EACD 2018 – Focus on Kino Fenomen (Kielce, PL)

“I always wanted to be like a curator, creating and screening new things, organising special events and meeting with interesting people.” Jaroslaw Skulski, who participated to our Bologna Lab last june, has been at the head of Kino Fenomen (a single-screen art cinema in Kielce, in the south east of Poland) for 10 years now and he recently outlined his vision of art cinema management to the journalists of Film New Europe. His venue was nominated by the Polish Film Institute for the best cinema award in 2016 only a couple of years after its re-opening ! Beside Jaroslaw, the team includes two cashiers and two film operators. They all work on mediation toward young audiences and showcasing Polish productions and more generally European cinema. They also host the itinerant KinoBus Festival and collaborate with many others like Toffifest, Kino Dzieci etc.

Kino Fenomen has joined the Europa Cinemas Network one year ago inspired by the membership of theaters in Krakow. European Art Cinema Day will be honoured for the second time in its premises on October 14. Jaroslaw, nicknamed Jarek, shares some info about his special programming with us.

INTERVIEW

Tell us about your experience of the EACD last year.

I remember, it was Sunday, 15^th of October, and we planned four special screenings, during the day. Thanks to a good cooperation with organizers (CICAE, Europa Cinemas, Association of Arthouse Cinemas, Polish Arthouse Cinemas Network and Polish Film Institute) we could show our lovely audience four European movies, all before the official premiere!

The movie titles we played were : Młynarski: the finished song, a Polish documentary about one of the best Polish songwriter and singer Wojciech Młynarski, On the Milky Road by Emir Kusturica, Toivon tuolla puolen by Aki Kaurismaki and Borg McEnroe by Janus Metz.

How do you build your special programming?

Just like last year – we chose movies from the offer available on the market. This year we can only offer two screenings: at 11 am we will read (from the stage!) children books for our youngest audience, together with their parents and grandparents, then we will play an animated film Le grand mechant Renard et autres contes… and, finally, we prepared some art activities in the cinema hall. At 2 pm, we will show a premiere of the Danish thriller The Guilty.