Łukasz Czajka is a film director, game designer and TV reporter. He graduated from the Faculty of Political Sciences and the Centre for Latin American Studies at the University of Warsaw, as well as the Dok Pro documentary programme at the Wajda School. Of Animals and Men is his debut film.

“Of Animals and Men” is a creative documentary about what happened in Warsaw Zoo before and during the Second World War. The film’s main characters are Jan Żabiński, the zoo’s creator and director for many years, and his wife Antonina Żabińska. In wartime, they offered refuge to the Jews and Polish resistance fighters by hiding them in the desolate zoo, in their own house and the empty back rooms of animal pens. In total, they managed to shelter about 300 people. The secret guests used to stay in the zoo from a few days to many months.

Emilia Śniegoska is a director and linguist. In 2018 she graduated in film directing from the Polish National Film and Television School in Łódź, Poland. Since 2014 she has been gaining experience as an assistant director on fiction and documentary films, and she also works on television formats. Currently she lives and works in Berlin.

“19.91” is a quiet and modest story of a meeting between 19-year-old Jette from Germany and a 91-year-old Polish lady, Zofia. During Jette’s one-year voluntary service in Warsaw she regularly visits Zofia, who spent her teenage years in concentration camps in Auschwitz and Ravensbrück. The film is a winner of the International Documentary Film Competition in Budapest in the category “Short films by young directors”.

Films will be freely available for watching from April 24 to May 3 at the festival platform: https://docudays.ua/

More info: http://docudays.ua/eng/