The programme of the three-day event, held for the 11th time, includes Heaven by German director Tom Tykwer, a film based on the last screenplay by the Krzysztof Kieślowski-Krzysztof Piesiewicz duo.
Other movies on the bill include The Earth Is Blue as an Orange by Ukrainian filmmaker Iryna Tsiluk; French director Emmanuel Carrère’s Between Two Worlds; Alcarràs and Summer 1993 by Spain’s Carla Simon, the winner of the Golden Bear at the 2022 Berlin Festival; and a selection of the latest offerings by Polish directors.
There will also be a wide range of meetings with actors, filmmakers and writers, including with Peter Jansson, the author of the Swedish monograph on Kieślowski.
‘Films that leave a lasting impression’
Zuzanna Fogtt, the festival director, has told the media: “Our idea is to focus on films that leave a lasting impression on the audience, ones that will not be forgotten for a long time after the end of the screening.”
She added: “It is the cinema that opens up viewers to empathy and a need for solidarity, something that has a special urgency in Europe’s current socio-political situation which we all experience with our Ukrainian neighbours and friends.”
Sokołowsko serves as the venue for the Hommage à Kieślowski Festival because of the director’s links with the place. It was there that Kieślowski lived in the 1950s with his family as his father was treated for tuberculosis in a local sanatorium.
In his autobiography, Kieślowski fondly recalled his first encounters with the big screen during his time in Sokołowsko. Due to a lack of money, he and his friends used to watch films through a vent in the roof of the local cinema, across the road from his house.
Kieślowski died in 1996 at the age of fifty four. He achieved worldwide critical and popular success for his cinematic works, including The Double Life of Veronique, The Three Colours trilogy, and The Decalogue series, which has been sold to 75 countries.
(mk/pm)