From the 17th to the 27th July 2008, the 8th International Film Festival "ERA NEW HORIZONS" will be held in Wrocław.
This year, during the festival more than 230 full-length films from 50 countries - more than 120 of them will have their Polish premieres - and 340 short and medium-length films will be presented.
The festival's opening ceremony will feature the latest film by
Jerzy Skolimowski Four Nights with Anna (Cztery noce z Anną) about an intimate love story (starring Artur Steranko and Kinga Preis). This will be the Polish premiere of this film, which was the opening film of the prestigious "Quinzaine des Réalisateures" ("Directors' Fortnight") at this year's festival in Cannes and the only one representative of the Polish cinema in the official selection of Cannes festival which has been received very well by the audience and almost all the critics.
The other opening film of the festival will be Client (Il divo), made by the Italian Poalo Sorrentino: a shrewd, although very ironic and sarcastic portrayal of the Italian prime minister, Giulio Andreotti, accused of working for the Italian Mafia. This film obtained the special jury award at this year's festival in Cannes.
At the closing ceremony, the Belgian and French Lorna's Silence (Le silence de Lorna) - the latest piece by the Dardenne brothers, two-time winners of the Cannes festival will be presented. Their The Child (L'Enfant) opened the festival Era New Horizons several years ago. Lorna's Silence (awarded in Cannes for the best screenplay) tells a story about a young Albanian immigrant, searching for a chance to stay legally in Belgium through a fictitious marriage with a citizen of this country.
The most important competitive section of the festival - NEW HORIZONS International Competition - will include, as always, 18 bold and original premieres, selected from among hundreds of works presented at film festivals all over the world. And one of these films will receive the festival's main prize - Grand Prix - awarded by the audience.
For the third time, the festival will organise THE NEW POLISH FILM Competition, presenting Polish films, both features and documentaries. This year's competition will have a renewed form - in the selection these films, which premiered after 29th July 2007, are considered to be both premieres and works screened in Polish cinemas, at other festivals in Poland and abroad.
An international jury will grant The Wrocław Film Award to the winner. This year, for the first time, the jury will also award the best directing debut, funded by the Marshal of Lower Silesia, Mr Marek Łapiński.
The members of the jury will be: the Iranian director Majid Majidi, whose film The Song of Sparrows (Avaze gonjeshk - ha) will be presented in the section Panorama of Contemporary Cinema, the Russian director Svetlana Proskurina, whose film The Best of Times (Luchshee vremya goda) will also be shown to the festival audience in the Panorama of Contemporary Cinema, and Ludmila Cvikova, selector at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam.
There will also THE POLISH SHORT FILM Competition take place - allowing the festival audience to follow Polish short- and medium-length film productions. The films will be divided into three groups: animation, documentaries and fiction. This section is co-organised by the Association of Polish Filmmakers.
Panorama of Contemporary Cinema presents 40 films which have won awards at the most prestigious international film festivals. In this section, there are both the great masters and new talents, and also special screenings at the Market Square.
The section Special Screenings will present such films as: Her Name Is Sabine (Elle s'appelle Sabine), directed by Sandrine Bonnaire; Trip to Asia - the Quest for Harmony (Trip to Asia - die Suche nach dem Einklang), directed by Thomas Grube and Fala, directed by Piotr Łazarkiewicz.
For the second time, the festival will organise screenings at the Market Square, allowing not only the festival participants but also inhabitants of Wrocław to experience the film art in the picturesque city centre. This year this section will include Suely in the Sky (O céu de Suely), Under the Bombs (Sous les bombes) and the film The World's Fastest Indian.
In the section Films about music, many interesting works will be shown, including Heima - a recording of the concert tour of the most famous contemporary Icelandic band Sigur Ros; Lou Reed's Berlin - a film record of the concert played in 2007 in St. Ann's Warehouse in New York; Joy Division and Patti Smith: Dream of Life, the effect of an 11-year-long observation of one of the most influential figures of the American rock scene.
The hero of this year's Midnight Madness section will be the eccentric Italian director - Dario Argento.
Every year the festival presents another national cinematography and this year there will be a retrospective of New Zealand cinema and a review of contemporary Brazilian cinema.
