The productions set to compete for the festival’s top Golden Lions award and a host of other prizes include 15 national premieres, among them six directorial debuts.
Veteran director Jerzy Skolimowski's EO, Poland’s contender for next year’s Academy Awards in the best foreign film category, is among the movies selected for the festival.
EO, a modern interpretation of the 1960s cult classic Au Hasard Balthazar (Balthazar, at Random) by Robert Bresson, is a subtle melancholy tale following a donkey as he changes owners. The film is described by its co-producer, the Warmia-Masuria Film Fund, as “a bitter but also warmly humanist paraphrase of a ‘road movie’.
Other standouts include Xawery Żuławski’s Apokawixa, which is hailed as Poland’s first zombie film and is set to hit the big screen in October.
In an interview with public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency, the festival's Artistic Director Tomasz Kolankiewicz said that this year a very significant group of films in the main competition are inspired by history. Among them is Orlęta. Grodno 39, directed by Krzysztof Łukaszewicz, and depicting the defense of Grodno against Soviet troops during World War 2. Orzeł. The Last Patrol, directed by Jacek Bławut, tells the story of the heroic crew of the ORP "Orzeł" submarine, which was lost in the first months of World War 2. Another proposition is Lech Majewski's film Brigitte Bardot the Wonderful, which is a journey through the reality of communist Poland, telling the story of Adam, who dreams of meeting his father, a World War 2 veteran.
The annual Polish Film Festival, first held in 1974, is one of the oldest film events in Europe, according to organizers.
The 47th Polish Film Festival will be held in Gdynia from September 12 to 17.
For more information, visit the festival website.
(jh)
Source: IAR