Krakow, February 22nd 2012 - 2475 films altogether have been submitted for the 52nd Krakow Film Festival, including 2212 foreign films and 263 Polish ones. The list of films which qualified for the festival stages will be published after March 20th when the selection committee will have completed their work.

The awards at the Krakow Film Festival will be granted in two international competitions and the Polish one. The international part will consist of a documentary competition and a short film competition. The latter will be divided into 3 genres: documentary, feature and animated films. The selection committee will pick titles which will then represent Poland in the international competitions.

The entire award pool amounts to 220 000 PLN (~52,000 Euro) with the most important awards being granted to directors in the following categories: Golden Dragon in the short film category, Golden Horn for the best documentary and Golden Hobby-Horse for the best film in the Polish film competition.

This year, feature films constitute the majority of foreign films, as there have been 1157 submissions. The second most numerous category group are documentaries, where the number of films has reached 782 titles. Animated films took the third position with 273 registrations. In the Polish film group documentaries strongly prevail as there have been 136 submissions. Feature films came second with 76 titles, animated films came third with 51 registrations.

One should bear in mind that the festival program is only partly composed of the submitted films. Candidates for the Krakow awards are being picked also at other major, sometimes exotic festivals. These variations will bring numerous accompanying sections alongside the festival films - says the festival director, Krzysztof Gierat.

As part of the international presentations, Italian cinematography is going to be the highlight of the festival. The events will incorporate a segment entitled „Focus On Italy" which will include documentaries presenting the most outstanding achievements of the recent Italian film art.

The event will be accompanied by a conference attended by the representatives of the Italian film scene. These professionals will also be invited to the conference „Docs to go" which will be attended by the programmers of international festivals. The event will be combined with a presentation of Polish documentaries in the last stage of production, selected by the Polish Film Institute.

Krakow Film Festival is one of the oldest events devoted to documentaries, animated and short feature films. It dates back to 1961, each year gathering film-makers and their devoted fans at one of the few large-scale film reviews where the representatives of the genres from dozens of countries are gathered together. The Festival's reputation is confirmed by its list of prestigious accreditations, awarded e.g. by the FIAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Associations), the EFA (European Film Academy) and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. As a result of these accreditations the winners of the Festival obtain direct nominations to the awards of the European Film Academy and Oscar nominations in the Short Film category.

The 52nd Krakow Film Festival will take place between May 28th and June 3rd. It will be accompanied by the Krakow Film Market (from May 29th) and as well as the Dragon Forum pitching (May 31st - June 4th).

For more information, visit www.krakowfilmfestival.pl