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Film at the Conrad Festival

Like every year, during the Conrad Festival there will of course be plenty of films – we would like to announce the programme. As always, we are offering some interesting and thrilling pictures from exceptional directors – everything in order to experience the meeting with literature in a more intense way. The movies will be displayed in the usual place – Kino Pod Baranami – in the very centre of the festival space.

We are going to present three movies directed by the famous Margarethe von Trotta. The first movie, Hannah Arendt, presents the figure of one of the most important European thinkers. The movie goes back to May 1960, the moment when the world heard about the capture of Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi officer responsible for the plan of mass extermination of the Jews during World War II. Soon after, the media reported that a trial of the war criminal was to take place in Jerusalem, and Hannah Arendt decided to work for The New Yorker as a correspondent for this event. The leading role is played by Barbara Sukowa, who won the Best Actress Award of Cannes Film Festival in 1986.

Vision tells us the story of a medieval mystic, visionary, healer and a religious reformer, Hildegard of Bingen. As a child, Hildegard experienced some mystical visions and at the age of 8, she was accepted to the Order of Saint Benedict. She perfected her spirit, and at the same time trained skills which in the Middle Ages were reserved for men only. What is even more interesting, the movie’s soundtrack contains some of the pieces composed by Hildegard herself.

The last of Margarethe von Trotta’s movies we are going to display is the award-winning Rose Luxemburg. It tells the story of a socialist, activist and ideologist of the Polish and German worker movements, theoretician of the political economy. At the same time, it provides an insight into the socio-economic situation of Germany under the reign of the last Emperor, Wilhelm II. By connecting narrative film with para-documentary, the director also showed the private side of the tumultuous life of the activist, killed in 1919 by the officers of the right-wing Freikorps.

On Wednesday, 21st of October we are going to watch Watching the Moon at Night ­– a documentary on terrorism, filmed in six countries by Joanna Helander and Bo Persson. The movie presents the issue of terrorism both from the standpoint of the victims, and through analyses by international experts. In the face of the latest events from Paris, the topic becomes even more current, and so does the question whether we can protect ourselves from terrorism at all?

Taxi-Tehran by Jafar Panahi, which was awarded the Golden Bear, is like an audio-visual postcard from Iran. The director, travelling around Tehran as a taxi driver, uses his passengers to humorously point out the absurdities and terrors of living in his country. Although the director was prohibited from making new movies for 20 years (Taxi, as well as the two previous movies were created illegally, without permission from the Iranian censorship office), the movie demonstrates the joy of life and creation. Another thing that makes the day even more special is the fact that Hooman Majd – acclaimed Iranian-American writer – will provide an introduction to the screening, and his presence is a perfect occasion to show movies describing everyday life in Iran.

We also remind you of the already-announced Literary Barany for Children, during which we will see The Little Prince and The Adventures of Pyza, known to many generations of audiences. We guarantee a great cinematic experience and lots of fun – also for our youngest viewers!

“Strange telegrams from a place of ignorance” — such is the way that Martin Amis described his work during his event on September 26th at the International Cultural Centre in Krakow. The meeting, led by Gregory Jankowicz, the Programme Director of the Conrad Festival, was a prelude to the forthcoming 7th Annual Conrad Festival.

Martin Amis visited Poland on the occasion of the release of his new book depicting the fate of people living in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The characters in it belong to different worlds, but what they do have in common is that they committed some act on the side of Nazi perpetrators and experience moral dilemmas. The romance that burgeons between Golo Thomsen, one of the German officers, and Hannah Doll, the wife of the commandant of the camp, becomes a (slightly grotesque) axis of history, which is also described by the voices of Paul Dolla and Shmuel – prisoner and leader of the Sonderkommando.

Listeners, some of whom actively participated in discussions with the writer, had the unique opportunity to better understand Amis and his thinking not only about the fate of the heroes of his books, but also about the memory associated with the Holocaust and Nazi ideology. The writer pointed out that the figure of Hitler always plagued him because of the impossibility of understanding him. In response to a question from the moderator, Amis also stressed the relationship between the dilemmas of World War II refugees and the contemporary drama, which puts a strain on the European way of thinking about human dignity.

The event with Amis kicked off this year’s Conrad Festival, organized under the slogan “Against the Current”. The event with this fascinating personality was a strong prelude to the experience that will follow next, which we hope will be met with equally keen interest.

Peter Pomerantsev. The author of Nothing is True, Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia, perhaps the most widely discussed collection of documentaries about Russia in Poland after the famous White Fever by Jacek Hugo-Bader, will meet with readers at the International Cultural Centre on September 28th at 18:00.

