Twelve films battle it out in the main competition for the Golden Lions at this year's Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. In addition to the competition, "Panorama of Polish Cinema" presents nine extra titles. Among them are: "Jeż Jerzy" / "Jerzy the Hedgehog", "Lincz" and "Wygrany". At a special screening, Jacek Bromski's latest film "Uwikłanie" will be presented.
The twelve titles selected for the festival's Main Competition in Gdynia are this year's biggest players in Polish cinema. They are films which can be shown to viewers anywhere in the world. At the same time, all the films constitute a visiting card of Polish cinema, and show that we have had a successful year. You can tell by watching them that (Polish) filmmakers have many stories to tell, build their own worlds and experiment with various types of narration. But one thing is probably the most important: these are a dozen films which have achieved artistically fulfilled.
-festival artistic director Michał Chaciński.
The 36th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia starts June 6. The films competing for the main prize, a statuette of a Golden Lion, are:
"Czarny czwartek" / "Black Thursday", dir. Antoni Krauze;
"Daas", dir. Adrian Panek;
"Essential Killing", dir. Jerzy Skolimowski;
"Italiani", dir. Łukasz Barczyk;
"Ki", dir. Leszek Dawid;
"Kret" / "The Mole", dir. Rafael Lewandowski;
"Lęk wysokości" / "Fear of heights", dir. Bartosz Konopka;
"Młyn i krzyż" / "Mill and the cross", dir. Lech Majewski;
"Róża", dir. Wojciech Smarzowski;
"Sala samobójców" / "Suicide room", dir. Jan Komasa;
"W imieniu diabła" / "In the name of the devil", dir. Barbara Sass-Zdort;
"Wymyk", dir. Greg Zglinski.
A nine-member jury decide on the winning film. The jury is led by Paweł Pawlikowski, director and screenwriter ("Last Resort", "Lato miłości / Summer of love", "The Woman in the Fifth"). Other members of the jury include: cinematographer Ryszard Lenczewski, Ari Folman - director and screenwriter, Maja Ostaszewska - actress, Mariusz Treliński - opera, theatre and film director, Walter Kirn - literary critic, Leszek Możdżer - pianist and composer, Robert McMinn - vice-president Lakeshore Entertainment, producer, screen-writing specialist, Ludmilla Cvikova - selectionist of the International Film Festival in Rotterdam, film theoretician. The final award ceremony of the Film Festival in Gdynia is held on June 11, 2011 in the Teatr Muzyczny in Gdynia. A screening of the short film "Świteź" is held during the ceremony.
One special guest of this year's festival in Gdynia will be Polish director Roman Polański. The filmmaker, best known for such classics as "Knife in the water", "Chinatown", "Tess", "The pianist" and "Ghost writer" will be awarded the "Platinum lions" award for his lifetime achievement in cinema. This is the first time the Polish-born director will attend the Gdynia festival which has been held for over 30 years. Another award will be handed to Tadeusz Konwicki, who has made films like "Ostatni dzień lata" / "Last day of summer", "Zaduszki All souls' day", "Salto" and "Lawa" / "Lava".
Another prominent guest of the festival is Jerzy Skolimowski whose "Essential Killing" is in competition for the "Golden Lions" award. The director will also present several of his paintings.
A further attraction of the festival is a number of screenings and seminars. The latter will be graced by the likes of Andrzej Wajda, Janusz Morgenstern, Krzysztof Zanussi, Agnieszka Holland and Roman Polański who will talk about the favourite scenes in their own works.
Among the screenings, attendees will be able to enjoy some of the most interesting films in Central Europe, as well as digitally restored copies of old Polish films, including "The Saragossa Manuscript" by Wojciech Jerzy Has - a film loved by cinema legends like Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas.
Another film shown during the award ceremony is "Świteź" by Kamil Polak. The film is an adaptation of a romantic ballad by Adam Mickiewicz of the same title. It tells the story of a mysterious lake, at the bottom of which lies an enchanted medieval town. " Switez" is an apocalyptic tale of destruction, the wonders of the eternal struggle between good and evil, faith and hope. The film screening at the Teatr Muzycnzy in Gdynia will be accompanied by live music performed by the Baltic Philharmonic Orchestra, Warsaw University Choir and soloist Małgorzata Pańko conducted by Irina Bogdanovic.
At this year's Festival of Independent Polish Cinema - a new section of the Gdynia festival - the best independent films made in the country last year are screened. The section is a retrospective of the most interesting and most original short films made outside the traditional system of film and television production. Films presented are the result of several months of research carried out jointly with partners in the festival: Filmforum and the Short Films short film Festival were selected from nearly 300 independent films that emerged in Poland over the last year.
For more information about the 36th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, please log on to: www.fpff.pl.
Source: press release