The richness of contemporary cinema is perhaps most clearly visible in the diversity of forms and means of film narration. Dynamic transformations in this field apply both to mainstream cinema and to its alternatives: independent cinema, art-house cinema and various types of avant-garde.

These two big currents of contemporary cinema interrelate, influencing but at the same time sharply opposing each other. The two extreme wings are the post-narrative Hollywood cinema of attractions on the one hand, and the atmospheric slow cinema, the most recent favourite of film festival audience, on the other.

Just as contemporary film narration spans a rich field between two extremes, likewise the conference devoted to it will take place at two ends of Poland, forming a symbolic bridge between various phenomena and theoretical stances. The conference, organized jointly by the University of Gdańsk and the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, will take a shape of an unusual, two-part symposium, held in May in Gdańsk and Kraków. First two days in Gdańsk (24th – 25th May) will be devoted to mainstream cinema of “fast” denomination. On the third day (26th May), the participants will travel to Kraków, where they will debate on the narration of art-house cinema, of slow kind and beyond.