polski
ŻUBROFFKA – short film celebration
The 12th edition of the International Short Film Festival ŻUBROFFKA will take place from 6 to 10 December 2017. The festival is already a brand of its own – it’s the biggest event of its kind in this part of Europe! For over a decade, ŻUBROFFKA has been building cultural bridges between East and West, North and South, making Bialystok and Podlasie a meeting point for creative energy from around the world. ŻUBROFFKA means fantastic films, unique get-togethers with the artists, workshops, panel discussions , fiery concerts and interesting exhibitions.
In 2017, for eight festival competitions, we selected 126 most interesting films (out of almost two thousand!). As usual, the program will also feature special screenings of short films from all over the world. Within five days, the audience will have a chance to see a total of almost 300 shorts for which – as always – admission is free.
International jury this year are: Qiu Yang (Chinese director, winner of this year’s Palm d’Or for his short A Gentle Night!), Marian Crisan (Romanian director, the Palm d’Or winner in Cannes for Megatron), Izabela Plucińska (living and working in Berlin, awarded this year with the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for her short Jam Session), Gunhild Enger (Norwegian film director and visual artist, her film Bargain was nominated for BAFTA) and Grzegorz Brzozowski (Podlachian director, sociologist and film critic; his film A Stranger on my Couch won the award for the Best Polish Documentary Film at the Krakow Film Festival in 2017). The Jury will evaluate films in two national competitions (Students, Independent) and two international contests (Eastward Window, Whole Wide World). In addition to the Grand Prix of the Festival and awards in each of the competitions, we will also grant special prizes for the best Animation, Documentary, Fiction, Cinematography and Music.
For the first time in the history of ŻUBROFFKA, films in the Polish competition Amateurs will be evaluated by Young Juries, composed of Bialystok high school and university students. The jury will work under the leadership of a well known pop culture journalist and film critic Kaja Klimek. Prizes in the experimental film and video art competition On the Verge will be awarded by Marija Razgutė (Lithuanian film producer), Dan Karo ( film director and programmer at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma in Montreal) and Peter Budinský (Slovak animator and visual artist). Kids and Music Video competitions will be rated by the viewers. Traditionally, the Festival audience will also grant their own award – the Wild Bison!
ZUBROFFKA audiences have become accustomed to spectacular inaugurations of the Festival. It will be the case this time as well: a German producer Christian Löffler is going to play live score for the avant-garde documentary Berlin: Symphony of a Metropolis by Walther Ruttmann!
The artist who successfully combines “melancholy with euphoria”, will musically illustrate this experimental, poetic portrait of the metropolis, which promises a very interesting and innovative study of the city dynamics, motion and rhythm!
Our special film screenings this year include hugely popular midnight shorts; SF straight from the American Philip K. Dick Film Festival; an original set of animations about the Baltic Sea, inspired by Bialystok’s presence in the confederation of coastal cities; shorts from Swedish female directors, as well as a set of films proving that our autumn years do not have to be lost. It is really worth tasting our famous film breakfasts, during which you will see short films from Romania, Argentina and Ukraine; you should also join our film tours to selected cities – this year we are going to Beijing and Reykjavík!
Club nights in Fama are an opportunity for new musical excitement and the festival get-together. Gaika – raised in the suburbs of London, a descendent of Caribbean immigrants, in his slow-motion, enhanced-bass productions uses Jamaican harmony, Texas rhythms, and Bristol palette of effects (overwhelming bass and mesmerizing slow pace); Israeli Orgonite squad – representatives of the middle eastern rave scene; Dj Khalab – Italian afro future beat shake; Rafael Aragon – legendary French DJ and producer, leading figure of global bass and tropikal masala scene; and RSS B0YS, a mystical Polish duo, combining techno and electronics. A charismatic, well-known DJ duo from Polish Radio 3: Agnieszka Szydłowska and Agnieszka Dzielska will also appear on stage!
Workshops are an important part of the Festival! This year, children will learn puppet animation in the “Monstrolympix” workshop, prepared by animators Dina Velikovskaya (Russia) and Florian Grolig (Germany). Young people will make music videos with the Austrian director Florian Pochlatko. For years, we have also encouraged the older generation to create films. This time seniors will try to “revive memories” during animation workshops. There will also be a broadcast journalism workshop run by a popular radio personality Ryszard Jaźwiński, as well as video blog workshops, hosted by Kaja Klimek.
During the Festival there will be three panel discussions: Trust Me, in cooperation with Sweden (the Uppsala International Short Film Festival) and Austria (VIS Vienna Shorts), where we will ask about trust, and in particular its absence in the world today; Eastern Pleasures, in which we will embark on a visa-free journey to the East to learn about its typical and unique rituals; and The Festival Jungle, a traditional meeting of the festival representatives and film industry.
At Żubroffka we shall also open two exhibitions: Pagan Poetry by Marcin Nagraba (foyer of the Forum Cinema) and Film Posters from Ghana, an exhibition organized in cooperation with I Love Strange Cinema Festival (Fama Club).
Come and join us!
The festival is or organized with subsidies from
THE CITY OF BIALYSTOK
and support of
POLISH FILM INSTITUTE
Organizer: BIALYSTOK CULTURE CENTRE – DKF „GAG”
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