A documentary film is a combination of art and unpredictable reality. It allows me to talk about matters that are important to me. I can show what is happening around me (or inside me) or go on a journey to the unknown. Production of a documentary is a multi-level adventure: choosing a story, relationship with the hero, financing, working with the camera and film crew, editing. In the Documentary Film Group, we will work on a film concept based on your projects and then shoot a selected scene with professional Canon equipment. – says Eliza Kubarska.

About Eliza Kubarska

A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (Faculty of Sculpture and Studio of Audiovisual Space led by Professor G. Kowalski) and of Wajda School in Warsaw. Scholarship holder of the Ministry of Culture and Art. Director of documentaries and video installations. She specialises in making films in extreme conditions, far from civilisation: from the cold Himalayas, Karakoram and Greenland to tropical regions of Asia. Her heroes are people caught up in complicated personal and social relationships. Eliza also creates activist films whose heroes are ethnic minorities and representatives of dying cultures, always with powerful nature in the background.

Her films, which are produced in cooperation with prestigious TV stations such as ARTE/ZDF and HBO, are awarded and presented at festivals around the world (Hot Docs in Canada, Los Angeles Film Festival, Locarno, Vision du Reel, IDFA). She made her debut in 2010 with the film titled What happened on Pam Island (63 minutes), which was filmed in the fjords of southern Greenland. Walking Under Water (76 minutes, 2014, for ARTE/ZDF), is an “underwater documentary” filmed at sea and under water (winner of the Jury Prize at Hot Docs) and tells a story about sea Nomads, fish-people from Borneo. K2. Touching the Sky (73 minutes, 2015) is one of the most awarded Polish mountaineering productions, filmed at the foot of K2. It tries to answer the question about the price of passion. Her latest film The Wall of Shadows (90 minutes, 2020, for ARTE/ZDF) is a Polish-Swiss-Germen co-production filmed in the Himalayas at an altitude of over 5,000 metres. It shows an extreme expedition to the virgin wall of Kumbhakarna from the perspective of Nepalese Sherpas. The film’s international premiere took place in Canada (main competition at Hot Docs), and the Polish premiere is scheduled for Docs Against Gravity. The film is planned for cinema distribution in Poland and abroad. Simultaneously, since 2018 Eliza has been working on a full-length documentary about Wanda Rutkiewicz.

As a mountain climber and explorer, in a team with her husband, photographer David Kaszlikowski, she has completed more than ten mountain expeditions to Greenland, High Atlas in Morocco, Mali in West Africa and tropical jungles of Malaysia. She is an expert in extreme cinematography (mountain and underwater expeditions). Founder of the Vertical Vision Film Studio (since 2008) www.VerticalVision.pl

Group is supported by Canon.