The year 2025 also saw the rise of remarkable debutants, Kordian Kądziela and Emi Buchwald, who were nominated for Polityka magazine’s Passports. It was the latter’s film, Nie Ma Duchów w Mieszkaniu na Dobrej (No Ghosts on Good Street), made on a shoestring budget, that emerged as the biggest revelation of the past 12 months.
Buchwald talks about Generation Z, which has yet to be accurately portrayed in film. Whenever someone attempted to tell the story of today’s twenty-somethings, the outcome was either a journalistic caricature or a production that mirrors the moral panic of the baby boomers. Meanwhile, Buchwald and screenwriter Karol Marczak breathed life into their young characters, letting them speak and feel freely on screen. Without being judgmental and without adapting the characters to the requirements of contemporary cinema, they served us a story that transcends the boundaries of classical drama, yet is deeply authentic.
The shower of awards that rained down on the director during the film festival in Gdynia showed that Polish cinema and the local industry are waiting for new voices, seeking freshness and creators who are both daring and conscious. The question remains whether they are also awaited by our audience. The premiere of No Ghosts… is scheduled for March 2026, and strong attendance figures might reveal whether Generation Z is genuinely waiting for stories about themselves or whether they prefer to settle for complaining about the absence of such stories.
At the other end of the cinematic universe is another remarkable debutant, Kordian Kądziela. The director, recognised for the series 1670, showed in his feature-length debut that he has an excellent grasp of the genre and does not need to pose as a sophisticated artist, as he is a talented storyteller who entertains and moves his audience, even to tears. His LARP. Miłość, Trolle i Inne Questy (LARP. Love, Trolls and Other Quests), a romantic comedy about a loser who impersonates characters from a fantasy novel, was one of the biggest surprises at this year’s Gdynia Film Festival and proof of how much the Polish industry and local audience long for gifted craftsmen for whom their own ego is less important than the pleasure of the audience. And since Kądziela belongs to this group of creators, I am already looking forward to his next film and series projects.
In the captivity of the logline
The year 2025 also brought further debates about the future of the tenth muse in the age of streaming. Although a record number of films have been produced in recent years, dozens of them vanish from billboards almost unnoticed. Before our very eyes, the ‘attendance middle class’ is dying out – films that may not attract millions of viewers, yet still reach beyond small niches.
