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This year’s 25th International Warsaw Film Festival managed
to put together an ensemble of movies from all over the world, including
premieres from 57 countries, almost 150 new full-length films and more than
100 shorts. But the festival was not only aiming at quantity – first and
foremost it was about high quality.
The films were screened in
three Warsaw cinemas: Kinoteka in the Palace of Culture, Multikino Złote
Tarasy and also Kino Kultura as far as short movies are concerned. The
program of the festival was divided into five competitive and three
non-competitive sections.
In the first ones there
were:
International Competition, presided by the Academy Award winning Polish
composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek
1-2 Competition, for first and second feature films by directors from all
over the world
Free Spirit Competition, for international independent and rebellious movies
Documentary and Shorts Competition.
The other group included:
Master’s touch, for new films of acclaimed world directors
Discoveries, that is movies that present visions of the contemporary world
Family Cinema Weekend
Audience Poll, where the viewers could rank each movie after it has been
screened
FIPRESCI Award, that is for the best first or second film by a director from
Central and Eastern Europe presented in any festival section.
Right after most of the screenings there was a public Q&A session with
either director or producer and often with cast.
As any important film event, Warsaw Film Festival couldn’t do without a
scandal. The screening of “Welcome to Life!”, a document about the Amway
corporation by Henryk Dederko, was cancelled due to some “legal issues”.
Public screening of this movie has been banned by Amway ever since it was
made, which is 12 years ago now, due to possible harm it might inflict on
the corporation. However, it figured in the Warsaw Film Festival’s program
and when the news was announced the heads of the festival as well as members
of the jury expressed their indignation. Luckily the movie is available on
YouTube so everyone can easily watch it despite the ban.
Now, speaking about the movies themselves, the titles that according to
Polish film media were mostly worth recommending were:
Lourdes by Jessica Hauser and Metropia by Tarik Saleh (both already
presented in September in Venice); Nothing Personal by Polish director
Urszula Antoniak; an Israeli movie Seven Minutes in Heaven; two Romanian
films: Politist, Adjectiv by Corneliu Porumboiu and Tales from the golden
age by Cristian Mungiu and Constantin Popescu; British productions: Fish
Tank by Andrea Arnold, awarded in Cannes for…., and Moon by Duncan Jones;
and also Elia Suleiman’s
Time that remains and Annette K. Olesen’s Little Soldier.
However, I watched only one of these top ranked movies as this time I
decided to stick to my own intuition and I made my own film choices. These
are the films I watched during the festival:
Of Polish directors:
ZERO by P. Borowski (the film for the festival’s closing)
THE DARK HOUSE, W. Smarzowski
REWERS, B. Lankosz (Polish pretender for the Oscar award as best foreign
movie)
International movies:
ONE FOR THE ROAD by Eva Lopez-Sanchez
THE PASSION OF GABRIELE by Luis Alberto Restrepo
THE MIRACULOUS by Rafael Lara
EYE OF THE STORM by E. Valente
DAYS OF SUMMER by Marc Webb
FISH TANK by A.Arnold (Jury Prize and nomination for Golden Palm in Cannes)
RAGE by Sally Potter
MOMMY IS AT THE HAIRDRESSER’S by Lea Pool
MAMOOTH by Lukas Moodysson (nomination for Golden Bear in Berlin)
STRANGERS Ventura Pons
LONDON RIVER by Rachid Bouchareb ( Silver Bear and nomitation for Golden
Bear in Berlin)
BETWEEN US by Gloria La Morte, Paola Mendoza
UNSPOKEN by Fien Troch
SLOVENIAN GIRL by Damjan Kozole
I KILLED MY MOTHER by Xavier Dolan
Personally, I was positively surprised with the Latin American selection,
especially the Colombian ones: Between us and Miraculous, as they turned out
to be two of the best (in my opinion) films of the festival. Between us is a
simple story of a struggle to survive and live in a decent way in this
difficult world while Lara’s movie is a story of a young rich Colombian
kidnapped by the guerrilla, FARC.
Actually, definitely most of the films I chose (which this time were feature
films only) were really well-made, highly interesting and entertaining,
especially 500 days of Summer, Fish Tank, Mamooth (shown at this year’s
Berlinnale where it provoked controversy), Mommy’s at the Hairdresser, the
Catalan movie Strangers and London River. I believe this only confirms the
fact that the Warsaw Film Festival is one of the best film events in the
world.
The awards in all the festival sections along with the FIPRESCI Prize were
presented on Saturday, the 17th of October. The Warsaw Grand Prix, funded by
the City of Warsaw, was awarded to Lourdes directed by Jessica Hausner as
“Her effortless storytelling brings a beautiful simplicity to a complex
subject.”, which in my opinion wasn’t very surprising as it already received
good reviews in Venice where it was also nominated for the Golden Lion.
The Colombian movie Passion of Gabriele received the Special Jury Prize for,
as it was explained, “the depiction of human courage in the face of the
complex socio-political conflict in Columbia” and the FIPRESCI Prize went to
B. Lankosz’s Rewers. The complete list of the awarded movies can be found
below.
WINNERS
OF THE 25th
WARSAW FILM FESTIVAL
INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION AWARD
LOURDES
Jessica Hausner
(Austria/France/Germany)
SPECIAL JURY PRIZE
The passion of Gabriel
Luis Alberto Restrepo
(Colombia)
1-2 COMPETITION
Seven minutes in Heaven
Omri Givon
(Israel)
Eastern plays
Kamen Kalev
(Bulgaria)
FREE SPIRIT COMPETITION:
Purgatory
Roberto Rochin Naya
(Mexico)
Bad day to go fishing
Alvaro Brechner
(Uruguay)
BEST DOCUMENTARY AWARD
Disco and atomic war
Jaak Kilmi and Kiur Aarma
(Estonia)
BEST SHORT FILM AWARD
Notes on the other
Sergio Oksman
(Spain)
FIPRESCI PRIZE
Reverse
Borys Lankosz
(Poland)
THE AUDIENCE AWARD
BEST FEATURE FILM
The Dark House
Wojciech Smarzowski
Welcome
Philippe Lioret
BEST DOCUMENT
Deformation
Yoav Shamir
BEST SHORT
The Pig
Dorte W. Hogh
At the end, I’d like to
quote the director of the Warsaw Film Festival, Mr. Stefan Laudyn:
"This year's festival was the fulfilment of my dreams. We joined the premier
league of the world's film festivals. Our choice of films, which included
international, European, and Polish premieres, won the appreciation of
audiences, judges, professionals, and journalists. Our guests found Warsaw
enchanting and Polish hospitality wonderful. The team, which included quite
a few first-timers this year, did an excellent job. We face new challenges
as of next year - I trust we will cope with them, thanks to support from the
Warsaw city government, the Ministry of Culture, the Polish Film Institute,
and our partners and sponsors, led by RWE".
See you next year! |