The meeting will be moderated by Jerzy Bahr.
Nothing is True, Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia is a surreal journey into Putin's Russia, where the Kremlin-controlled television constitutes the only common reference point for 140 million people from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. The narrative about the Russian president, a handsome, energetic hunter who put an end to the chaotic democracy of the 90s, is interspersed with absurd tales of seduction by oligarchs, gangsters that make action films about themselves, the obsession with luxury and imitation of the West, combined with a selective understanding of values on which the West was founded. Pomerantsev is an ambiguous figure, a Briton of Russian descent, who for nine years worked for the Russian television. He describes the world in which he participated with great insight. 

This is an opportunity for an especially interesting event!

Free entry
Literature does not tolerate limitations – we will find this out for ourselves during a special event with Martin Amis, a special guest of the Conrad Festival. It will not only go “against the current” of our usual experience, but also against the official festival week as it will take place on September 26th at 7:30 pm at the International Centre of Culture in Krakow (MCK).

Will it be a comfortable prelude to the festival though? Martin Amis, British writer and essayist, is often called the icon of “the new unpleasantness”, a postmodern trend that does not want to shock and repel so much as stand against excessive trust in too-pleasant images of the world. Thus the disquiet of the prose – complex interpersonal relationships (such as the romance between an SS officer and the wife of a concentration camp commandant in The Zone of Interest), incredible events (for example, Nicola Six in London Fields knows the details of her own murder ahead of time, however not the identity of her murderer), and the constant nearness of the naked, brutal life (such as in House of Meetings or Dead Babies). In addition to existentialist tropes, there is no hiding the critique of the culture of late capitalism, especially in British society, which is present in the literature.

Amis is considered one of the most influential British authors of his generation, listed alongside Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes. Two-time nominee for the Booker Prize, he regularly contributes to The Sunday Times and The New York Times. Many of his titles have been published in Poland, including  Lionel Asbo: State of EnglandThe Pregnant Widow and, most recently, The Zone of Interest (the author will be visiting Poland in connection with its premiere published by Dom Wydawniczy REBIS).

Join us for an encounter with unpleasant, but moving literature and an exceptional author. The British Council is the promotional partner of this event.

“The people hurry from the underground, very mortal, the young half healthy, the old half shrewd — quarter beautiful, quarter wise. Humans, I honour you.” (Martin Amis, Money: A Suicide Note)

British_Council_Logo

The project ‘Read PL!’ – is a continuation of the project ‘Read KRK!’, which this year will range beyond Krakow. From the 1st of October, there will be 300 places, renting out free e-books in cities such as: Warsaw, Katowice, Wroclaw, Poznan, Gdansk and of course, Krakow. At each place, you will be able to rent out one of 12 books. Among these books you’ll find, among others, the latest novel by Marek Krajewski, best-selling story about Marcin Wicha’s designs, and entertaining stories for children by Martin Prokop.

‘Read PL!’ is the first project of this kind organized on such a large scale, in the world. It is created by the Krakow Festival Office , program operator – Krakow City of Literature by UNESCO and the platform for e-books – Woblink.com.

To rent a book, just download the mobile application for ‘Read PL!’, and then scan the  QR-code placed on a poster with the cover of the book. The e-books can be read on a Smartphone or tablet, and the posters with the book covers will be placed in the media advertisement section on bus stops around in Krakow, Gdansk, Katowice, Poznan, Warsaw and Wroclaw.

‘Read PL!’ promotes the use of literature using new technologies, on a scale not previously known in Poland or Europe. We expect that the service will benefit up to a 100.000 people.” – says Izabela Helbin, director of the Krakow Festival Office. “This is the first collaboration of its kind, with other cities. We have joined forces for a beautiful cause, and we believe that together, we can make a good influence.” – Helbin adds.

So far, the campaign was showcased exclusively in Krakow, and with great success. The rental of free e-books benefited several thousand people. – “The success of the previous editions, encouraged us to take the project beyond the Krakow area. Our ambition was to create a nationwide campaign and to promote literature in a modern and friendly installment. We hope that this will be just the beginning and that there will be more, even more interesting, editions to come.” – says Mateusz Tobiczyk of the e-book platform, Woblink.com, which organizes the campaign alongside the Krakow Festival Office.

Among the titles that will be offered at the 300 e-libraries, you’ll find both bestsellers and the more ambitious publications. For those who love new technology and crime genres, the books – ‘Arena Szczurów’ by Mark Krajewski, ‘Kasacja’ by Remigiusz Mroza and ‘The Soul of Another’ by Lukasz Orbitowskiego, will be available. Fans of powerfull history, will be able to rent  Patryk Vega’s uncompromised conversations with police officers – ‘Zle Psy’. In the name of principles and the first thriller – Tomasz Lipko’s ‘Notebook’, will be available. The lovers of great literature will be able to find one of the most important Scandinavian novels of the 20th century – ‘Colossus’ by Finn Alnaes.

