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Directed by Robert Glinski, Strawman unfolds in the post-World War II Polish People’s Republic. The film particularly focuses on how the government started to target churches. In 1948, around 81 priests were imprisoned, and church properties were seized. The world in Strawman is built through archival footage, and it made sense considering the protagonist was a photographer with a keen eye for capturing everything he found exciting. Bronek Budny’s life drastically changed after he was offered a position in a department dedicated to finding proof of anti-state activities by clergies. A passionate photographer, Budny initially enjoyed the secrecy of his job and the challenges that came with it. He was assigned to follow priest Karol Wojtyla (who in 1978 came to be known to the world as Pope John Paul II) and find dirt on him. Budny almost became obsessed with the man to the point that he was ready to abandon his family.

Like the cinematography sector overall this year, the profession’s prime annual festival, Poland’s Camerimage, has come through major challenges in 2023, says the event’s founder, Marek Zydowicz.

Launching in the historic town of Torun on Nov. 11, the 31st edition of the fest was organized in a time of nearby crises in Europe plus record levels of inflation hitting the region, and fallout from the Hollywood actors strike.

“It’s hard to say these things were really helping us,” notes Kazik Suwala, one of the festival’s key organizers and director of its most ambitious project, the construction of the European Film Center, which broke ground in October. “It was a tough year to work,” as he puts it. “The preparations were much harder than usual. Getting movies programmed involved much more time.”

Thus, Zydowicz and Suwala confess to feeling a bit of extra pride in pulling off a...

Exclusive: Greece’s Syllas Tzoumerkas and Hungary’s Adam Csaszi are among 13 international filmmakers selected to each spend three months in Berlin as part of the Nipkow Programme residency.

An international jury under French producer Christine Camdessus decided on the latest intake of Nipkow fellows from 11 countries out of 86 applicants from 30 countries ranging from Bosnia & Herzegovina and Brazil through Uganda and Ukraine to the Us.

The first batch of filmmakers will arrive in Berlin this month for a three-month period, and others will come over subsequent months.

Tzoumerkas, who presented his last feature A Blast in competition in Locarno last summer, will be in Berlin from August to work on his new project The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea, while Csaszi, whose feature debut Land Of Storms premiered in the Berlinale’s Panorama Special in 2014, will be developing the screenplay for a new film High Dive for three months in the same period.

The largest...

Projects from Italy, Ireland, Hungary and Poland were the winners at this year’s edition of the When East Meets West (Wemw) co-production market.

The market featured 22 international projects, comprising 12 fiction feature films and 10 documentaries from 29 countries.

Carlo Zoratti’s La Vita Nuova, a mix between documentary and fiction about a group of people re-enacting their dreams as a form of spiritual healing, received the Wemw Development Award at an awards ceremony in Trieste’s Palazzo del Governo on Tuesday evening (Jan 20).

The €1.4m production by Zoratti’s own Udine-based production outfit Alpis has Germany’s DETAiLFILM onboard as a co-producer again after they worked together on Zoratti’s previous film, the feature documentary debut The Special Need.

A documentary was also the winner of the new Egg Digital Cinema Award which was given to Dublin-based Jeremiah Cullinane of Planet Korda Pictures for his production of Lithuanian-born writer director Olga Cernovaite’s Butterfly City.

This creative...

New films by actor-director Matthias Schweighofer, Marco Kreuzpaintner, Robert Glinski, and Bettina Oberli are among the titles being lined up by German sales agents Global Screen and Picture Tree International (Pti) for the Marché du Film in Cannes next month.

Munich-based Global Screen will be unveiling five market premieres:

actor-director/producer Schweighofer’s third directorial outing, the romantic comedy Joy Of Fatherhood (Vaterfreuden), adapted from Murmel Clausen’s novel Frettsack, was released by Warner Bros. Pictures Germany in February, has been seen by more than 2.3 million cinemagoers and taken more than €17.7m ($24.5m) to date.

the 2D and 3D versions of the English-language animated feature The Seventh Dwarf (Der 7bte Zwerg), directed by Harald Siepermann and actor Boris Aljinovic, to be released by Universal Pictures in Germany this autumn.The film was also presold to many territories, including

Christian Bach’s feature debut, the coming of age/family drama Flights Of Fancy (Hirngespinster), which received Bavarian Film Awards...

