Film Archive

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98 kg

98 kg
Izabela Plucińska
Competition for the Audience Award Short Film 2021
Animated Film
Germany,
Poland
2021
5 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

The cycle of domestic violence: tension, escalation, remorse, and then all over again. The woman in Izabela Plucińska’s film shares the fate of many sufferers: She can’t manage to break out. The metaphorical dumbbells she would have to lift to do it weigh 98 kilograms – like the man who does this to her. All she can do is dissolve, disappear and breathe silently into her individual parts. The animations keep erasing themselves, but painful marks are left behind.

Kim Busch

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Izabela Plucińska
Editor
Daniela Kinateder
Producer
Paulina Ratajczak, Izabela Plucińska
Sound
Andrea Martignoni
Score
Andrea Martignoni
Animation
Izabela Plucińska
World Sales
Maciej Reguła
International Competition 2021
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Bucolic
Karol Pałka
Country life as presented by Karol Pałka is not exactly romantic: two women, a ramshackle house, the ground wet, the clothes dirty. An unconventional visit to a wasteland.
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Bucolic

Bukolika
Karol Pałka
International Competition 2021
Documentary Film
Poland
2021
70 minutes
Polish
Subtitles: 
German Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing, English

Danusia and Basia are a mother and daughter, sharing a life presented by director Karol Pałka as supremely secluded. Far removed from any comfort, the seasons pass, a priest comes to visit, the women wade through mud and cultivate their habits. But, unnoticed by Danusia, Basia moves on a few back roads of her own that lead in other directions.

The nearest town seems light years away. Danusia and her daughter Basia lead a reclusive life in a ramshackle house in the country. The rooms are decorated with flower arrangements, scattered with devotional objects. Mother and daughter cultivate their connection to the supernatural, either in the shape of a strict Catholicism or as small rituals in nature. In one scene Basia dances around a fire like a witch. She is also the one who repeatedly seeks contact with the outside world. We see her with a mobile phone then, but the person at the other end remains intangible, unable or unwilling to break the spell around the mother-and-daughter team. It is a dense, almost deserted world which Karol Pałka in his debut film renders in gloomy, shadowed images that grow brighter only when spring comes. But even then, the dramatic opening piece “Specially for You” by the Ukrainian band DakhaBrakha still resonates.
Carolin Weidner

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Karol Pałka
Script
Karol Pałka
Cinematographer
Karol Pałka
Editor
Katarzyna Boniecka
Producer
Karolina Mróz, Wojciech Marczewski
Co-Producer
National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute
Sound
Piotr Knop, Anna Rok
World Sales
Marcella Jelic
Winner of: Silver Dove (International Competition)
International Competition Short Film 2021
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Crumbs of Life
Katarzyna Miechowicz
This wild, imaginative thriller in analogue cut-out technique – in the best Polish animation film tradition of the Łódź Film School – offers plenty of room for interpretation.
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Crumbs of Life

Okruszki życia
Katarzyna Miechowicz
International Competition Short Film 2021
Animated Film
Poland
2020
7 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

Spitting ponies, a cursed TV reporter and a hairy giant who is lovingly combed by his brunette girlfriend while she develops inexplicable fears about her own foot. This will later literally be shot off – the foot, not the boyfriend! A faceless man is also there – acting in alliance with the ponies. This colourful, ominous animated thriller made in analogue cut-out technique addresses states of anxiety, masochistic fights and media criticism. Perhaps.

Borjana Gaković

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Katarzyna Miechowicz
Script
Katarzyna Miechowicz
Cinematographer
Katarzyna Miechowicz
Editor
Piotr Baryła
Producer
Agata Golanska
Sound
Piotr Baryła
Score
Anna Obara
Animation
Katarzyna Miechowicz
World Sales
Maciej Reguła
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Impossible Figures and Other Stories I

Figury niemożliwe i inne historie I
Marta Pajek
International Competition Short Film 2021
Animated Film
Canada,
Poland
2021
16 minutes
Polish
Subtitles: 
English

Marta Pajek (digitally) created a complex, atmospheric universe – with minimalist means and yet rich in detail. References to contemporary history meet visions of an intuited, dystopian future. We are made aware of (our own) transience in subtle, but almost brutal ways. Ageing bodies, ageing ideas. In the end, the grande dame of Polish cinema, actor Anna Polony, sings: “… when will we ever learn?”