In the ‘Read PL!’ e-libraries you’ll also find the best-seller ‘Jak przestałem kochać design’ by Marcin Wicha, the last novel from the series ‘Uniwersum Metro 2033’ – ‘Otchłań’ by Robert J. Szmidt, an entertaining Czech novel – ‘Ostatnia Arystokratka’ by Evzena Bocka, a reportage about women in their 30’s originating from small towns, gathered in the volume ‘Zaduch’ by Marta Szarejko, and ‘Obietnica Lucji’ by Dorothy Gąsiorowska.

The free ‘Read PL!’ application will be available in App Store and Google Play. The ‘Read PL!’ campaign starts the 1st of October and will last until the end of the month, to the 31st of October. The phone application ‘Jakdojade.pl’ will help the readers find their way to the citylights with the best books, in all the cities.

Organizers: Krakow Festival Office – programme operator, Krakow City of Literature by UNESCO and e-book platform, Woblink.com

Collaborating cities: Gdansk, Katowice, Poznan, Wroclaw.

Publishing partners: Czwarta Strona, Dom Wydawniczy PWN, Insignis Media, Karakter, Od deski do deski, Stara Szkola, Wielka Litera, Wydawnictwo Literackie, Wydawnictwo Otwarte, Znak Emotikon and Znak Literanova.

The project was financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage under the programme, Reading Promotion.

More information about the campaign can be found on the website: www.czytajPL.pl

Without children, there is no future for literature, let alone literary festivals. Conrad Festival is one of those initiatives that was aware of this simple fact from the very beginning. Hence the consistently growing presence of literature for children at the festival. Therefore, all hands on deck, set the sails, book in hand and full speed ahead!

We will devote two days of the festival to the youngest – Saturday and Sunday. The first day is kicked off with the event in the Cinema Under the Rams and ‘The Little Prince’ in an refreshing and original approach by Mark Osborne. Later awaits a meet & greet with Benjamin Chaud and Ramona Badescu, creators of the book series ‘Pomelo’ – where they’ll talk about how the books came to be what they are.

What connects Conrad Festival and the youngest readers? It’s simple – like travelling, therefore we invite you on a short journey around the Main Market – All Aboard!  Literary Travels with Conrad. As a part of the workshops, we’ll talk about what and where to travel, but also, how not to get lost on the way. To help with that you will meet two outstanding travelers: Agnieszka Taborska and  Agnieszka Stelmaszyk. Before the children there are still even more events to come, where they can develop their imagination and awaken a desire to travel! At the Cartographic-Literary Workshops the children will meet Szymon Kloska.

On the second day, we enter The Fascinating World of Bees – there to tell you about the unusual habits of these beneficial insects, is Piotr Socha, the author of the new large-format album ‘Bees’. In the workshops, the youngsters will be able to learn the basics of being a beekeeper and how to build beehives.

During the theater workshops, Let’s Create a Fairytale! with Wioletta Szuba-Franczak, participants will be invited to improvise their own story about wonderful monsters (the starting point will be Maurice Sendak’s book ‘Where The Wild Things Are’), and create a sound and a moving illustration.

Grzegorz Kasdepke is (or should!) be known as the longtime editor of ‘Swiersczyka’ and author of children’s books. During the meeting ‘Fairytales and other oddities’ he will talk about what he does best. It would also be worth going to the second Literary Baranki for Kids, where you’ll see ‘Adventures of Mazowiecki’s Dumplings’. After the screening there will be art activities for the children.

Conrad Festival together with the Festival of Literature for Children welcomes you!

The events for children at the Conrad Festival is organized in collaboration with the Festival of Literature for Children.

Admission to all events is free of charge, upon reservation for selected events at the e-mail: rejestracja@fldd.pl or at the phone number: (12) 421-29-41.

Details below,

http://fldd.pl/2015/

In July, we conducted a recruitment for the first creative writing course under the brand of City of Literature by UNESCO. Among over hundreds of submitted text samples, we have selected 15 participants, who will be able to learn the secrets of good writing, at workshops in September and October, which will be guided by the best polish authors and experts from the publishing industry. Among these are writers such as, Mark Krajewski, Anna Janko, Wita Szostaka and Filip Modrzejeskwi, editor Magdalena Dębowska from the publishing group FOKSAL, and editors and specialists in copyright and law of publishing from the publishing group KARAKTER.

