Krakow Film Festival (KFF) has unveiled a new international prize aimed at formally rewarding formal innovation in nonfiction: the Marcel Łoziński Documentary Award, established with the Polish Documentary Film Directors Guild in tribute to the late Polish filmmaker (1940–2025).

Positioned as a corrective to «ready-made formats» in a platform-led marketplace, the award is open to documentaries of any length and from any country, with eligibility not dependent on a director’s career stage. The stated criterion is «creative courage» and a distinctive cinematic language, reflecting Łoziński’s own practice of blending observation with constructed interventions to «reveal truths» about power, society, and the everyday.

The prize is funded by the Polish Film Institute, which KFF says ensures an annual presentation and long-term institutional footing. Films will enter the competition through recommendations from a roster of internationally recognised documentary figures and programmers, including Emilie Bujès (Visions du Réel), Marek Hovorka (Ji.hlava), Katrine Kilgaard (CPH:DOX), Amir Labaki (It’s All True), and Debra Zimmerman (Women Make Movies), among others.

For the inaugural edition, the jury comprises María Campaña Ramia, filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa, and director Paweł Łoziński.