Masters of the cinema about the masters of sport at Krakow Film Festival
At the 56th Krakow Film Festival, one of the new features in the programme is the review of the films by great directors, who decided to document the winter and summer Olympic Games.
Exactly two months after the last screening of this year’s edition of Krakow Film Festival, start the 31st Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. On this occasion, we give the audience a unique opportunity to get acquainted with the treasures of OIympic Games films, made by the masters of international cinema: Leni Riefenstahl, Claude Lelouch and François Reichenbach, Carlos Saura and Siergei Miroschnichenko. The series’ partner is Polish Olympic Committee.
This is a treat not only for sports fans, film experts and lovers of spectacular cinema, it is also a contribution to the reflection about the thin boundary between noble praise of fortitude and implementing propaganda commissions. The review opens with the recently finished, impressive documentary film “Rings of the World,” by the eminent Russian film-maker, Sergei Miroshnichenko, who will be the guest at the screening.
This monumental work of art demands appropriate setting, says Krzysztof Gierat, the director of the festival. The film will be shown on the big screen of the cinema Kijów.Centrum, so that the audience can fully appreciate its spectacular quality (19 cameramen worked on the film!) The director, known for his series “Born in the USSR,” spanning several years, chose a couple of athletes from various countries and sport disciplines in order to track their dramatic struggles and share their pain, fear, desire, joy of victory and bitterness of defeat, that is, emotions identical with every sports event, and during Olympic Games, particularly intensified.
In addition, in the programme we will also see one of the most important sports documentary film in the history of the cinema: two parts of “The Olympiad” by Leni Riefenstahl, the first film showing Olympic Games with such a breadth thanks to the use of innovative film-making techniques. Due to the historical context, today the film is considered a controversial production, propagating not only sport ideas, but also the Nazi Third Reich. However, it is undeniably a cornerstone of sports documentary film.
“Grenoble” by Claude Lelouch and François Reichenbach is a brutal ice hockey struggle, phenomenal figure skating, and sledges moving with impressive speed. The film-makes also show the Olympic Games from the inside, portraying both the athletes and the audience, thanks to which the lofty atmosphere of the Olympic Games gains a bit of humour.
In “Marathon” by Carlos Saura, the Olympic Games in Barcelona is a spectacular opening ceremony, spectacular victories and devastating defeats. Anxious music during the race emphasises the athletes’ determination, delicate, joyful sounds turn the athletics into dance, and sad violins accompany those who were not fated to win at the Olympics.
The schedule:
MON| 30.05 | KIJÓW.CENTRUM | 20:30 “Rings of the World,” dir. Sergei Miroshnichenko, 192’
TUE| 31.05 | MOS 2 | 19:30 “Olympia Part One: Festival of the Nations,” dir. Leni Riefenstahl, 124’
WED| 01.06 | MOS 2 | 19:30 “Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty,” dir. Leni Riefenstahl, 96’
THU| 02.06| MOS 2 | 19:30 “Grenoble,” dir. Claude Lelouch, François Reichenbach, 112’
FRI| 03.06 | MOS 2 | 19:30 “Marathon,” dir. Carlos Saura, 114’