14th Krakow Film Music Festival

POSTPONED CONCERTS

The postponed concerts of the Film Music Festival in Kraków, FMF4 Kids: Agi Bagi and The Best of John Barry, will now be held on 21 and 22 October. We welcome our youngest fans on Thursday 21 October, and on Friday 22 October we present music from films such as Out of Africa and the 007 series. Both concerts are held at the ICE Kraków Congress Centre, and the original tickets are still valid.

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The Krakow Film Music Festival returns! The Best of John Barry and his unforgettable hits – Dancing with Wolves, Indecent Proposal and Out of Africa, the hottest TV series that kept us company throughout the pandemic, including The Crown, The Witcher, The Border, Money Heist, Black Mirror, The Queen's Gambit, as well as the world premiere of music from the final season of The Vikings. Meetings with Hildur Guðnadóttir, Atanas Valkov, Łukasz Targosz, Diego Navarro, Martin Phipps and Jan A.P. Kaczmarek. Mystical sounds of the choirs from the depths of the “Wieliczka” Salt Mine and the power of symphony orchestras, who will once again showcase their music in the open air. Forget about the restrictions and difficulties – it is time for us to meet, to once again come together and encounter the most beautiful film music – as always, working hand in hand with RMF Classic.

The circumstances brought about by the pandemic will not let us meet in the final days of May in person to enjoy live concerts featuring international artists and music aficionados, but we would be hard-pressed to even imagine the festival as a solely online affair. We made the decision to extend the FMF and have several instalments this year. This move was made not only to make sure that we can have some flexibility and adapt on the fly to what is still to come, but also to gradually build up tension. We are going to kickstart the festival activities with meetings and conversations with artists, then we will move on to watch a pre-recorded concert online. All these things and events will lead up to the beautiful August weekend of live music in the Henryk Jordan Park. We want the festival to be amazing, but our sole focus remains on safety. And we are well aware that our audiences expect excitement and emotions during live concerts. After living through months of the pandemic we are all painfully aware that even the best recorded concert is hardly a substitute for a live experience. That is why we made the decision to move the FMF to August. I truly believe that this festival, which boldly went where no one has ever gone before, will once again bring an immense deal of energy and many emotions, says Izabela Błaszczyk, director of the Krakow Festival Office.

On 27-30 May, we are going to meet with composers and music industry representatives for debates, which will be broadcast on PLAY KRAKÓW. With the new dual formula of the festival, we will have an opportunity to stop for a while and talk about how the film industry fared amid the pandemic, what successes did it have during that time, what kind of new film projects are going to see the light of day in the coming months and years, as well as what is the situation of the concert and film market, symphony orchestras and recording studios. We are going to ask about the impact of the crisis – perhaps it resulted in a paradoxical revival, spurred artists’ creativity and brought about new opportunities and discoveries about how to create in the new reality? The last couple of months saw us spending time at home, accompanied by TV series. That is why during this FMF, we are also going to talk about this phenomenon. On the first day of the festival, we are going to call Los Angeles, Tenerife, London, Prague, Ghent, Rome and Berlin. We have also invited Teoniki Rożynek, who composed the soundtrack for the recent KBF co-production Prime Time, Hildur Guðnadóttir, Academy Award-winning composer, author of music to the Joker, Maggie Rodford – music agent and producer with countless titles in her resume, who worked on Paddington 2, as well as psychologists and image specialists from Hollywood, representatives of ASCAP and BMI, two organisations that manage copyrights. On Friday evening, the FMF audience will join us on the rooftop of the Galeria Kazimierz shopping centre, for a screening of the Sound of Metal. in our car cinema.

For the final highlight of the May instalment of the FMF, On Sunday, 30 May, join us online for a premiere of one of the most mystical concerts in the festival’s long history – the Cinema Chorale programme, featuring pieces from memorable cinematic hits, including Portrait of a Lady on Fire, The Great Beauty and Death in Venice. The concert recorded on 15 May in the depths of the “Wieliczka” Salt Mine was performed by one of the best Polish vocal ensembles – the Polish Radio Choir led by Maria Piotrowska-Bogalecka. This event will be available free of charge on PLAY KRAKÓW.

In August, you will be able to join us for a meeting outdoors, as the FMF will be the name of the game throughout the last weekend of the Krakow Culture Summer! On 28-29 August, the festival stage in Jordan Park, near Krakow's Błonia Park, will finally sound with live voices and instruments. We are back to open spaces!

