Framing a Legacy. The Krakow Film Festival’s 65th Anniversary Mural Tribute.

More than paint on bricks, the new mural celebrating the Krakow Film Festival’s 65th edition is a carefully curated yet innovatively visual memory of a wall with a story to tell. As cinematic passion enclosed in one giant image, referencing iconic festival posters and nods to Polish graphic heritage, the vibrant collage weaves together legacy and both artistic and community spirit. Nestled in the heart of Kraków’s Old Town, a monumental mural tells the visual story of a festival that shaped generations of cinephiles, while inviting passersby to look up and remember. 

How do we visualise cultural legacy? How do we make memory public? The answer to a festival dedicated to the great visual art happens to be a ten-meter-high and visible from a hundred steps away. Maja Kuczmińska from the Krakow Film Festival (KFF) Team, the executive of the project, says that the idea had been around for a while. She simply “grabbed” and implemented it. “We were looking for a way to commemorate the festival’s anniversary, and the suggestion for a mural had been around for a few years”, she says. “But in fact, you could say that it was the wall that found us. Its size, its place on the map of Kraków – all those were signs”. The collage – the first one of sorts in the KFF’s history – made of archival festival posters by artists such as Kuba Sowiński, Małgorzata Gurowska, Joanna Górska, Jerzy Skakun, Mieczysław Górowski, Tomasz Walenta, Andrzej Klimowski, and Waldemar Świerzy, along with graphic elements, alludes to the tenderness of the world’s view, inherent in the festival’s DNA.

A Memory in Full View

The idea behind the mural was actually a long-standing dream of visibly marking the anniversary in a public space. “I had been dreaming of some kind of somewhat permanent festival footprint in the city’s structure, a square or bridge at the Planty, but the idea of a mural, although quite tricky to implement, is probably it”, Krzysztof Gierat, the Festival Director, reveals and that he can see the wall potentially be the beginning of a film alley in this place – “a meeting place not only for our festival’s enthusiasts”. 

The Krakow Film Festival is a place where prominent international filmmakers meet debutants and where the audience comes face to face with the creators. Both in the intimate and comfortably familiar darkness of the screening rooms of Kraków’s legendary art-house cinemas and in the virtual world of online screenings, KFF is exactly that – a meeting place for film lovers. “It’s great to be able to show a collage of some of the elements the talented graphic artists, who design our posters, created for the festival on such a ‘big screen’”, adds Maja Kuczmińska. 

As the mural covers an area of about 150 square meters, finding the right location was crucial. And the one found is perfect for honouring an event that is part of Kraków’s urban fabric. The wall is visible from the Planty, through which the road leads to the nearby headquarters of the Krakow Film Foundation, the festival’s organiser. Just around the corner, there is the Academy of Fine Arts, which trains the artists who are later associated with the festival and which has been KFF’s partner for years. In short – the very heart of the Old Town. “Usually, sites for murals are chosen in such a way that one starts with a ‘puck’ [when following a thread]: a survey of available locations in city buildings comes first, then a selection – because it is then easier to proceed with the procedures involved in assessing the project, obtaining approvals and so on”, Kuczmińska explains, stressing all of it happened completely differently in this situation. “I saw this wall and thought – this is IT, THIS is where our mural must be. And along this thread, we came to the ball”. 

However, everyone also repeats the gratitude towards many people without whom the project wouldn’t have come into fruition – the Festival Director, residents, property owners, the contractor, the mural committee, and foremost, the Piętka Bakery operating next to the mural, which gave the access to the wall and financial support, proving how Cracovian businesses wholeheartedly see the point of such endevours.  

Posters as Timekeepers

Letting the location find them was the first step. Then came the approach to telling the story of the festival visually. The mural was designed by an Academy of Fine Arts graduate Przemysław Potoczny from MURALE.NET. The visual narrative is based on iconic posters from different decades. How to incorporate the festival’s rich 65-year-long history in one image? “We reached for quotes from old posters, treating them as fragments of shared memory – visual signs that for many viewers are as recognisable as the films themselves”, Przemysław Potoczny explains. 

