The Festival organizers invite young filmmakers from all over the world, directors, actors and film industry experts to meet the audience and take advantage of getting their feedback in person.
Off Plus Camera program showcases newest work by world-class directors as well as retrospectives of the most distinguished artists of independent cinema from the past.
The winner was chosen by the international Jury, whose members were Allison Anders, Zbigniew Preisner, Max Farberbock, Fernando Trueba and Andriej Zwiagincew and the prize went to Sebastian Silva for the movie La Nana.
The festival club was held in the building of the Main Train Station Of Kraków and it hosted a couple of indie music concerts.
The guests introduced their films and participated in the meeting with Krystian Lupa and his actors who star in the play "Factory 2" at the National Stary Theatre.
The starting inspirations for these short films were ideas by Polish artists: Kasia Nosowska, Maria Peszek, Olga Tokarczuk, Maciej Maleńczuk and Szymon Majewski, to name just a few of them.
Section Discoveries showcased new films made in 2008 and 2009, including "A Christmas Tale", starring Catherine Deneuve and her daughter, Chiara Mastroianni.
[5] Catching Up was a section inspired by Jerzy Płażewski's essay, an approach to make the Polish audiences familiar with these productions that were not distributed across the theatres.
[5] Due to the national mourning, the very first days of the festival were cancelled and the explosion of a volcano in Iceland that caused flight problems influenced some program changes.
[7] Jane Campion, the director of "Bright Star", that was shown at the festival, was given Against the Current Award, to honor her art in the international landscape of independent cinema.
The Polish Film Institute was the sponsor of the second and the third prizes which were presented to Maksymilian Nowicki, the author of the script to "Sneaker Time" (Czas trampek), and Piotr Chrzan, who wrote "Tapping Bird" (Ptak-Klepak) respectively.
Idea" there was a join prize presented to Artur Długokęcki for his "God Permitting" (Jak Bóg da) and Bartek Tryzna's "Second Head".
Among the accompanying events of the 4th edition of Off Plus Camera there were: Jerzy Skolimowski's "Essential" vernissage, Michael Gibson and Lech Majewski's lecture on "The Mill and the Cross" (Młyn i krzyż), concerts of The Cliks as well as American guitarist, Gary Luckas, who performed live to the famous "Spanish Dracula" film from 1931.
A special guest, Azazel Jacobs, the laureate of the first edition of Off Plus Camera and David Thewlis, who gathered the "Against the Current" award (which has been granted since 2010 to the individuals who are of outstanding merit in the realm of independent cinema) graced the Opening Gala with their presence.
The Gala also served as an opportunity to hand out the awards to the winners of competitions organised under the ID FILM project, including the "Take It & Make It" which accompanies the festival from the very beginning.
Apart from the cash award amounting to US$100 thousand, he was also presented with a 1 million PLN cheque from the Polish Film Institute to be realised on condition that his next production will be set in Poland.
He was accompanied by Josh Radnor (a "Camera On" meeting with him was extremely popular among the festival goers), Tom Kalin and Colleen Atwood.
The films were evaluated by the international Jury comprising Michael Radford, Margery Simkin, Oren Moverman, Stephanie Zacharek and James Spring.
On that occasion, Volker Schlöndorff made a speech, while in the special festival section there were screenings of the best films produced by the Wajda School.
The workshops were conducted by David Kwok, Emily Gotto, Jarosław Kamiński, Volker Schlondorff, Brandon Harris, Margery Simkin, Roland Joffé, Kevin B. Lee and Rafał Stanowski.
The jury decided to hand out the second award ("Ombline" by Stéphane Cazes) as well as special recognitions ("Soldate Jeannette" by Daniel Hoesl and "Upstream Color" by Shane Carruth).
In the Polish Feature Film competition, the Award was handed out by Melissa Leo (the head of the jury), Jeanne McCarthy and Brady Corbet.
The festival gathered more than 300 Polish and foreign guests from the US, Germany, France, Denmark, Austria, South Korea, Romania, Portugal, Croatia, Italy, the UK and Ireland.
It invited such panelists as Sławomir Idziak, David Kwok, Izabela Kiszka, Nick Moran, Shade Rupe, Agnieszka Kurzydło, Katarzyna Ślesicka and Kim Yutani.
The screening was honored with the presence of Boguslaw Linda, Marzena Trybała, Michał Żarnecki, Monica Goździk and Bogusława Pawelec.
The special guest of a section devoted to Jean-Luc Godard films was his ex-wife and the icon of the French New Wave, Anna Karina.
Kraków also hosted: actress Melonie Diaz, agent of the stars and producer Allan Mindel and director Tom Kalin.
The special guests of the fourth edition of Off Plus Camera (2011) included: Peter Weir, Tim Roth, Amitabh Bachchan, Richard Jenkins, Rose McGowan, Jill Sprecher, Ellen Chenoweth, Roger Christian, Kim Dong-Ho, Ronald Bergan, Elvis Mitchell.
The special guests of the fifth edition of Off Plus Camera (2012) included: Luc Besson, David Thewlis, Roland Joffé, Volker Schlondorff, Michael Radford, Andrzej Żuławski, Josh Radnor, Aidan Gillen.
The special guests of the sixth edition of Off Plus Camera (2013) included: Josh Hartnett, John Rhys-Davies, Udo Kier, Melissa Leo, Lech Majewski, Costa-Gavras, Bogusław Linda.