Within the review of New Zealand cinematography, the festival will screen: 38 full-length films, including the retrospective of Vincent Ward, and 48 medium-length and short films. The curator of the New Zealand section is Ian Conrich, Ph. D. - the British film critic, Director of the Centre for New Zealand Studies of the University of London, Birkbeck College and author, who cooperates with BBC, Sight & Sound and other institutions.
The review of the contemporary Brazilian cinema will focus on the latest achievements of this country's cinematography. An important place will be given to the films of the retomada - renaissance of the Amazon cinema experienced in the mid-1990s. The section contemporary Brazilian cinema will include 23 full-length films and the latest short films made in this country. The films for the Brazilian section were selected by the Brazilian film critic Luiz Carlos Merten.
Other important elements of the festival's programme are directors' retrospectives, presenting recognised Polish and foreign artists. This year's edition will be dedicated to: the Greek director Theo Angelopoulos, the British creator Terence Davies, the most interesting New Zealand director Vincent Ward and the Poles:
Andrzej Żuławski, Witold Leszczyński, Katarzyna Maciejko-Kowalczyk, and the creator of animations full of black humour - Alexander Sroczyński (part of the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Polish animation). After closing the screenings' calendar and the catalogue, a review of films by Piotr Łazarkiewicz will be added to the festival's programme.
The celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the Polish animation will also include two other sections: films by Alina Skiba and TVP Kultura animates.
It is a tradition of our festival to organise concerts and screenings of silent films with live music. This year, there will be the world premiere of the film opera Csoma, by the Hungarian experimenter Tíbor Szemzö (in this spectacle we will see
Krystyna Janda as the narrator), two concerts by the British composer Michael Nyman and his Michael Nyman Band with their new programme, a concert of film music composed by the Greek Eleni Karaindrou for the films by Theo Angelopoulos.
At the festival club in the Arsenal there will be concerts and DJs' sets every evening. 20 bands from all over the world will perform in the Arsenał.
The 8th ERA NEW HORIZONS will have more than 100 guests - filmmakers from all over the world, and among them:
- The heroes of our retrospectives: the Greek Theo Angelopoulos, Terence Davies from Great Britain, Andrzej Żuławski, Alexander Sroczyński and Alina Skiba;
- Directors of films presented in the New Horizons International Competition: Peter Geyer (Jesus Christ Saviour / Jesus Christus Erlöser), Aditya Assarat (Wonderful Town), José Luis Guérin (In the City of Sylvia / En la ciudad de Sylvia) Christian Petzold (Yella), Spiros Stathoulopoulos (PVC-1), Lee Kang-Sheng (Help Me Eros / Bangbang wo aishen), Ivan and Igor Buharov (Slow Mirror / Lassú tükör), Cao Guimaraes (The Drifter / O andarilho), Ihor Podolchak and Dean Karr (Las Meninas), Kornél Mundruczó (Delta);
- Directors and critics from New Zealand (more than 10 people) and among them: Vincent Ward and Roger Donaldson; filmmakers from Brazil (more than 10 people);
- Polish artists including: Jerzy Skolimowski (director of the festival's opening film, Four Nights with Anna),
Krzysztof Zanussi (the film Black Sun / Il sole nero made in Italy, section Panorama),
Krystyna Janda (narrator in Tibor Szemzö's film opera Csoma),
Robert Gliński (director of films Benek and homo.pl, section New Polish Film),
Dariusz Jabłoński (director of Wino truskawkowe, section New Polish Film),
Andrzej Jakimowski (director of Tricks / Sztuczki, section New Polish Film), Jolanta Dylewska (director of the film Po-Lin, section New Polish Film),
Grzegorz Pacek (director of Środa, czwartek rano, section New Polish Film), Ewa Stankiewicz, Anna Ferens (directors of Trzech kumpli, section New Polish Film), Izabela Szylko (director of Niezawodny system, section New Polish Film), Artur "Baron" Więcek (director of **dz:Tischner, ksiądz na manowcach**, section New Polish Film).
International Film Festival "Era New Horizons"
Director: Roman Gutek
Artistic Director: Joanna Łapińska
ul. Zamenhofa 1; 00-153 Warszawa
tel: (+48 22) 536 92 00
fax: (+48 22) 635 20 01