The programme of the Krakow Film Festival is, as usual, bursting at the seams. More than 190 films will be waiting for viewers in Krakow’s studio cinemas and online. There will also be numerous accompanying events. One new segment is particularly worth mentioning among this year’s novelties: KFF Talks – a series of unique meetings and fascinating discussions with eminent figures from outside the film world. These are conversations about philosophy, exact and natural sciences, and humanities about the condition of the world and the place of man in contemporary reality.
We know that the films presented during the Krakow Film Festival do not end with the credits. They stay with us for longer. Some of them affect us so strongly that they change our perspective, influence our perception of the world and various phenomena. We felt that we needed to bolster this fascinating process that accompanies viewers interacting with documentary filmmaking of the highest quality. And that’s how the idea for the KFF Talks was born – explains Barbara Orlicz-Szczypuła, Head of the Festival’s Programme Department .
KFF TALKS: ON MEMORY Wild strawberries, or what physics, neuroscience, and the art of reporting say about the phenomenon of memory. A meeting with Anna Bikont, Mateusz Hohol, and Krzysztof Meissner will be hosted by Katarzyna Czarnecka and Karol Jałochowski from Pulsar.
29.05 (Sunday), 15:00–16:30, Auditorium of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow | Admission is free.
If I have been feeling worried or sad during the day, I have a habit of recalling scenes from childhood to calm me”, says Dr Eberhard Isak Borg, the protagonist of Wild Strawberries, the 1957 Ingmar Bergman film. And it is to memory, to reminiscence, to the process of reaching back in time that this year’s Docs+Science series will be devoted. This phenomenon is also the subject of a debate. The test object will be screened with three types of apparatus. Physicist Professor Krzysztof Meissner is going to explain what science can say about past events that no one has witnessed. Are they lost with no trace left? Neuroscientist Mateusz Hohol will explain what the brain’s memory processes are all about. Where does that which we forget hide? Writer Anna Bikont will talk about how to work with the most delicate of delicate resources – memories Can all of them be trusted?
Experts are going to talk about memory as recorded in non-material culture and in tangible matter – in the stars, in the brain, in genes. They will try to show us that structured recollection, a collective return to “where the wild strawberries grow”, is an integral part of the cognitive process. It does not always bring peace, as it was with Dr Borg, but it isn’t always a form of escapism and always brings knowledge
The popular science website Pulsar is a partner of the event.
KFF TALKS: ON HAPPINESS Practical felicitology, or how to live to be happy. Marcin Borchardt will talk with Professor Bogdan de Barbaro in connection with the screening of Jonas Mekas’ film Outtakes From the Life of a Happy Man.
1.06 (Wednesday), 18:30, MOS1 Hall in the Małopolska Garden of Arts | Admission is free.
Reality makes no sense. Everything just happens, it just exists and I exist too, but me and reality are two completely different things – Jonas Mekas wrote in a diary. Outtakes From the Life of a Happy Man is an autobiographical film – a kaleidoscope. Created from discarded shots collected over forty years – “fragments of memories, from what I wanted to see, without what I did not want to see”. A carnival of images he wanted to share with us. Subtle, simple, and beautiful. Chaotic and disjointed, like the spasms of memories. Today we all collect images and emotions. We create private reservoirs of happy moments, in memory, or on the phone.
Mekas’ experimental film will be an excuse to meet and talk about happiness. But what is happiness? Do we have to be happy? How can you be happy if you’re unhappy? What to do with all this happiness in the face of the immensity of human tragedy? Marcin Borchardt will discuss this with Bogdan de Barbaro.
The event is part of the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jonas Mekas, an outstanding Lithuanian artist, winner of the Dragon of Dragons Award at the Krakow Film Festival in 2010.
The Lithuanian Culture Institute is a partner of the event.
KFF TALKS: ON FREEDOM. In the shadow of a big brother, or about states and nations’ right of self-determination. Adam Michnik interviews Sergei Loznitsa and Vytautas Landsbergis.
2.06 (Thursday), 18:00–19:15, Auditorium of the Academy of Fine Arts in Krakow | Admission is free.
Putin truly believes that the Ukrainian nation does not exist. And he can appeal to a belief that dominates Russian society. Here in Russia, they are Great Russians, and those in Ukraine are Little Russians, but they are all Rus. When you talk to Russian democrats, it’s clear to them that Poles are a separate, independent nation. It may be a bad nation, a traitor to the Slavs, damn Catholics, anarchists, but it’s a different nation nonetheless. Even democrats do not say that about Ukrainians – Adam Michnik said in an interview with Dominika Wielowieyska, Gazeta Wyborcza, 13 May 2022.
Adam Michnik – Polish journalist, dissident in the times of the Polish People’s Republic, Sergei Loznitsa – outstanding Ukrainian filmmakers, multiple winner of the Krakow Film Festival, including the Dragon of Dragons award for his contribution to world documentary cinema. The director of Mr Landsbergis,screened at the festival; he went through numerous archives and gained insightful knowledge of Russian imperial ambitions. He unequivocally condemned the aggression against Ukraine. Vytautas Lansbergis led the proclamation of Lithuania’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1990. Based on their experiences, they will talk about the need of states and peoples for self-determination.
Kategoria: News.