A section of new American independent films highlights unique films made outside the mainstream by a group of gifted filmmakers. These movies take bold risks with their styles and stories, changing the way audiences see, think and feel a movie. They go from the screen right inside one’s system. 

In this section, we will see the latest films by recognised directors, but also productions of budding filmmakers who captured the attention of audiences and critics around the world. These films, highly appreciated by our programmers, often combine commercial potential with an independent, creative spirit and rebellious nature.

The word "crisis" has, like few others, gotten under our skin in recent years. It’s used in a variety of contexts and at every latitude, and it has become a much bigger part of our lives than we would like — from politics to family relationships, from rising social tensions to the climate crisis. Environmental degradation is accelerating before our eyes. Animal species are increasingly disappearing forever from our planet. The problem of global warming is one of the main topics of international talks. Whereas politicians and official channels often fail, there’s hope to be found in grassroots efforts and the selfless actions of ordinary people. We live in highly uncertain and rapidly changing times, where a crisis and the reaction to it can quickly turn into a spontaneous uprising as well as a defining generational experience. Challenging situations awaken forces in people that they would never have expected, like solidarity, empathy and mutual respect. As a result, something that could divide actually unites, because — regardless of national origin, race, or religion — we all experience feelings of anger, frustration, and fear in a similar way. In this year's section of Mastercard OFF CAMERA, we will show that although crisis can manifest in many different forms, it can bring about hope for a better tomorrow.

There is no doubt that the social, political and moral reality in Poland has been leaving a lot to be desired recently. Systemic homophobia, prejudices so acutely present in everyday life and the fear that accompanies representatives of all kinds of minorities affect the well-being and psyche of individuals as well as communities. Prepared in cooperation with Anja Rubik’s SEXED.PL Foundation and Polish VOGUE, a special section of Mastercard OFF CAMERA festival and the films screened within it, deal with sexual, ethnical and gender-based hatred. Not so much by politely asking for tolerance – a somewhat debatable concept that assumes the concept of "better" and "worse" people, but by questioning the very cultural norms that regulate the harmful and excluding principles of "normality". The carefully selected films also make us aware that it is a phenomenon simply incompatible with a world that is constantly changing before our eyes. And the very name of the section – referring, of course, to the postulates from the times of the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century – makes it clear that the title ideas are far from being achieved. And although they do sound somewhat anachronistic – that is why we have exchanged the sexist-sounding "brotherhood" part of the slogan for the more inclusive “solidarity” – we desperately need them now and must work for them together. Quite like the characters in the films shown in this section.  

The international competition for the Krakow Film Award is the main section of the Mastercard OFF CAMERA Festival.   Festival audiences will be the first in Poland to see the debuts and second films of the most talked-about artists from around the world. These are the films that delighted audiences at the biggest film events, including festivals in Toronto, Locarno, Rotterdam and Sundance.    The films in the „Making Way” competition will compete for the Krakow Film Award, granted by the International Jury and amounting to $ 25 000.

Melodrama has always been a broad and widely popular film genre, but it has also been regarded as "inferior" and "embarrassing" since its inception, and in fact for many decades it has been the subject of widespread jokes and parodies. This leads to a strange paradox: on the one hand it’s not appropriate to discuss it, or even to admit that we’re following the onscreen love affairs of its flush-cheeked characters. But meanwhile, as statistics and cultural studies show, it’s one of the most eagerly followed genres, and not just by its traditional target audience of women, as established back in the Golden Era of Hollywood. Harmful gender stereotypes largely drove the narratives of traditional movie romances, and still persist in certain films today. Case in point: the iconic productions of Douglas Sirk, whose films certainly defined the canon of storytelling about the thorny road to emotional fulfilment for a central pair of lovers. According to this formula, femininity is passive, idle and submissive, whereas masculinity is active, dynamic and dominant. The melodramas screened within this year's special section of Mastercard OFF CAMERA subvert these oppressive formulas, but also play with the conventions of traditional film romance that are driven by prejudices around race, class, gender and sexuality, while still taking us on an emotional rollercoaster with the main characters, full of twists and turns. In the process, these films show how everyone is entitled to more than just celluloid love.

This unique section is supposed to familiarize the Mastercard OFF CAMERA audience with Norwegiancinematography, which still remains largely unknown in Poland. Selected in close collaboration with programers of the prestigious Bergen International Film Festival – these films represent all that’s the most interesting and widely discussed in terms of Nordic cinema. Starting from themes around multiculturalism, through highs and lows of the liberal education system and personal as well as cultural perturbations of artistic communities. These productions, shot over the last couple of years, are the review of the latest achievements of Nordic cinematography, which is associated in the Middle-Eastern Europe only with very few directors, who won international publicity. It’s high time that we opened the “Nordic Horizons” for the Polish audiences and  allow it to check out on their own how much they’ve got to offer. To see with one’s own eyes how to juxtapose subtle sense of humor with a piercing gaze and with how to talk, with great sensitivity, about difficult social and cultural matters. 

Our Polish Feature Film Competition is dedicated to those Polish titles that opened throughout the past year and stroke us as most interesting, original and universal. Ten feature films will compete for the Dominika Kulczyk Productions Award in the Polish Feature Films contest: 100 000 zlotys. The winner, the director and the producer, will be selected by an international jury. We believe that the outsiders’ perspective, offered by our international jury members, will allow us to successfully identify which of the new Polish movies speaks the most universal language.  

In this section, we will see the latest films by recognised directors, but also productions of budding filmmakers who captured the attention of audiences and critics around the world. These films, highly appreciated by our programmers, often combine commercial potential with an independent, creative spirit and rebellious nature.