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One of the UK’s foremost festivals dedicated to short film, Encounters is best known for it’s expansive competitive programmes. Divided into multiple categories and spanning hundreds of films, these offer as stylistically, generically and geographically diverse a selection as can be imagined. Yet, as with any festival of scale, one of the most productive means of navigation can be getting away from the main attractions and focusing on a sidebar, finding a point of interest and giving it undivided attention. At this year’s festival, the most intriguing proposition may have been the ‘Polish Voices’ section. Programmed for Encounters by Krakow Film Foundation’s Marta Świątek, this multi-event subsection presented “contemporary Polish shorts that feature women in front of or behind the camera.” Świątek wanted the programmes “to be truly ‘polyphonic’”, so as “to show the diversity of Polish cinema, and offer as wide a picture of Poland as possible.”