Borjana Gaković

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Marta Pajek
Script
Marta Pajek
Editor
Marta Pajek
Producer
Piotr Szczepanowicz, Grzegorz Wacławek
Co-Producer
Maral Mohammadian
Sound
Michał Jankowski, Piotr Knop
Score
Aleksandra Gryka
Animation
Marta Pajek, Alex Boya
World Sales
Luce Grosjean
Winner of: Golden Dove Short Animated Film (International Competition Short Film)
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Light Years

Lata świetlne
Monika Proba
International Competition Short Film 2021
Documentary Film
Poland
2021
28 minutes
Russian,
Polish
Subtitles: 
English

Witali and Łukasz have graduated from the Orthodox seminary. To take up priesthood, they must either start a family or become monks. But the two friends prefer to live for the moment, to muse, philosophize and sing. The camera looks on, full of empathy, giving the two men space and time to face their situation. A documentary observation turns into a thriller: Can their tender friendship withstand religious obligations and family expectations?

Anke Leweke

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Monika Proba
Script
Monika Proba
Cinematographer
Zvika Gregory Portnoy
Editor
Adriana Fernández Castellanos, Monika Proba
Producer
Ewa Jastrzebska, Jerzy Kapuscinski, Magdalena Borowiec, Tatiana Matysiak, Daria Zienowicz
Sound
Lucyna Wielopolska-Lorenc
World Sales
Katarzyna Wilk
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Soup

Zupa
Zbigniew Rybczyński
Animation and Musique concrète 2021
Experimental Film
Poland
1974
9 minutes
without dialogue
Subtitles: 
None

The daily routine in the life of a young couple: getting up, squeezing blackheads, eating soup, daydreaming … Zbigniew Rybczyński reworks real-life images to create surreal collages in order to visually turn the inside out. He is supported by the Polish composer Eugeniusz Rudnik, whose great electro-acoustic inventiveness shifts playfully back and forth between naturalism and alienation.

André Eckardt

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Zbigniew Rybczyński
Script
Zbigniew Rybczyński
Cinematographer
Zbigniew Rybczyński
Editor
Barbara Sarnocinska
Producer
Se-ma-for Produkcja Filmowa Sp. z o.o.
Sound
Mieczysław Janik
Score
Eugeniusz Rudnik
Animation
Zbigniew Rybczyński
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The Balcony Movie

Film balkonowy
Paweł Łoziński
Competition for the Audience Award 2021
Documentary Film
Poland
2021
100 minutes
Polish,
Russian
Subtitles: 
English

The whole world, captured on a somewhat dreary pavement in Warsaw. For two years, director Paweł Łoziński stood on the balcony of his flat with his camera and watched the people passing below from up there. The ones he saw and persuaded to talk are young and old, neighbours or simply passers-by. The filmmaker addresses them, asks questions, listens and creates a space for conversations that rarely happen between strangers.

How do passers-by react when they are filmed from a balcony and addressed, stopped from above? Do they walk on, shaking their heads? Or are they willing to engage in dialogue? This place and this staged opportunity seem perfect for making a film that reflects its own premises, because apparently people feel a rather strong need to talk about themselves from this unusual position. Whether hurrying or strolling, happy or thoughtful, posing or quite natural: Each of the participants who happen to come into view reveals something special. Every encounter, however unpremeditated, turns out to be unique. Some expectations of a certain type of person are disappointed, because hardly anyone can be pigeonholed. Łoziński’s experiment invites us to pause, to wait until the world steps into the camera’s field of view.
Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Paweł Łoziński
Script
Paweł Łoziński
Cinematographer
Paweł Łoziński
Editor
Paweł Łoziński, Piasek & Wójcik
Producer
Paweł Łoziński, Agnieszka Mankiewicz, Izabela Lopuch
Sound
Paweł Łoziński, Franciszek Kozłowski
Score
Jan Duszyński
World Sales
Katarzyna Wilk
Winner of: MDR Film Prize