Kraków Film Festival
The Krakow Film Festival (Polish: Krakowski Festiwal Filmowy) is one of Europe's oldest events dedicated to documentary, animation and other short film forms. It has been organised every year since 1961. The Artistic President of the festival is Krzysztof Gierat.
It was in Kraków that Polish filmmakers such as Krzysztof Kieślowski, Wojciech Wiszniewski, Bogdan Dziworski, and Marcel Łoziński began their career. It was also here that the directors of animated films, including Ryszard Czekała, Jerzy Kucia, Julian Antonisz (Antoniszczak), Piotr Dumała, and Zbigniew Rybczyński, winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for the film Tango, made their debut.
Yet, such renowned documentary and animated filmmakers were not the only ones to participate and win prizes in Kraków, for the international festival laureates included also numerous artists who made their names as feature film directors: Pier Paolo Pasolini, Werner Herzog, Zoltán Huszárik, Jaromil Jireš, Claude Lelouch, Patrice Leconte, Mike Leigh, and the recent Oscar laureate, Jan Svěrák.
Since 1998, the Festival grants an international life achievement award called the Dragon of Dragons. Its first laureate was Polish documentary maker Bohdan Kosiński. 
== Dragon of Dragons Award winners: ==
1998 – Bohdan Kosiński
1999 – Jan Lenica
2000 – Raymond Depardon
2001 – Jan Švankmajer
2002 – Werner Herzog
2003 – Stephen i Timothy Quay
2004 – Albert Maysles
2005 – Yuri Norstein
2006 – Kazimierz Karabasz
2007 – Raoul Servais
2008 – Allan King
2009 – Jerzy Kucia
2010 – Jonas Mekas
2011 – Piotr Kamler
2012 – Helena Třeštíková
2013 – Paul Driessen
2014 – Bogdan Dziworski
2015 – Priit Pärn
2016 – Marcel Łoziński
2017 – Witold Giersz and Daniel Szczechura
2018 – Sergei Loznitsa
2019 – Caroline Leaf
2020 – Péter Forgács
2021 – Piotr Dumała
2022 – Jarmo Jääskeläinen
2023 – Michael Dudok de Wit
2024 – Jacek Petrycki
2024 – Godfrey Reggio
The unique character of the Krakow Film Festival derives not only from the programme of the competition screenings, the Dragon and Hobby Horse prizes awarded by an international and Polish jury, the Prix UIP Kracow, the FIPRESCI, and the FICC awards or numerous other prizes granted outside festival regulations, but also from the programme of accompanying events.
Cinema of Poland
International Festival of Independent Cinema Off Plus Camera held in Kraków

== External links ==
The Krakow Film Festival Official website