9 May 2013 View of Krakow on the 16th of May!

We are only one week away from the screening of Widok Krakowa (A View of Krakow) directed by Magdalena Piekorz. Adam Zagajewski – one of the most outstanding contemporary authors – will act as a tour guide. The pre-release screening of the film has been planned for the first day of the Milosz Festival (the 16th of May) at 2  p.m. at the Malopolska Garden of Arts (ul. Rajska 12). After the screening, we would like to invite everyone to a discussion with the participation of the creators, hosted by journalist and film critic Łukasz Maciejewski. Please note: admission to the screening is free!

Widok Krakowa (A View of Krakow) is a part of the international literary and film project City (W)rites, which presents literary capitals of Europe in the form of meetings with writers associated with each city. The role of Krakow and Malopolska’s ambassador has been assumed by Adam Zagajewski. As Magdalena Piekorz reveals, the poet will present “his” Krakow: his masters, favourite places, and fellow writers. There will also be memories of other eminent literary artists connected with the city: Wisława Szymborska and Czesław Miłosz.

The Krakow Festival Office is the producer of the Polish episode of the City(W)rites series – Magdalena Piekorz’s Widok Krakowa –  and the shooting was supported by the Krakow Film Commission. The project’s partners are: the TVP SA Polish Television and the Book Institute, and the production was supported by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage with resources from the Promocja czytelnictwa [Promotion of Readership] programme operated by the Book Institute.


The film will be the first one in the world produced as part of the City(W)rites Project, intended to promote literary capitals of Europe by means of meetings with writers connected to particular cities. The idea is that the selected writer becomes a guide to the literary life of the region and the city he or she lives in. The viewers will be introduced to Barcelona by Eduardo Mendoza, to Berlin – by Ingo Schulze, to Copenhagen – by Soren Ulrik Thomson, to Dublin – by John Banville, to Lisbon – by Gonçalo Tavares, to London – by Peter Ackroyd, to Madrid – by Antonio Gomez-Rufo, to Paris – by Alfredo Bryce Echenique, to Prague – by Ivan Klima, to Saint Petersburg – by Tatyana Tolstaya, to Stockholm – by Mari Jungstedt.

Organisations involved in the project include Danmars Radio, RTP (Portugal), RTE (Ireland), BBC, RAI (Italy), Arte (France/Germany), Kunskapskanalen (Sweden) and Polish Television.

Adam Zagajewski is one of the most recognised and renowned contemporary Polish poets in the world; one of the most often translated Polish poets and essayists. He is the winner of many prestigious international awards, including Prix de la Liberté (1987), the Vilenica Prize (1996), the Nikolaus Lenau Preis (2000), the Tomas Tranströmera Award (2000) and the Neustadt Prize (2004). In 2002, he was accepted to the Bavarian Academy of Arts and Literature. In December 2012, he was awarded the title of doctor honoris causa by Jagiellonian University.

Magdalena Piekorz graduated in direction from the K. Kieślowski Radio and Television Faculty of the University of Silesia in Katowice. A scriptwriter and a film and theatre director, she holds a PhD in film art. She has made seven documentaries. The first one, Dziewczyny z Szymanowa, won the Bronze Lajkonik at the 31st All-Polish Short and Documentary Films Festival in Krakow. Franciszkanski spontan won the Jury’s Honourable Prize at the 2nd Review of Documentary Forms, while Przybysze – the Grand Prix of the Euroshorts’99 Festival. All of them were shown on Polish Television channel one, in the Czas na dokument cycle. For several years now, she has been making films abroad. First, it was Znaleźć, pochować, a film on women in Bosnia that wait for news about their close ones after the war in Yugoslavia, then Piemonte – a story of a town on the isle of Istria that has only one citizen, and recently Chicago – a documentary series for TVN (co-director, 25 episodes). She became famous after Pręgi, produced on the basis of a script by Wojciech Kuczok. In 2011, she prepared a concert named Panna Madonna Legenda Tych Lat, a tribute to the work of Ewa Demarczyk, for the Opole Festival.

The Polish episode of the City(W)rites is being produced under the Reading Malopolska project. Reading Malopolska is a project envisaged for the years 2007–2013 and supported with the funds of the Malopolska Regional Operational Programme, under which Malopolska and its capital, Krakow, want to communicate their literary heritage and participate in the building of a network of co-operation of creative regions in the field of literature

Pic. Michał Sosna