipp Schaeffer (Germany, 18’)
- Dreaming Arizona, dir. Jon Bang Carlsen (Denmark, Estonia, Norway, 76’)
- Girls’ Stories, dir. Aga Borzym (Poland, 60′)
ABOUT THE FESTIVALS PARTICIPATING IN THE DOCS4TEENS NETWORK SEASON 2023/2024:
Krakowski Festiwal Filmowy – is one of the oldest events in the world dedicated to documentary, animated and short feature films. It core consists of three competitions of equal rank: documentary film competition, short film competition and national competition. During the eight festival days, the viewers have a chance to watch about 250 films from Poland and from around the world. They are shown in competition sections and in special screenings. The festival is accompanied by exhibitions, concerts, open-air shows and meetings with artists. Every year, the festival is visited by approximately 900 Polish and international guests: directors, producers, festival programmers and numerous Krakow audience.
Docudays UA – established in 2004 in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. It is a documentary film festival devoted to human rights issues. In addition to domestic productions there are also competitions featuring documentaries from all over the world. The event’s extremely rich program also includes films for children and adolescents. Films for younger audiences can be found in the non-competitive DOCU/YOUTH section.
Festival dei Popoli – held in Florence, Festival dei Popoli has a long history. The first edition took place in 1959. During over 50 years of its existence, the festival has managed to establish a recognizable brand in the documentary industry. In addition to the competitive section, reviews of outstanding filmmakers are a big part of the festival’s program. It is equally important to reach young audiences, and for years the festival has featured a section aimed at young viewers – Popoli for Kids and Teens, where a separate prize is awarded by young jurors during the Young Jury Day.
FIPADOC – is an international documentary film festival that has been held since 1987 in Biarritz, France. During the six-day event, the audience gets see the most interesting documentaries of recent months and attend numerous meetings with filmmakers. The festival program also includes a section for young viewers. The non-competitive segment Family Films presents the most interesting documentaries for children and school students.
PORTO/POST/DOC – Film and Media Festival emerged in 2014 as a response to the closure of cinemas in Porto city center. Programming over 120 films, the festival invites you to discover new, critical and artistically ambitious cinema, with an emphasis on documentary and new forms of non-fiction cinema (hybrid, experimental or animation). Every year in the month of November, the festival increasingly seeks to be a meeting point between members of the national and international industry, and between these members and our local communities – academic, political and social – with the aim of generating discussions around fictions of the real – the motto of the festival.
Krakow Film Festival is on the exclusive list of qualifying events for the Oscars® in the categories of short film (live action, animated, documentary) and documentary feature, as well as a recommending event for the European Film Awards in the same categories.
The 64th Krakow Film Festival will be held in cinemas from 26 May to 2 June and online across Poland on the KFF VOD platform from 31 May to 16 June 2024.
Kategoria: Announcement.