Saturday brings the Film Music Gala in three parts. This year, the gala is going to take on the form of an enormous outdoor festival and celebration, and we can assure you that you are going to experience some thrills – we are going to be the first listeners in the world to hear suites from The King, The Witcher and The Border – filled to the brim with suspense and dripping with blood. In addition to the orchestra, the festival audience will have an encounter with Ania Karwan, a versatile vocalist whose talent is already well-known to the FMF audience. The second part of the concert will be devoted to touching and poignant personal stories, with Natalia Nykiel and Kacha Kowalczyk (Coals) performing the popular song from Euphoria, made famous by Billie Eilish and Rosalia. The programme of this part will also feature Succession, Lovecraft Country and Years and Years. The final, third instalment will be devoted to dramas about rivalry and competition. Black Mirror, The Queen's Gambit, Vikings and The Coldest Game have one thing in common, and that is fighting. Fighting for one’s position, for identity and independence. Spanish singer Cecilia Krull will showcase her famous song My Life Is Going On, made famous by Money Heist. We will also welcome Diego Navarro, who is already well-known and beloved by the regulars of the FMF. He will lead the Beethoven Academy Orchestra, together with Katarzyna Tomala.

Once again, the FMF will showcase the wealth of forms and languages of contemporary cinema in this special time, where we have to bring sensitivity, empathy and beauty back to the world. The role of the festival is to reinvigorate us and let us regenerate, restore harmony, instil happiness and give rise to a community of artists and people experiencing beauty. I could not have imagined a better solution for this year than to give you an opportunity to encounter music from TV series, to amaze you with music from ‘The Queen's Gambit’ and ‘The Witcher’, to let you experience the emotions brought about by the world premiere of ‘Vikings’ with Trevor Morris behind the pulpit or to feel goosebumps while listening to the music from ‘The Border’. It has been a festival tradition to discover and listen to the latest and the greatest music productions from TV series and feature films of recent months. The FMF is all about the people – their excitement, sensitivity and exaltation – meaning the ability to perceive emotions. I cannot wait for the day when you will have an opportunity to see everything we have prepared for you, says Robert Piaskowski, artistic director of the FMF.

The festival Sunday, 29 August, will start with FMF4Kids with music from Agi Bagi, a Polish animated series promoting ecological attitudes among children. The adventures of Bodzio and Zibi on the Agi Bagi planet remain popular among children and a staple of all platforms for children, from TVP ABC and Polsat JimJam to Strefa Bajek and Netflix. The youngest attendees of the FMF will have an opportunity to listen to the well-known voices of Magda Mitoń, Kasia Tarkowska and Michał Ostrowski, who will perform together with the band. Adults are welcome, too!

To commemorate the legendary composer of the Golden Era of Hollywood, John Barry, who sadly passed away 10 years ago, we have planned an extraordinary concert – The Best of John Barry – which is slated to take place on Sunday afternoon. His pieces were a part of the FMF more than once, and we would be hard-pressed to find another composer that would be as outstanding and as versatile as he was in the film industry. As a tribute to the award-winning composer, the FMF Youth Orchestra will perform music from Out of Africa, Dancing with Wolves and Indecent Proposal. Of course, you cannot say “John Barry” without immediately thinking about James Bond. This means pieces from From Russia with Love, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and songs from Diamonds Are Forever and You Only Live Twice. The former will be performed by Marcin Maciejczak, a teenage breakout Polish talent, winner of the third edition of The Voice Kids. The orchestra made up of the most talented young musicians from our city, will be led by Monika Bachowska, a respected conductor and pedagogue, who has been working with the FMF from the very beginning.

We are looking forward to experiencing the energy of the festival, as well as that of its rehearsals, preparations and the arrival of the first guests. After 14 years, the FMF will once again be an outdoors festival! We are going to once again go back to the excitement that underpins the festival’s roots and we believe that this will be a new and unique experience. During this time, RMF Classic will also offer special series of broadcasts, memories and special playlists. Let the film music be the sound of this summer – and I hope it gives the listeners hope, harmony, optimism and many emotions. We will be with you on RMF Classic, says Magdalena Wojewoda-Mleczko, RMF Classic's music director.

Save the dates – 27-30 May (online) and 28-29 August (in real life) – today!

The full programme of the festival is available at www.fmf.fm.

You can also listen to RMF Classic.

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The 14th FMF is organised by the City of Kraków, KBF and RMF Classic.