Fine Tuning
Fine Tuning to the World
The second Verzio, inspired by the enthusiastic support of last year's audience, presents a wide selection of films from all over the world. Once again, we invite you to experience numerous ways of seeing the world - at peace and at war, in poverty and opulence, swept away by intolerance or tucked away from global changes. Each of the films invites you, the viewer, to tune in to a situation which may seem remote and unfamiliar at first but is, in the end, deeply personal and thus universally relevant. Bridging both time and space, film becomes not only a witness but also an agent of transformation: we, the viewers, are changed. This notion of change guided us in our choice of films about the diverse challenges faced by individuals and whole nations today. Some of the themes will be familiar to last year's viewers: once again, we focus on the problems of the younger generation as well as presenting changing gender roles and expectations. People trapped by poverty or injustice, living in societies which still bear the scars of recent conflict - from South Africa to Serbia, from Iraq to Angola - exemplify not only material shortages, but the lack of basic security and the lasting traumas of aggression. Present conflicts echo those of the past, some of which appear in the 'Unfinished Past' section, where seemingly distant events can still haunt the living. Facing injustice, whether past or present, seldom leads to an easy or obvious solution. Thus, a new thematic category labeled 'Doing Justice' introduces cases which reflect on the limits of common legal frameworks - be it the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, an unjustly condemned Roma convict in Hungary, or female inmates in a high-security prison in the US grappling with their own guilt. This year's festival program is enriched by a retrospective on the Memory of World War II, which puts issues of human rights into a historical perspective. For the first time we introduce the idea of a "Festival Crossroads", where the Cracow Documentary and Short Film Festival presents a selection of documentaries from Poland. Another aspect of this year's program is the emphasis on ongoing changes in rural and urban environments. The films in the 'Urban Stories, Rural Tales' include both everyday and exceptional stories stretching from a multi-generation family in Indonesia to creative ways of dealing with shortages in the towns and villages of Cuba. Seemingly far away, these worlds will become close if you are prepared to find the right wavelength.
Come, and tune in to a host of different ways of seeing!
Oksana Sarkisova
Program Director