There are two conflicting perspectives on how to approach Robert Glinski's Stones for the Rampart (Kamienie na szaniec). The first, and the more advisable one, makes the viewing experience increasingly pleasurable. It's based on an assumption that the forenamed film is nothing more than a surprisingly approachable based-on-facts historical drama about friendship, honor and sacrifice during the tumultuous times of World War II. The second one predetermines the perception of the film not as a dramatized version of real life events, but as an uncalled-for adaptation that somehow undermines the importance of a precious myth that surrounds the fallen heroes of a beloved wartime story.Based on Janusz Kaminski's legendary 1943 book of the same name, Stones for the Rampart pays homage to a group of...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Poland's tempestuous history is a collection of many uniquely chilling and tragic chapters and a never-ending bag of courageous stories. For decades, it served as an inspiration for many more or less successful pictures. However, this trend has also lead to a series of recent jokes that slightly criticize Polish cinema for it's inability to go beyond history/war genre films.Robert Glinski's Stones For The Rampart (Kamienie na Szaniec) evidently follows the crowd. Since the book that it's based on is shelved as required reading for Polish school children, most Poles are already familiar with this affecting tale of bravery, honor and patriotism. Only time will tell whether people still find it interesting enough to revisit. The trailer gives the impression that Stones For The Rampart will...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

The first-ever Festival de Cinéma européen des Arcs (aka the European cinema festival in Les Arcs, France) has come to an end and, after a successful inaugural run, it wound up on Friday night with a prestigious prize-giving ceremony.

The jury, which was led by its president Istvan Szabo, gave five awards out on the night and the winners are as follows...

The main award, better know as La Flèche de cristal (or The Crystal Arrow) went to London Nights and its director Alexis Dos Santos.

The Jury prize went to Honeymoons, the first Albanian-Serbian co-production from the director Goran Paskaljevic.

The Special Jury prize went to Piggies, a Polish movie from director Robert Glinski.

The Audience prize was awarded to Celda 211 and director Daniel Monzón.

Best Actress went to Nina Ivanisin in Slovenka and Best Actor was awarded to Anton Shagin in Stilyagi.

The winners were chosen from...

After the snowy hype of Sundance, the bustle in Berlin and the sheer craziness of Cannes, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival comes as sweet respite.

Now in its 44th edition, the Czech festival acts as a calm way station for cinema buffs and industry folk to regroup post-Cannes and pre-Venice and enjoy film without the adjunct "business."

The setting -- a West Bohemian spa town -- provides the necessary isolation while the screening schedule carefully balances recent festival winners with established art house faves and new work from independent directors the world over.

The competition vying for the 2009 Crystal Globe is strictly indie -- highlights include German comedy "Whisky with Vodka" from Andreas Dresen ("Cloud 9"), Sophie Barthes' directorial debut "Cold Souls" starring Paul Giamatti and minimalist drama "Twenty" from Iranian director Abdolreza Kahani.

But Karlovy Vary has also found space for mainstream entertainment such as Sam Mendes...

BERLIN -- For a glimpse at some of the changes under way at the Berlin International Film Festival, fest attendees would be well-advised to make the trip from the festival center at Potsdamer Platz to this year's inaugural Berlinale Co-production market at the House of World Cultures. The event, which brings together top art house talent with financiers and distributors, is indicative of Berlin's attempt to increase its importance on the industry calendar by becoming a location where deals are done. The first edition of the co-production market featured 32 in-development projects, including features from such veteran directors as Alexander Sokurov, Robert Glinski, Daniel Burman, Susanne Bier, Pang Ho Cheung and Goran Paskaljevic.