{"id":74077,"date":"2026-04-02T19:21:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T17:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.krakowfilmfestival.pl\/?p=74077"},"modified":"2026-04-02T19:21:42","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T17:21:42","slug":"what-is-the-price-of-great-passion-polish-films-in-the-international-documentary-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.krakowfilmfestival.pl\/en\/what-is-the-price-of-great-passion-polish-films-in-the-international-documentary-competition\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is the Price of Great Passion? Polish Films in the International Documentary Competition"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Two outstanding Polish titles have been selected for the International Documentary Competition. Their subjects \u2013 Christopher Morris and Piotr Soboci\u0144ski \u2013 share something more than talent. One spent years documenting armed conflicts; the other helped shape the very language of cinema. In both cases, the camera becomes an instrument through which reality is experienced, yet each man must confront what is most difficult within himself.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tickling the Devil<\/em><\/strong> by Piotr Ma\u0142ecki and Maciek Nabrdalik, and Magic Hour<\/em><\/strong> by Marcin Borchardt, tell the stories of two very different creative lives \u2013 artists for whom the image became both a consuming passion and a lifelong commitment, and for both it came with a heavy price.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Postscript of War<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The subject of Tickling the Devil<\/em><\/strong> is Christopher Morris<\/strong>, one of America’s most renowned war photographers. Over the years, he documented conflicts in Bosnia, Chechnya, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Today he lives in Florida, grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder. A calm family life does little to free him from the images and memories that keep returning. In an increasingly polarised and violence-scarred America, he recognises signs that summon experiences from front lines of old. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tickling the Devil, dir. Piotr Ma\u0142ecki, Maciek Nabrdalik<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Tickling the Devil, dir. Piotr Ma\u0142ecki, Maciek Nabrdalik<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Having returned from yet another war, Morris attempts to sever himself from the past, and Ma\u0142ecki and Nabrdalik’s film captures the moment at which he must decide whether he is prepared to confront it once more. It is simultaneously a portrait of a man who possesses the extraordinary ability to read the signals of approaching crisis \u2013 someone who spent years viewing the world through the prism of violence, and who now, with mounting unease, sees its familiar language within his own country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of Breath<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magic Hour<\/em><\/strong>, directed by Marcin Borchardt, is a film assembled from private archives and family video recordings, telling the story of Piotr Soboci\u0144ski \u2013 one of Poland’s most distinguished cinematographers. It is at once a family saga and a generational narrative: a story of passion inherited from father to son, of learning to see, and of work that becomes a way of life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Magic Hour, dir. Marcin Borchardt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Magic Hour, dir. Marcin Borchardt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Through his collaborations with Poland’s foremost directors, Witold Soboci\u0144ski passed on that sensibility, and Piotr Soboci\u0144ski developed it on his own terms \u2013 not least evidenced by his Academy Award nomination for the cinematography of Krzysztof Kie\u015blowski’s Three Colors: Red<\/em>. The titular \u201cmagic hour\u201d \u2013 that most beautiful light of the day, fleeting and demanding the full mobilisation of the entire crew \u2013 becomes something more than a technical term of the cinematographer’s craft. It is a metaphor for creative fulfilment, but also for the tension, the exertion, and the life lived perpetually at full tilt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Selected titles from the International Documentary Competition:<\/p>\n\n\n\n