We will be publishing a guide written by Artur Wisniewski, an academic lecturer and editor associated with the publishing group ‘Znak’ for many years, particularly for those who didn’t get signed up on the creative writing course.

The course has a total of seven chapters, an each of them connects to the following stages of creating a book. The guide will give hints as to where one can find inspiration, and how to perfect the workshop. Thanks to the guide you will learn the secrets of creating a captivating storyline as well as learning which features a hero should have, to arouse strong emotions in the reader. You’ll read about editing your texts, finding the best suited publisher for your book – and how to negotiate with them. Each of the chapters offer valuable guidance in addition to the relevant parts of the merits, such as interesting examples, sets with exercises and a list of inspiring reading material, so that you get the opportunity to expand your knowledge on the matter.

Most importantly, a further literary stimuli awaits you – Short films, in which you’ll see famous writers talk about what helps them in writing, where to look for inspiration and give advices for novice writers.

The creative writing course, which concept and curriculum was developed by Karolina Macios and Magdalena Zielińska, both editors with years of experience, is part of a program offering support for literary debutants in Krakow City of Literature UNESCO. Belonging to the programme is also a contest, which allows authors to publish their first book, called Promoters of Debuts. It is organized by Institut Książki and the foundation of Tygodnika Powszechnego in collaboration with the Conrad Festival, Krakow Festival Office, Tygodnik Powszechnym and the Conrad Award. The previously mentioned are  intended to distinguish the best literary debutants and facilitate their future career. This year the prize will be awarded for the first time. Perhaps one of the graduates of  the creative writing course by City of Literature UNESCO, will win the prize in the following years? We’re counting on it – and in the meantime you can expect more news from us soon!

The creative writing course is organized by the Krakow Festival Office. The project is implemented in the programme City of Literature by UNESCO. The original concept of the course is developed by Karolina Macios (editor, ghostwriter, writer, specialist of literary projects) and Magdalena Zielińska (translator, editor, culture manager). The project was financed by the National Cultural Centre in conjunction with the programme Culture – Interventions 2015.

On September 21-23, in Essen, Germany, the 4th Forum d’Avignon Ruhr summit, an annual meeting of representatives of the Network for Innovation, Culture and Creativity in Europe — N.I.C.E., European Centre for Creative Economy – ECCE and European Commission delegates took place. At the Forum nearly 100 delegates participated from Great Britain, France, Netherlands, Austria, Finland, and Russia, who came to Essen for the Culture is Digital. Digital is Culture Conference. During intensive debates and panel discussions, the issues of design, digitalitzation, human rights, culture and creativity in Europe were raised. The Krakow Festival Office was represented by Robert Piaskowski and Justyna Jochym.

In connection to Krakow’s plans to join the N.I.C.E. network in 2015, KBF’s representatives took part in discussions with potential partners, actively participated in the board and member meeting and negotiated the conditions for membership, as well as contributed strategic ideas for the development of the network in coming years as well as plans related to organizing the N.I.C.E. Award Gala in Krakow.

The N.I.C.E. network was founded in 2013 by 15 European cities for the purpose of stimulating exchange concerning innovation in culture and the creative sector in Europe.  The N.I.C.E. Award was created to help promote this idea and it honors innovation projects that tackle economic, political, cultural and social problems.

Besides the conference, member meeting and award ceremony, Robert and Justyna also met with Charles Landry, international expert in the area of strategic city development, creative industries and sustainability. Charles help Krakow and KBF to conduct research on the city’s creative sector and to prepare development strategies in the coming years. 

The “Against the Current” edition of the Conrad Festival on October 19-25 is a space where literature transcends narrow boundaries and encounters other areas of culture, especially art. Just as in previous years, we invite our participants to enhance their festival experience by taking part in exhibits along with the accompanying vernissages.

This year, they will include: Hannah Arendt: Trusting Humanity, Unsaid: Jan Peter Tripp, WAR!, A Portrait of Literature: An Exhibit of Gisèle Freund’s Photos as well as an exhibit of pictures by Ewa Mańkowska. Each of these events is emotionally and existentially charged (this year, many works are devoted to the writer’s individuality as well as memory), showing other areas close to literature and including it in the artistic game.

Trusting Humanity in the Goethe-Institut will consist of small but significant objects that will constitute the story of Hanna Arendt, one of the most important female intellectuals of the twentieth century. The exhibit will provide an opportunity to see many boards with photographs and documents that will bring back not only Arendt’s works, but also her relationships with outstanding philosophers and writers: Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Hermann Broch, Randall Jarrell and Uwe Johnson. An integral part of the exhibit is a film recording of Günter Gaus’ interview with Arendt.

