POLISH DOCUMENTARY’S TRIUMPH IN SYDNEY
Tomasz Wolski’s „The Lucky Ones” starts the new year by collecting next awards. The film has been acclaimed as the best documentary at the recently finished 2011 Flickerfest Short Film Festival in Sydney.
Jury of the Best of Documentary Competition at the 20th edition of Flickerfest Festival unanimously awarded the main prize – National Geographic Award – to The Lucky Ones , defining the Tomasz Wolski’s documentary as incomparable example of mastery. In The Lucky Ones one observes the registering process of births, weddings and deaths at the Registry Office in Krakow’s Nowa Huta – each of them taking place in three different rooms, each of them seems to be one of the most important moments in clients life. The world of bureaucracy and ordinary everyday life are interweaved with feelings and emotions, revealing the universal essence.
This year’s Flickerfest Festival is supposed to be particular – not only because of its 20th anniversary and the Best Documentary Award for Tomasz Wolski’s film, but also due to the strong representation of Polish short films in the special programme ”Spotlight on Poland”. Organized by Flickerfest in partnership with the Krakow Film Foundation, Poland, and the Polish Consulate Sydney, the programme consists of contemporary, award-winning shorts: two animated films – The Chick by Michał Socha and Millhaven by Bartek Kulas, two fiction films – Echo by Magnus von Horn and Newbie by Tomasz Olejarczyk, and also documentaries - Poste Restanteby Marcel Łoziński, Ziętek by Bartosz Blaschke as well as The Lucky Ones by Tomasz Wolski.
It is worth to admit that our presence at the festival has caused a lot of positive confusion – said Krzysztof Gierat, the Director of the Krakow Film Festival, who has been the jury member of the Best of International Competition and also the representative of ”Spotlight on Poland” programme.
In one of the most popular daily newspaper in Sydney – the Australian – the article titled Poland joins Flickerfest's short circuit by Lynden Barber appeared. Bronwyn Kidd, who is the Flickerfest festival’s Director, said for the Australian that some of the latest Polish work has an unusual strength in being uncompromising, mature drama that's not often seen in the short film format. In the world of shorts there is the domination of comedy or lighter drama, what is caused by the young age of filmmakers. However, she added that Polish shorts are characterized by really strong drama that makes you think about life in a general sense. According to Kidd’s view, the reason of that energy is still existing communism’s spirit. Some years ago this spirit was incredibly featured in the early films of Andrzej Wajda, Roman Polański or Krzysztof Kieślowski [the names used by the author]. On the other hand, Kidd claimed that not all of Poland’s contemporary shorts are dark, and giving the example of Wolski’s The Lucky Ones she added: There's a wonderful documentary set in a registry of births, deaths and marriages, and it's captivating and moving and funny; all the things that make great observational documentary.(The article by Lynden Barber appeared 7th of January – the whole text can be found here)
More about the Flickerfest Festival at the website: www.flickerfest.com.au