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WARSAW 2021

The 37th Warsaw Film Festival is all set to kick off

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- The Polish-based film gathering, which unspools from 8-17 October, will showcase 168 films from 50 countries, with Captain Volkonogov Escaped and Women Do Cry bookending it

The 37th Warsaw Film Festival is all set to kick off
Captain Volkonogov Escaped by Natasha Merkulova and Aleksey Chupov

The Warsaw Film Festival, starting on the second Friday in October, marks the beginning of autumn for many Varsovians. The international gathering, which has brought films from all over the world to Poland since the 1980s, will present 99 full-length and 69 short films this year. Captain Volkonogov Escaped [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Natasha Merkulova and Aleksey Chupov (Russia/Estonia/France) will have the honour of opening the event, while Women Do Cry [+see also:
film review
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interview: Mina Mileva, Vesela Kazakova
film profile
]
, the new work by Vesela Kazakowa and Mina Mileva (Bulgaria/France), will bring it to a close.

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Once again this year, the number of submissions has broken records – almost 4,500 films applied to be screened at Warsaw. The International Competition, boasting a cash prize of 100,000 PLN (approximately €22,000), consists of 15 titles, including eight world premieres: The Albanian Virgin [+see also:
film review
film profile
]
by Bujar Alimani (Germany/Belgium/Albania/Kosovo), Brigitte Bardot Forever by Lech Majewski (Poland), “Slovo” House. Unfinished Novel by Taras Tomenko (Ukraine), Cinephilia by Algimantas Puipa (Lithuania), Miss Osaka [+see also:
film review
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]
by Daniel Dencik (France/Japan), No Problem by Jiachen Jiang (China), Ring Wandering by Masakazu Kaneko (Japan), and YT by Dmitry Davydov and Stepan Burnashev (Russia).

Furthermore, Miracle [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Bogdan George Apetri
film profile
]
by Bogdan George Apetri (Romania/Czech Republic/Latvia), The Drover’s Wife: The Legend of Molly Johnson by Leah Purcell (Australia), Rhino [+see also:
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trailer
film profile
]
by Oleg Sentsov (Ukraine/Poland/Germany), Kerr by Tayfun Pirselimoglu (Turkey/Greece/France), Saloum [+see also:
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by Jean Luc Herbulot (Senegal/France), The Other Tom by Rodrigo Plá and Laura Santullo (Mexico), and Toubab [+see also:
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by Florian Dietrich (Germany) will all be in the running for the Warsaw Grand Prix.

There are also four other competitive sections: Competition 1-2, the Free Spirit Competition, the Documentary Films Competition and the Short Film Competition. The non-competitive strands will present new works by Aleksey German Jr (House Arrest [+see also:
trailer
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]
, Russia) and Tony Gatlif (Tom Medina [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, France), plus the documentary debut by Charlotte Gainsbourg (Jane by Charlotte [+see also:
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trailer
film profile
]
, France). One of Poland’s most original directors, Marek Koterski, will have a mini-retrospective of his body of work at the gathering, with screenings of The Day of the Wacko [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
, Porn and Inner Life.

Apart from the film programme, Warsaw will also host the CentEast Market, an industry event that is set to unspool between 14 and 17 October. This year’s edition, the 16th so far, will comprise sections such as the Warsaw Screenings, Warsaw Works-in-Progress, New Talents from the Wajda School, Doc Lab Poland, Warsaw Next, the FIPRESCI Warsaw Critics’ Project and an open workshop on the subject of “The Art of Film Editing”.

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