In December Poznań will turn into the world capital of the cinema for children. This year’s edition of the International Young Audience Film Festival Ale Kino! means several dozen film productions, most of which will be presented in Poland for the first time.
The programme of the event includes 37 full-length features and 70 shorts. Ale Kino! 2011 will open with two outstanding films. On the Ice, directed by Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, was a double winner at Berlinale 2011, receiving the Best Debut Film award and Crystal Bear in the Generation strand. On the same day, festivalgoers will have a chance to see the full-time directorial debut of Jan Komasa, Suicide Room. Komasa is one of the most intriguing young Polish directors, a winner of the prize for the best New Polish Cinema debut at the New Horizons IFF in Wrocław. The picture was also recognized abroad. This year it has won the +16 Best film award at the Giffoni Film Festival.
Numerous films of this year’s Ale Kino! include such titles as: the Austrian Oscar nominee Breathing by Karl Markovics, awarded the Europa Cinemas Label at Cannes; two full-length animations, A Cat in Paris, co-directed by Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli, and The Rabbi's Cat by Antoine Delesvaux and Joann Sfar, both nominated for the European Film Awards. There are also a number of short films, both animated and live-action ones, including Land of the Heroes by Sahim Omar Kalifa, awarded at Berlinale. The Ale Kino! History Zone will feature, among other films, Marzi. The Fall of Communism, a French animated series based on a popular comic book by Marzena Sowa, showing the times of the martial law period in Poland seen through the eyes of a child.
One of the special screenings will be Story of the Golden Boot, made exactly 50 years ago as one of the first Polish films for children. The film stars Marek Kondrat, who debuted in it at the age of 11. The special guest of the show will be Sylwester Chęciński, a film director of numerous famous pictures including the trilogy Our Folks (Sami swoi).
On the eve of EURO 2012, Ale Kino! Football Zone will feature as many as 8 football films: 4 for children and 4 for teenagers and adults. One of them will be the unique documentary Tom Meets Zizou about the career of Thomas Broich, Bundesliga and national team player, who is also an intellectual and rebel commonly known as Mozart. Another film, Lekcje marzeń, is a feature about the beginnings of football in Germany starring Daniel Bruhl (Good Bye Lenin! and Inglorious Basterds).