News

The UK’s Hurricane Films has joined as co-producer Natalia Koryncka-Gruz’s comedy drama Miss Kebab, the big winner at this Polish Days ,held in Wroclaw during the New Horizons International Film Festival this week.

Miss Kebab won the inaugural Wroclaw Feature Film Studio Award for production and postproduction services worth Pln 100,000.

Based on a true story about a Polish female teacher working in the UK with children from immigrant families, the screenplay was written by Koryncka-Gruz with Kamila Czul, the author of the eponymous novel published in Poland in 2018.

The €2m English-language production is being produced by Koryncka-Gruz through...

Isabelle Adjani and Famke Janssen are to star in thriller series for Netflix coming from France and the Netherlands.

Two-time Oscar nominee Adjani is leading an untitled thriller from France about a young mother on the run who finds an unexpected opportunity to bounce back by becoming a picker in a prestigious flower farm in Provence. The mysterious death of the family patriarch of the company then casts her under the spotlight as the prime suspect.

The French TV series is being created by Nils Antoine Sambuc, directed by Marie Jardillier and produced by Newen-backed Itinéraire Productions and Ugc.

Storied actress Adjani recently starred in Mélanie Laurent’s Netflix movie Wingwomen.

The show was revealed by Netflix Emea boss Larry Tanz at Series Mania.

From Benelux, he unveiled Amsterdam Empire, the first series to emerge from the deal between the streamer and Belgian-Dutch Undercover creator Nico Moolenaar. Moolenaar is creating...

We’re once again proud to be a partner in the European Film Promotion’s celebration of the very best of European talent with the announcement of the 2024 Efp European Shooting Stars.

It has been a pleasure to highlight and get to know some of the brightest new stars in the sky. As before, we will look to catch up with the entire cohort to get to know them better at the 74th Berlinale next year, so check back for those interviews.

Until then, here’s a closer look at the ten Shooting Stars for 2024.

© Wil Coban Éanna Hardwicke / Ireland

Éanna Hardwicke’s first professional credit was as a child actor in Conor McPherson’s 2009 horror film The Eclipse. Before graduating from The Lír Academy in 2018 he was cast in Vivarium, which premiered at Cannes Critics’ Week 2019. In 2023, a busy year for Hardwicke, he was named a Screen International Rising...

Yorgos Lanthimos drama ‘Poor Things’ won two prizes.

Warwick Thornton was awarded the Golden Frog at Poland’s Camerimage International Film Festival on Saturday (November 18) for drama The New Boy.

The Australian Indigenous filmmaker received the festival’s top prize at a ceremony in the Polish town of Torun, where the director was recognised for his role as cinematographer on the film. Accepting the award, Thornton paid tribute to his fellow filmmakers and said: “I’ve had tears in my eyes the whole week and it’s not because of the alcohol or the cold weather. It’s the love of cinematography,...

Cinematographer and director Warwick Thornton scored top honors Saturday at the Camerimage cinematography film festival for his magical tale of an aboriginal youth, “The New Boy,” which film jurors called a distinctive “portrait of an extinguished spirituality.”

Thornton, in accepting the Golden Frog, said he had been so moved by the cinematography work onscreen at the fest, a top global event for directors of photography, he’d been “tearing for a week.”

Ed Lachman, director of photography for Pablo Larrain’s horror fantasy “El Conde,” inspired by the life of Chilean tyrant Augusto Pinochet, won the Silver Frog for what the jury called “cinematic high poetry,” while the Bronze Frog and Audience Award went to cinematographer Robbie Ryan for his Gothic dream-like imagery in Emma Stone-starrer “Poor Things,” directed by Yorgos Lanthimos.

Actor Peter Dinklage, honored with a festival director’s prize, expressed his gratitude for the Frog statuette,...

For the second year in a row, a film starring Cate Blanchett has taken the lead prize at Poland’s EnergaCamerimage Festival, celebrating the work of the world’s best cinematographers. This year, the Aboriginal drama “The New Boy” won the Golden Frog for its cinematographer Warwick Thornton, who also happens to be the picture’s director.

The film follows a 9-year-old Aboriginal orphan taken in by a rural monastery. It premiered to kind notices at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. However, the film still does not have a U.S. release date at this time. In 2022, Todd Field’s “Tár” won the Golden Frog for Oscar-nominated cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister and also starred Blanchett.

The Silver Frog went to Pablo Larrain’s moody vampire picture “El Conde,” for whom its legendary cinematographer Ed Lachman was honored. Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Poor Things” continued its awards streak by winning the Bronze Frog for lenser Robbie Ryan,...

