PLAY POLAND FILM FESTIVAL and O!PLA ACROSS THE BORDERS Animation Programme

Play Poland Film Festival is an annual event promoting Polish art and cinema abroad, especially in Great Britain. Each year in mid October and November several British cities present screenings of the best contemporary Polish films as well offer a series of accompanying events. At the festival apart from feature films, there are also short films and animations. All of them specially selected in cooperation with strategic partners from Poland – film schools, production studios, film festivals. The aim is to reach to the widest audience possible, both Polish and foreign. The festival went far beyond Great Britain, reaching countries like Canada, China, Norway, USA and this year, thanks to KLEX and Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Kuala Lumpur – Malaysia.

The originator and main organizer of the festival is Polish Art Europe – non-profit organization from Edinburgh. Thanks to its cooperation with other Polish community associations in the UK and beyond, for almost two months we can participate in this autumn feast of contemporary Polish cinema.

This year, we would like to present O!PLA ACROSS THE BORDERS – the festival of Polish animation. O!PLA is the fully independent cultural project. It’s a “cross-section program” guiding by the whole contemporary Polish animation for audience in age 16+. O!PLA ACROSS THE BORDERS include: films with big budget/made in Professional studios; fully independent animations; films made in school (graduation films); animated music videos; “animated epigrams” (very short movies) and “FORMANIMA” (experimental and abstract animations). From the very beginning, the main aim of O!PLA is to (re)build relations between audience and artists, and reaching out with the art of animation especially to smaller centers in the Poland and all around the world. Previous edition of O!PLA ACROSS THE BORDERS was presented in 34 cities at 5 continents. The initiator and main organizer of O!PLA is Animation Across Borders (Piotr Kardas, Director/Artistic Director).

PRESENTED BY:

Paweł Słoń – born 1988, M.A. in political science from Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland. Since 2014 administrative worker in the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Kuala Lumpur responsible for Promotion, Culture and Education. Privately movie fan, blogger, event-goer and traveler.