The Legnica Film Academy takes place this year from 12 to 22 August. It is one of the oldest and most renowned animated-film workshops in Poland, where children and young people, as well as adults, learn to create animated films independently under the guidance of the country’s leading specialists.
A total of 45 participants have signed up for this year’s workshop, whose theme is “The Feather”, including people from Warsaw, Kraków, Poznań, Wrocław and Białowieża. Among those teaching them the art of animation will be: Stanisław Lenartowicz, an outstanding animator, director, production designer and special-effects specialist, and the creator of the Polish version of “Sesame Street”; Krzysztof Rynkiewicz, head of the Department of Animated Film and Special Effects at the National Film School in Łódź; Jerzy Kucia, an outstanding director, production designer and creator of animated films, who runs the Film Drawing Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków and lectures at film schools, including in Vancouver, London and Mumbai; Piotr Nawrocki from the Łódź-based SeMaFor studio, where he designs puppets and sets for animated films; Julian Zawisza, the creator of LAF and the author of many award-winning films.
As every year, the workshop will be accompanied by events for Legnica residents. The Open-Air Cinema on the roof of Galeria Piastów will welcome visitors daily from 12 to 21 August. From 9 p.m., outstanding feature-length animated films, with one exception, can be watched on the gallery roof. These are films by European and international filmmakers. Importantly, they are films for adult audiences. The first screening is this Wednesday: the Spanish film “Chico & Rita”. “The best musical and one of the year’s greatest animations,” wrote the British newspaper The Observer about the film. A film competition with prizes will be held before each screening.
Another offering, LAF for Children (Piast Cinema), consists of special morning cinema screenings. They will take place on 15 and 16 August at 10 a.m. at Piast Cinema. The films shown will be “The Flying Machine”, made by the creators of the Oscar-winning film “Peter & the Wolf”, and “The Star of Copernicus”, which tells the story of the man who made the greatest discovery in the history of the world, with dubbing by outstanding Polish actors Jerzy Stuhr, Piotr Fronczewski, Anna Cieślak and Piotr Adamczyk.
LAF also invites visitors to the “Animation 25 DO” exhibition at the Satyrykon Gallery. The exhibition is connected with the 25th anniversary of the animation department at the Łódź film school. It features, among other things, screenplays, concept drawings, storyboards and layouts. The curator is Prof. Krzysztof Rynkiewicz, head of the Department of Animated Film and Special Effects at the National Film School in Łódź. A meeting with Prof. Rynkiewicz will be held on 14 August at 1 p.m. at the Satyrykon Gallery; the exhibition opening will take place the same day at 6 p.m.
Admission to the LAF accompanying events is free.