The project is also an homage to the legendary Polish School of Posters, which from the 1950s to the 1980s blended painterly aesthetics, metaphor, and bold colours with the concise format of the poster. With expressive lines, humour, and personal style, these works blurred the line between designer and artist. Drawing on folk art and hand-lettered slogans, they used symbolic imagery to convey layered meanings. More than visual statements, the posters reflected the artist’s emotional engagement and social commentary. And their graphic language has shaped the festival’s identity for decades. As Potoczny says, “these works are timeless – they still impress us today with their freshness, boldness, and ingenuity”.

“We reached for quotes from old posters, treating them as fragments of shared memory – visual signs that for many viewers are as recognisable as the films themselves”
— Przemysław Potoczny

Krzysztof Gierat also admits to having a great affection for the Polish School of Posters – from the “eye” motifs like the central eye on a Charming Eyes (”Oczy waleczne”, 1976) poster by Tomasz Walenty, the moths on Kuba Sowiński’s poster (“you can often see these nocturnal butterflies in the light of the projector during outdoor screenings”), or the celluloid face on Mieczysław Górowski’s poster. The latter, in fact, accompanied the first festival after the festival’s name change by Gierant (from the “International Short Film Festival”) and now hangs in his office, a quiet sentinel of that transformation. 

A diverse collection of the festival posters based on these classics was crucial while designing the mural, as “therein lies the strength”, Potoczny continues. “The posters begin to tell us their story anew, in a different context, but still with the same emotional charge”. For them – and anyone with any emotional connection to the KFF, the mural becomes more than a set of graphic signs, but “a vivid, visual story of a festival that has been changing with its audience over the years”. A symbol that holds collective memory. 

The Legacy Lives On

This year’s edition is even more of a celebratory and reminiscent nature – it would be the last under the leadership of Krzysztof Gierat as he steps down after 25 years. Already four years ago, Gierat handed over the co-management of the KFF to women – Barbara Orlicz-Szczypuły, Patrycja Czarny, and Katarzyna Wilk. 

Gierat’s contribution to the promotion of Polish cinema and Kraków as a place conducive to film culture is invaluable. The festival has evolved and adapted to new circumstances, as in the case of the pandemic edition five years ago. It is now a quarter of a century of unobvious choices, spectacular film discoveries and extremely fruitful activities, which have contributed to even greater growth and recognition of the festival not only on the national, but also on the international arena. “Krzysztof has brought the festival into the 21st century, created it anew, forged an auteur event that has brought documentary and short film back to audiences in Poland, but has also become a well-recognised international brand”, says Barbara Orlicz-Szczypuła, the Head of Krakow Film Foundation. 

As such, the mural is both a legacy project and a symbol of continuity as “jubilees never manage to dampen our energy”, Gierat says. Film festivals, in their very nature, form a meaningful cultural heritage that plays a crucial role in the identity of the city and its community. Kraków is beaming with its rich film history – it is where the first film screening on Polish soil took place in 1896, the first Polish film school emerged after the Second World War, and the first Polish film festival – the KFF – took place in 1961. 

“It will be like a beacon on the trail of Kraków’s cinemas, that it will be a sign of the city’s cinematic history”
— Krzysztof Gierat

What message does the mural convey, then? “For me personally, the most important thing is the social context”, Maja Kuczmińska answers, explaining she’d be pleased if it arouses interest, attracts people, finds its way into guides to Krakow, and shows a bit of the city’s history in a non-obvious way. While Krzysztof Gierat believes the mural will be an invitation to stop and take a moment to reflect, just like the films being presented at the festival. “That it will be like a beacon on the trail of Kraków’s cinemas, that it will be a sign of the city’s cinematic history”. It’s own kind of a “living monument” – an invitation to experience and participate.

Presentation of the mural celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Krakow Film Festival will take place on May 27, 2025, at 6 PM at ul. Asnyka 8/10 in Kraków. 

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Krakow Film Festival 

May 25 – June 1, 2025, Kraków, Poland. 
May 30 – June 15, 2025, Online on KFF VOD.

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