On Sunday, June 7th, the 60th Krakow Film Festival finished with the screenings of the awarded films; it’s the first film festival in Poland that happened entirely online and ended in the Kino Pod Baranami cinema in Krakow! During the 8 festival days we organised 230 screenings and showed 172 latest documentary, animated and short films from all over the world, which were watched by the audience of over 40 000 people!
Decision to organise the festival online was not easy, but thanks to the support of our unfailing partners, filmmakers’ trust, and the favourable feedback from our loyal audience we soon understood that it was the best one we could make. And we were right! In the difficult times of the pandemic the festival attracted twice the usual audience who was craving for a film feast of the best quality – emphasizes Krzysztof Gierat, director of the Krakow Film Festival.
The films screenings that took place during the festival week gathered over 40 000 film buffs! We can estimate that the audience across Poland was actually much bigger since houses were turning into mini cinema theatres! The initial analysis suggests that a considerable number of the festival participants took part in it for the first time! After the screenings the festival hosted 65 Q&As with filmmakers which during the festival were viewed over 27 000 times. Live broadcast of the meeting with father Adam Boniecki recorded a record-breaking attendance – it was followed in real time by over 500 people. Official ceremonies which were broadcast in social media also broke the attendance records – there were seen over 17 500 times.
Among the 172 films presented at this year’s festival 50 had here their world premieres, 16 international premieres and 79 Polish premieres. 107 of them were documentaries, 31 animations and 34 short live action films. 230 film screenings took place in 6 virtual cinema rooms and in 4 rooms of the Kino Pod Baranamia cinema in Krakow.
During two closing ceremonies the films in the competitions received all together 33 awards and special mentions which amounted to 225 000 PLN. The screenings of the winning films took place both online and in the Kino Pod Baranami cinema in Krakow since the cinema’s post-pandemic opening luckily coincided with the festival’s ending.
As each year over 1000 accredited guests took part in the industry events taking place in the KFF Industry zone. Over 200 international film festivals representatives visited Krakow online, among them programmers and directors of Berlinale (Sergio Fant, Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck), Cannes Film Festival (Wim Vanacker), Venice International Film Festival (Enrico Vannucci), Sundance (Ania Trzebiatowska, Mike Plant), Hot Docs (Shane Smith) and IDFA in Amsterdam (Joost Daamen). Representatives of film organizations connected with us from almost all continents: Europe, both Americas, Asia, Australia and even Antarctica! The accredited guests followed an intensive KFF Industry programme: they participated in over 900 individual industry meetings and watched festival films using the video library, which was prepared especially for that purpose, over 7000 times.
News about the Krakow Film Festival have been appearing in all leading media outlets in Poland including the national but also regional and local ones. Among them were: TVP, TVN, Gazeta Wyborcza, Tygodnik Powszechny, Rzeczpospolita, Wprost, Polityka, Wysokie Obcasy, Przegląd, Przekrój, Uroda Życia, Sens, Onet.pl, Vogue.pl, Interia.pl, TOK FM, Polskie Radio – Jedynka, Dwójka, Trójka, Czwórka, Radio Zet, Radio RMF FM, Radio RMF Classic, Radio Eska, Radio Kraków. Since the beginning of April the media coverage of the festival reached 55M people and the equivalent media value exceeded 9.5M PLN (according to the Institute of Media Monitoring).
The streaming platform that we created especially for the 60th Krakow Film Festival will be employed during the next editions of the festival, which in part will remain online. We’re also preparing for our audiences plenty of film surprises, which will be delivered throughout the whole year! This way the festival not only reached an entirely new audience across the country, but it will also transcend the original time limitations. – announces Barbara Orlicz-Szczypuła, Head of Program Departament.
Krakow Film Festival is on the exclusive list of the Academy Awards documentary feature qualifying events and the winner of the Golden Horn is eligible to submit for Oscar consideration. KFF also qualifies short films (live action, animated, documentary) for the Academy Awards and recommends them for the European Film Awards.
The jubilee 60th Krakow Film Festival happened entirely online! The latest documentary, animated and short films from around the world, awaited Polish premieres and meetings with the filmmakers were available online, without the need to leave your house.
The 60th Krakow Film Festival was the first Polish film festival that took place online and in cinemas from May 31st to June 7th, 2020.
The 61st Krakow Film Festival will take place from May 30th to June 6th, 2021.