These are not the first important prizes for the creators of The Last Family, this year’s most acclaimed Polish film debut and one of the best movies of the current season. Earlier this month, Jan P. Matuszyński’s work won the Golden Lion as well as awards for the actors at the 41st edition of the Gdynia Film Festival. Andrzej Seweryn, who played one of the protagonists, won best actor award at Locarno. The film also won a Golden Angel at Toffifest festival in Toruń.
The Last Family competed with very strong candidates during the 52nd Chicago International Film Festival. The International Feature Competition nominees included Neruda by Pablo Larrain, United States of Love by Tomasz Wasilewski, Things to Come by Mia Hansen-Løve, and The Commune by Thomas Vinterberg.
The Romanian director Cristi Puiu won the Gold Hugo, the main award, for his outstanding Sieranevada, and the Silver Hugo was given to The Salesman by Iranian director Asghar Farhadi.
In an interview for the Polish Filmmakers Association, the producer of The Last Family, Leszek Bodak, said:
The Chicago awards for Kacper Fertacz and Jagna Janicka are incredibly valuable to our entire crew for two reasons. Firstly, they are the next creators of The Last Family to be awarded at yet another festival – it’s fantastic that the work of so many members of our team is appreciated. It’s an indication of how much of a team the crew were while working on the film, and how important each element was in construing the whole we were hoping for. Secondly, as the titles of the awarded films clearly show, the competition was very strong, so we are even happier.