8 October 2021 Film band at the Conrad Festival
The questions about the nature of the future that we ask during this year’s edition of the Conrad Festival require extensive research. The film – as a medium with huge possibilities to discuss the world – is a perfect tool to diagnose problems and to propose solutions to them. Inspiring documentary and feature films that explain the reality around us will this year be accompanied by speeches by the guests of the Festival.
The film band will start on 18 October at the Kino Pod Baranami cinema with the documentary film Nature Is My Homeland (2021) directed by Marek Gajczak, winner of the Krakow Film Festival. The heroes of the film – scientists, artists and enthusiasts – look at the relationship between the man and the nature from a completely new perspective. The director will give an introductory speech before the film.
The film of the next day, 19 October, will be La Tragédie des Brigades internationales (2015). The documentary by Patrick Rotman presents the Spanish Civil War. International Brigades were military units of volunteers from across the world with many intellectuals among their numbers, e.g. Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, George Orwell, André Malraux and Ilia Erenburg. The film combines archival photographs and video recordings that present not only the history of a war for power but also the complicated political situation within the military units fighting against General Franco’s forces that took dozens of thousands of victims with their political ideals. A speech will be given by Irme Schaber, journalist and author of a biography of the photographer Gerda Taro.
On 20 October, we will screen Siłaczki (Strong Women, 2018, directed by Marta Dzido, Piotr Śliwowski), a docudrama about the first Polish suffragettes. The co-author of the film and winner of the European Union Prize for Literature, Marta Dzido, will give a speech before the film.
On 22 October, we will watch the biographical story Gloria Steinem. My Life on the Road. It is a story of the writer and women’s rights activist and it shows how her “nomadic” childhood influenced the rest of her life. The film was directed by Julie Taymor, known for such productions as Frida (2002) and Across the Universe (2007). Julie will introduce us to the topic of the film. The film stars Julianne Moore and Alicia Vikander.
On 23 October, Marcin Żyła will talk about the documentary Chauka, Please Tell Us the Time (2017). Behrouz Boochani, the Kurdish writer, journalist and activist, with nothing but his smarthpone at hand, filmed the life at the refugee camp on the Manus Island, Australia. The co-director and producer of the film is the Iranian-Dutch film-maker, Arash Kamali Sarvestani. The film will be for the first time screened in Poland during the Conrad Festival.
The band will end on 24 October with the French film Petite Maman (2021), directed by Céline Sciamma, winner of a number of important awards, including the Golden Palm for the Best Scenario. Her latest film is about Nelly – an eight-year-old girl, who is mature for a child but at the same time believes in the power of imagination. At one point, she meets a girl of the same age who is strikingly similar to her mother.
On 20 and 21 October you can also watch the Mexican Suitcase (2011, directed by Trisha Ziff). The film tells the extraordinary story of the discovery of 4,500 film negatives created during the Spanish Civil War by famous photographers: Robert Capa, Gerda Taro and David “Chim” Seymour. The negatives were rescued from Nazi-occupied Paris and transported to Mexico, where they stayed hidden in a private apartment for nearly 60 years. The film will be introduced by Fernando Olmeda, writer, journalist, documentary filmmaker and author of Gerda Taro’s biography.
On 21 and 23 October, as part of the Word2Picture programme, we invite you to watch Żeby nie było śladów (Leave No Traces, 2021, directed by Jan P. Matuszyński) and Ostatni komers (Love Tasting, 2020, directed by Dawid Nickel). The former film will be preceded by a meeting with Cezary Łazarewicz, author of the literary prototype – the 2016 story Żeby nie było śladów, and Aneta Hickinbotham – the producer of the film. The latter film will be accompanied by a discussion with Anna Cieplak, author of the book Ma być czysto on which the Ostatni komers (Love Tasting) film is based, and with the director and writer Dawid Nickel and the producer Marta Habior. The talk will be hosted by the film critic Adriana Prodeus.
Films will be screened every night at the Kino Pod Baranami cinema. You can buy tickets at the box office or online at www.kinopodbaranami.pl.