Paweł Ziemilski's "In Touch” which was awarded at the prestigious IDFA festival in Amsterdam is a story about a village called Stare Juchy. Almost a third of its inhabitants has emigrated to Iceland. It is a touching, intimate and universal story of family, love and technology, which makes it possible to stay in touch with the ones who are the closest to your heart in the changing world. Family relations are also the theme of "Compulsory Figures” by Ewa Kochańska. In this film, we meet a Ukrainian married couple with three children who have decided to settle in Poland. Winning an ice-skating competition is a big chance for their daughter, Julia. But will she be up to the challenge?
We will also see Jolanta Dylewska's "Marek Edelman... and There Was Love in the Ghetto". in the festival's main competition. "Why nobody asks me if there was love in the ghetto? Why is no one interested in that?" – said Marek Edelman, the last leader of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, a short time before he died in 2009, . He answers the question in the long-awaited film, which became famous even before its premiere, "Marek Edelman... and There Was Love in the Ghetto". Agnieszka Holland co-created its script and Andrzej Wajda co-directed the film's dramatized scenes.
In "The Symphony of the Ursus Factory", one of the films presented in the new National Geographic competition for the best cinematography, Jaśmina Wójcik, the director, commemorates the fates of the Warsaw factory's employees. The collapse of communism was the beginning of its end. The former employees of Ursus reconstruct a day of the plant's work and co-create a visually and acoustically captivating story.
The extraordinary biographies of the characters and their connections to the city are the theme of the film "Diagnosis" by Ewa Podgórsa, whose world premiere took place at the IDFA festival. We have a close look at the characters – the camera accompanies them in a room which looks like a psychotherapist's office. This way, we get to know their undisclosed desires, memories of love and relations with people who are important to them.
The relationship between perhaps the most famous Polish artistic couple is examined byBorys Lankosz ("Reverse") in a visually astonishing essay which blends film and theatre. The film "Kobro / Strzemiński. A Fantastic Tale" stars Agata Buzek and Łukasz Simlat.
The 16th Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival will be held from 10th to 19th May in Warsaw, Wrocław and Lublin, from 15th to 24th May in Gdynia and from 12th to 19th May in Katowice. A local edition of the festival will be held in Bydgoszcz too, from 11th to 18th May.
