26/09/2024 - The annual film event will take place in the Polish capital from 11-20 October

This year’s edition of the Warsaw Film Festival, unfolding between 11 and 20 October, will present 84 feature films, amongst which 26 world premieres, 18 international premieres, 6 European premieres, 5 Eastern European premieres and 20 Polish premieres, as well as 58 short films, all selected from over 5,000 submissions. Gustaw Kolanowski, programme director, states that the festival’s 40th edition will focus on genre diversity and debuts: “We focused on looking for films by young filmmakers, often newcomers. We believe that we will hear about some of them again in the future.” 

The festival will open with the highly anticipated Kulej. Two Sides of the Medal, directed by Xawery Żuławski (Bird Talk [+see also:
film review
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interview: Xawery Żuławski
film profile], director of the 2022 series The Thaw [+see also:
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series profile]). This Polish production tells the story of Jerzy Kulej, a legend of Polish boxing and the only Polish boxer to ever win two Olympic gold medals, and his turbulent marriage with Helena. Closing the festival and screening as a world premiere will be Traffic [+see also:
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film profile] by Teodora Ana Mihai (her follow-up to La Civil [+see also:
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interview: Teodora Ana Mihai
film profile], awarded in Cannes' Un Certain Regard), part of the International Competition, which tackles the subject of globalisation and the intercultural conflicts that accompany it.

The 15 films in the International Competition will be vying for the main award of 100,000 PLN (around €21,000), funded by the Mayor of Warsaw and awarded by a jury consisting of Croatian director Vinko Brešan, Polish filmmaker Anna Kazejak, Spanish director Alberto Triano, Romanian producer Oana Iancu, and Ukrainian filmmaker Maryna Er Gorbach. The International competition includes 6 world premieres: the above-mentioned Traffic, Bucha [+see also:
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film profile] by Stanislav Tiunov (Ukraine), Chaos and Silence [+see also:
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film profile] by Anatol Schuster (Germany), Unspoken by Piotr J Lewandowski (Germany), Bitter Gold by Juan Francisco Olea (Chile/Mexico/Uruguay/Germany) and Justice by Abolfazl Jalili (Iran). In addition, Danis Tanović’s My Late Summer [+see also:
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film profile] will have its European premiere after opening the Sarajevo Film Festival earlier this year; Bartosz M. Kowalski’s Night Silence (Poland) and Monika Majorek’s Where Do We Begin (Poland) will first screen at the Gdynia Polish Film Festival; Liina Trishkina-Vanhatalo’s Lioness (Estonia/Germany/Lithuania), Rudolf Biermann’s Once Upon a Time in the East (Czech Republic/Slovakia), Robert Budina’s Waterdrop [+see also:
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interview: Robert Budina
film profile] (Albania/Italy/Romania/Kosovo/North Macedonia), Dargye Tenzin’s Dog Tashi (China) and Ron Ninio’s Farewell Column (Israel) will all have their international premiere, as well as McVeigh by US director Mike Ott, following its launch at Tribeca.

15 films will compete in the 1-2 Competition, which highlights first and second features. These include Eric Lamhène’s Breathing Underwater [+see also:
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interview: Eric Lamhène, Rae Lyn Lee
film profile] (Luxembourg/Belgium), Magdalena Ewa Pięta’s Clearing (Poland), Filip Peruzović’s Good Children [+see also:
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film profile] (Croatia/France), Dominika Montean-Pańków’s The Crossroads (Poland), Egor Olesov’s The Daughter (Ukraine/UK), Nikol Cibulya’s Tomorrow I Die (Hungary), John E. Robertson’s The Woman and a Brat (Chile/Colombia/Venezuela) and Naoto Kawashima’s Welcome Back (Japan), all having their world premieres. Juan Gautier’s Fraternity (Spain), Frauke Lodders’s In Good Faith (Germany), David Pérez Sañudo’s The Last Romantics [+see also:
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film profile] (Spain), Veronika Lišková’s Year of the Widow [+see also:
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film profile] (Czech Republic/Slovakia/Croatia) and Kerry Ann Enright’s Nobody Wants to Shoot a Woman (USA) will have their international premieres; Sarra Tsorakidis’s Ink Wash [+see also:
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film profile] (Romania/Greece/Denmark) will have its European premiere, and Elina Sahlin’s Bye Bye Boredom (Sweden) will have its Eastern European premiere.

Alongside with the International Competition and the 1-2 Competition, four other sections will be judged by their respective juries: the Crème de la Crème Competition, the Free Spirit Competition, the Documentary Film Competition and the Short Film Competition.