Warsaw had to dig deep for its festival line-up of 123 features
- “We got so many submissions that more than 95% were declined,” explained festival director Stefan Laudyn before the 29th edition between October 11-20
For the first time the Warsaw Film Festival will present 22 world premieres, 21 international premieres and 22 European premieres among the 120 features and 84 shorts from 57 countries in the programme for the 29th edition of the showcase, which runs between October 11-20.
“We had to dig really deep for the selection - we got so many submissions that more than 95% were declined,” explained festival director Stefan Laudyn. “A Mexican journalist came to our office and asked me how many Mexican entries had been suggested to us. ’39,’ I answered. ‘That is probably all the films we made.’”
“I am particularly happy with the filmmakers who return to us with their new works – such as Italian director Uberto Pasolini, whose Still Life [+see also:
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trailer
interview: Uberto Pasolini
film profile] (photo) will open the festival; Romanian director Anca Damian, with A Very Unsettled Summer, and Estonian director Ilmar Raag, with Love Is Blind, both in the main competition; international guests also include Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke, French director Catherine Breillat and Slovakian director Mira Fornay.”
“This year there are two Polish contenders in the main competition, both with great actress performances: Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida with Anna Trzebuchowska (in her first screen role) and Agata Kulesza and Jan Kidawa-Blonski’s In Hiding with Magdalena Boczarska and Julia Pogrebinska (also a film debut). Polish director Roman Polanski’s Venus in Fur [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Roman Polanski
film profile] will close the festival.”
13 countries are represented among the 15 films competing for the Warsaw Grand Prix; a new section, Classics from Poland, comprises digitally restored classics of Polish cinema, from Krzysztof Zanussi’s The Structure of Crystal (1969) to Krzysztof Kieslowski’s A Short Film about Killing and A Short Film About Love (1987-89).
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