This year's lineup includes acclaimed films from major global festivals and new Polish cinema, complemented by a series of music events.
The festival opens with Agathe Riedinger's Wild Diamond, a film about a 19-year-old's obsession with physical beauty and her participation in a reality show.
This narrative, exploring themes of social mobility and personal success, features a non-professional actress in the lead role. Wild Diamond was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.
Another highlight is La Cocina by Alonso Ruizpalacios, starring Rooney Mara and Raul Briones. The film, which competed at the Berlin International Film Festival, portrays the lives of Mexican immigrants in a New York restaurant. Mara plays a pregnant waitress who is unsure about keeping her baby, while Briones portrays her partner, a chef aspiring to fatherhood.
The festival also showcases the documentary Dahomey by Mati Diop, recognized with a Golden Bear award. Blending fact and fiction, the film addresses the colonial-era looting of art from the Kingdom of Dahomey, now Benin, by French forces. Recently, France returned some of these stolen artifacts to Benin.
Polish cinema is well-represented with films like Sparrow by Tomasz Gąssowski, a comedy-drama drawing parallels with Michael Radford's Il Postino.
The festival will also screen works portraying notable Polish figures, including the unknown story of mountaineer Wanda Rutkiewicz in The Last Expedition and a creative portrait of actor Andrzej Seweryn in I Am a Fictional Character.
Music events will feature performances from Laboratorium Pieśni (Song Laboratory, an experimental a capella ensemble), Maja Kleszcz, and the "new fado" of Bastarda & João de Sousa, with a special concert "Not Only Wasowski" featuring Monika Borzym and the Chopin University Big Band conducted by Piotr Kostrzewa.
The festival concludes on August 3 with the Polish premiere of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo, adapted by Alexandre De La Patelliere and Matthieu Delaporte.
For more details, visit dwabrzegi.pl.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP, dwabrzegi.pl
