16/06/2009

A total of 12 features and 54 shorts will screen in official competition at the 28th Debut Film Festival (June 16-20), which kicks off today in Koszalin. The event, which focuses on debut films, is the oldest and most important of its kind in Poland.

The narrative features section is dominated by unreleased titles. Among the most eagerly anticipated works are Michal Rogalski’s black comedy Ostatnia Akcja ("The Last Action"), the last film starring legendary actor Jan Machulski (who died in November 2008, aged 80) and produced by his son, Juliusz Machulski, for Studio Zebra.

Audiences are also keen to discover My Flesh, My Blood by Marcin Wrona (who attracted attention with her student film Magnet Man, which was lauded at Tribeca, and her short Telefono); Maciej Prykowski’s debut feature Public Scandal (following his short What Nobody Knows); and Katarzyna Roslaniec’s Galerianki, the feature-length version of her student film developed at the Polish Filmmakers Association workshop.

The competition line-up also includes Szymon Jakubowski’s Jak żyć ("How To Live"), which was released theatrically on July 18, 2008 and garnered over 100,000 admissions.

The debut shorts section will present narrative, animated and documentary films under 40 minutes long. Meanwhile, 54 titles produced in public and private schools as part of funding programmes for young filmmakers will be screened in nine sub-sections.

Among the professional meetings, there will be an introduction to the first Polish film commission, the Łódź Film Commission, created in April in order to promote the cinematic potential of the city, which has a particularly rich tradition in this area.

For the third year, the Koszalin festival will present only domestic debut films, following a tradition that has led to the discovery of first-time works by numerous eminent Polish directors, including Krzysztof Zanussi, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Agnieszka Holland, Barbara Sass, Filip Bajon and Magdalena Łazarkiewicz.

(Translated from French)