The Unsaid  exhibit in the Pod Baranami Gallery is an opportunity to not only take a glance at the work of the German hyperrealist Jan Peter Tripp, but also to encounter his project prepared jointly with W. G. Sebald. Thirty-three prints of the eyes of such figures as Francis Bacon, Jorge Luis Borges, Samuel Beckett and Truman Capote visualise Sebald’s poetic words (it is difficult to not mention here the images of eyes that the writer included in his novels Vertigo and Austerlitz). Jan Peter Tripp finished work on the book, which was the result of artistic-literary dialogue, after his friend’s sudden death.

PENSIONERS. Imagine that Tadeusz Kantor meets Bruno Schulz, and a moment later a couple members of the Krakow Group join them. But – attention! – they are all mannequins. PENSIONERS is an inter-media installation by Anna Kaszuba-Dębska inspired above all by Schulz’s text “The Old Age Pensioners.” The project is the continuation and development of another of this artist’s installations, the famous “High Heels Project.”

The PENSIONERS collection presented on the square next to Cricoteka will be a public installation inspired by happenings, emballage and Kantor’s Teatr Informel, in which the actor is deprived of his or her own role and is equated with an object, becoming dependent on fate.

WAR! will take place in the Pasaż club-gallery. The exhibit will be a presentation of 25 unique comic strips by the Polish artists Krzysztof Gawronkiewicz and Mariusz Sołtysiak, who along with their excellent writers have dealt with the drama of World War II in the still fresh pop culture format of a graphic novel. Most of these works originally appeared in the three albums illustrated by Gawronkiewicz. Each of them deals with the topic of war, but presents it in a unique way from diverse viewpoints: we have the story of an old Jewish man who survives the Holocaust by fleeing from a German transport; there is a fantasy alternative history of post-World War II Poland; and, finally, an unusual story written by Marzena Sowa about occupied Warsaw on the eve of the Warsaw Uprising shown through the perspective of the microcosm of one of the capital city’s tenement buildings.

The second part of the exhibit consists of comic strips that are part of the Nation of Perdition graphic novel illustrated by Sołtysik and written by Maciej Świerkocki, whose plot takes place in the Lodz Ghetto. The narrator is an orphaned Jewish boy, Dawid, who shouts: “War! How exciting that word, which I only knew from the Old Testament and textbooks, sounded!” The monochromatic drawings, enhanced by crimson, present a shocking story of the realities of armed conflicts. On October 20, the day of the vernissage, a discussion panel with the aforementioned artists will take place.

During the Portrait of Literature exhibit in the National Museum in Krakow, the festival participants will have the opportunity to deal with the work of one of the most important photographers of the past century: Gisèle Freund. Her portraits of writers and intellectuals have become classics not only of art history, but also of literature. They are commonly known images of illustrious artists (although, as she herself has noted, she did most “for [her] own pleasure”), including André Gide, Anna Seghers, Bertolt Brecht, James Joyce, Walter Benjamin, André Breton, Paul Éluard, Jean Cocteau, T.S. Eliot, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, Colette, George Bernard Shaw, Vladimir Nabokov as well as Boris Pasternak (and many more). The exhibit will concentrate 290 prints of photos forming a documentation of the milieu of the Paris bohemia of the 1930s. However, the meeting with Freund will above all be an encounter with the artist’s unusual personality, whose fascinating life was intricately linked with the history of literature.

In her publications about photography, Gisèle Freund wrote: “A good photographer has to read a face like a book, capturing everything that is found between the lines. She must feel and understand form in order to evoke its spirit through light and shadow. For me, coming closer to people is the most valuable purpose of photography.”

Krakow’s Lokator will host an exhibit of Ewa Mańkowska’s photos. This will be a cycle of portraits of people from the world of literature: poets, novelists, editors, critics, booksellers. The artist’s canvases will feature Marcin Baran, Wojciech Bonowicz, Ryszard Krynicki, Irek Grin, Maciej Malicki, Edward Pasewicz, Grzeogrz Jankowicz and many more.

Over the past years, several dozen portraits were created. The cycle – which is continually expanded to include new paintings – was shown in Budapest, Mikolow, Lublin and Wroclaw, among others, both as an individual event and as one accompanying literary festivals.

This is just some information about our exhibits. Exact dates (including those of the accompanying vernissages), additional information and helpful contexts can be found, of course, on  www.conradfestival.pl. Soon, there will be more information about what you will be able to experience at the festival.

We hope to hear from you soon!

The Organisers of the Conrad Festival

 

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