ZAMEK Culture Centre

Forty feature-length documentaries in nine thematic sections will be shown over four days at the Castle. Yet again, the 28th OFF CINEMA Documentary Film Festival will tell you the varied facets of the world in the language of cinema with a capital “C”. Our screens will be flooded by a wave of images designed to stir up discomfort. Documentary cinema is insightful and demanding, while the directors’ visions do not always turn out to be “comfortable”. However, we believe that exposure to challenging perspectives may encourage us to think what is worth doing so as to start the change where we want it.

The Very Near East section expands its scope with poignant stories tied to war, not only the one faced by our eastern neighbours, but also the people of Palestine. We are going to revisit Mohamed Jabaly’s harrowing AMBULANCE, a dark, first-person account of the 2014 Gaza war. NO OTHER LAND reveals the decades-long legal battle of the Palestinian residents of Masafer Yatta in the West Bank to retain the rights to their village. We’ll meet Runa, a 16-year-old Kurdish girl, the protagonist of Agnieszka Zwiefka’s SILENT TREES, who fled Iraq to escape ISIS attacks. Kasia Smutniak returns to the cinema as the director of the powerful WALLS, which delves into the situation on the Belarusian border, while EVERYTHING NEEDS TO LIVE by Tetiana Dorodnitsyna and Andriy Lytvynenko is a moving portrait of Anna, who decided to rescue animals after the full-scale war broke out in Ukraine.

The Festival will open with Eliza Kubarska’s latest documentary about the famous mountaineer WANDA RUTKIEWICZ. THE LAST EXPEDITION. The screening will also be held as part of CK ZAMEK’s project Cinema Without Barriers, being fully accessible: with audio description, Polish subtitles for the deaf and translation into Polish Sign Language. Afterwards, we are going to meet the film’s director and the president of the Wandalistki Foundation, Daria Sieracka. Still, this will not be the only picture with a mountain theme, as we will be showing two more recent French productions: THE WHITE MOUNTAIN and SOPHIE LAVAUD. THE FINAL SUMMIT.

OFF CINEMA’s Special Screenings section will see the Polish premiere of Aga Błaszczak’s QUEEN LEOKADIA, a film about the life and work of Leokadia Serafinowicz, an outstanding Polish puppet theatre artist associated with Poznań. DAHOMEY is a Golden Bear-winning documentary about the return of looted treasures: 26 historical artefacts that left Paris to come back—after more than a century—to the Kingdom of Dahomey, the present day Benin. After the screening, join us for a discussion on the postcolonial practice with regard to the plundered works of art. WHEN HARMATTAN BLOWS by Edyta Wróblewska tells the story of Barbara who, as an eight-year-old girl, shared the fate of thousands of Ghanaian children put to slave labour by their own parents. The director will talk to the audience after the showing. The highly topical and much debated question of legal access to abortion in Poland is the subject of YOU ARE NOT ALONE by Karolina Domagalska, a story of the friends and activists who make up the Abortion Dream Team. This section also includes films from the series Exhibition on Screen—a biographical documentary about a famed artist, namely ANDY WARHOL. THE AMERICAN DREAM—and Cinema Around Photography, with UNCROPPED, a portrait of James Hamilton, one of the most eminent chroniclers of US history in the last 50 years.

The Boundaries of Documentary, a section introduced last year, explores the apparently well-known capacities of the documentary genre, which need not be formally confined to mere reportage. For instance, the animated PELIKAN BLUE is an extraordinary tale about Hungarian railway ticket forgers in the 1990s. UNFINISHED FILM—discontinued due to the COVID-19 pandemic—speaks of the loss of the valuable story of the Chinese actor Hao Qin, and offers insights into the backstage of documentary filmmaking. On top of that, the partner of this year’s OFF CINEMA, the ANIMOCJE Animated Film Festival from Bydgoszcz, will present a compelling set of short animated documentaries.

Films in the Eco Doc section pay tribute to endangered wildlife and explore the bonds between people and nature. Taking a look at a family living deep among ancient trees, Lidia Duda’s FOREST also shows how the nearby border with Belarus affects their lives. The audience will have the opportunity to meet Franciszek Berbeka, director of THE FAINT CLATTER OF BIRDS, the first film about Włodzimierz Puchalski, a pioneer of Polish nature film. Pim Zwier’s METAMORPHOSIS is a biography of Maria Sibylla Merian, a 17th-century German researcher and pioneer of entomology, ecology, and developmental biology. Meanwhile, overwhelmed by the degradation of his beloved river, the musician in SOWING THE SEEDS OF THE WILD decides to sail 1,300 km in a traditional wooden boat to symbolically reclaim its primeval wildness.

The somewhat autothematic Films About Films is a section where we will discuss cinema with the industry’s biggest names in the documentary duology ROOM 666/ROOM 999, learn about the biographies of outstanding figures: Andrzej Seweryn’s in I AM THE CREATION OF FICTION, the director’s of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in MICHEL GONDRY, DO IT YOURSELF or the creator’s of Suspiria in DARIO ARGENTO: PANICO.

The most extensive section—Sounds of Documentary—is accompanied by a scientific conference organized by the Institute of Film, Media and Audiovisual Arts at the Adam Mickiewicz University. It includes LOVE, PEACE, NOISE, a Polish documentary about the Słupsk-based band Eva Braun, and the third instalment of the story of the Cool Kids of Death, TWENTY YEARS LATER: C.K.O.D.3. There will also be an opportunity to see the most recent documentary by Łukasz Ronduda (A Heart of Love, All Our Fears) and Dawid Nickel about techno music and rave culture in the 1990s Poland. RAVE will be shown in unusual circumstances, namely the well-known Ekwador club in Manieczki. MUTINY IN HEAVEN: THE BIRTHDAY PARTY will be a chance to explore Nick Cave and his musical origins while OMAR AND CEDRIC will be devoted to the iconic The Mars Volta and the philosophy of progressive rock. SOUNDTRACK TO A COUP D'ETAT is a unique portrait of a historic moment in the 1960s Africa, when 16 countries declared independence and the USA tried to appease the excited masses by sending the biggest stars of jazz.

The most important films of 2023 will feature in the Season section, with Wim Wenders’ ANSELM, a stock-taking of the artistic achievement of the famous German artist Anselm Kiefer, FOUR DAUGHTERS—the hit of our festival last year—and SMOKE SAUNA SISTERHOOD, an Estonian Academy Award candidate about the power of sisterhood, the beauty of every body and the cleansing power of saunas.

At OFF CINEMA, literature is also welcome to contribute on the themes addressed in cinema. Once again, we are happy to announce meetings as part of the unique non-film section of our festival. This year, we are going to talk about the still underestimated women’s sport with writers Anna Sulińska (Olimpijki) and Karolina Wasilewska (Polka gola! O kobietach w futbolu) as well as Alicja Zając, coach of the female footballers of Lech Poznań. Following the meeting, we will show COPA71, which tells the story of the 1971 Women’s World Cup. The old and new problems in the Białowieża Forest will be addressed by Dorota Borodaj, author of Szkodniki. O ludziach, drzewach i maszynach w Puszczy Białowieskiej and Patryk Sielecki, producer of the moving FOREST by Lidia Duda.

The younger audiences can have their taste of the documentary as well. As part of Mornings for Children, we are going to show TONGUE CUTTERS by Solveig Melkeraaen, a Norwegian film about a boy working in a fish processing plant, and KINA & YUK, the story of two polar foxes preparing to become parents in the cold expanses of the Arctic.