This year’s winners at Camerimage Film Festival in Toruń, Poland were unveiled Saturday, with The New Boy, Warwick Thornton’s drama about an indigenous boy taken in at a mysterious remote monastery, taking the top prize.

Poor Things, Searchlight’s Yorgos Lanthimos drama starring Emma Stone, won the Audience Award at the festival, which focuses on the art of cinematography.

Camerimage’s Golden Frog is widely considered an Oscar precursor, with three of the past five Golden Frog winners going on to earn Oscar nominations in cinematography. Those titles include Lion (2016), Joker (2019) and Nomadland (2020).

Below is the complete list of this year’s winners.

Main Competition

Golden Frog: The New Boy

cin. Warwick Thornton

dir. Warwick Thornton

Silver Frog: El Conde

cin. Ed Lachman

dir. Pablo Larraín

Bronze Frog: Poor Things

cin. Robbie Ryan

dir. Yorgos Lanthimos

Fipresci Award

The International Federation of Film Critics Award for Best Film: The Zone of Interest

cin.

The New Boy — the story of a young Aboriginal Australian orphan boy that was written, directed and lensed by Warwick Thornton — collected the Golden Frog in the main competition of the 31st EnergaCamerimage international cinematography film festival, which closed Saturday night in Torún, Poland.

Cinematographer Ed Lachman received the Silver Frog for Pablo Larraín’s El Conde, which positions Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet as a vampire. Robbie Ryan’s lensing of Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, the story of a young woman (Emma Stone) brought back to life by an unorthodox scientist, claimed the Bronze Frog as well as the Audience Award. (Ryan collected the Golden Frog two years ago, for Mike Mills’ C’mon C’mon, and Lachman won the Golden Frog in 2015, for Todd Haynes’ Carol.).

The Fipresci Prize was awarded to Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, a chilling look at the life of Auschwitz concentration camp commander Rudolf Höss and his family,...

Closing ceremony of festival in Gdynia sees Polish film community speak up against “awful hatred” directed at Holland in recent weeks.

Pawel Maslona’s second feature Scarborn (Kos) won the Grand Prix - Golden Lion at the 48th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia whose closing ceremony saw the Polish film community express their solidarity with Agnieszka Holland in the light of the vociferous political campaign against her and her film The Green Border.

In his acceptance speech, Maslona spoke out against the “awful hatred” directed at Holland in recent weeks and noted that, despite Poland being a country with a strong Christian faith,...

Danger Zone

Director: Vita Maria Drygas

Producer: Vita Żelakeviciute

Production companies: Drygas Film Production

Sales: Dogwoof

Documentary is a journey to places devastated by military conflicts, seen through the eyes of thrill-seeking tourists.

Delegation

(Generation 14plus)

Director: Asaf Saban

Cast: Yoav Bavly, Neomi Harari, Leib Lev Levin, Ezra Dagan, Alma Dishy

Producers: Agnieszka Dziedzic, Yoav Roeh, Aurit Zamir, Roshanak Behesht Nedjad

Production companies: Koi Studio, Gum Films, In Good Co.

Sales: New Europe Film Sales

Three Israeli friends visit Holocaust sites in Poland before their stints in the army, and deal with love, friendship and politics.

Disco Boy

(Competition)

Director: Giacomo Abbruzzese

Cast: Franz Rogowski, Morr Ndiaye, Laëtitia Ky, Leon Lučev

Producers: Lionel Massol, Pauline Seigland

Production companies: Films Grand Huit, Dugong Films, Panache Productions, La Compagnie Cinématographique, Donten & Lacroix, Division

Sales: Charades

Aleksei reaches Paris to enlist in the French Foreign Legion, which allows any foreigner, even undocumented, to be granted a French passport.

The Polish film industry is embracing variety and high-profile international collaborations, with a slew of new co-productions already generating buzz among buyers and festival programmers. “More and more established filmmakers, who used to look for collaborators in Romania or Hungary, are now coming to Poland — mostly because we are backed by concrete institutions and because there is money,” says producer Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska of Madants, heading to Berlinale’s European Film Market with “Ultima Thule” and Goran Stolevski’s “Housekeeping for Beginners.”

“Our crews speak English and work abroad. We are visible internationally,” she adds.

Madants is also behind James Napier Robertson’s upcoming Polish-Kiwi title “Joika,” one of six international co-productions backed by the Polish Film Institute in 2022. The shingle’s slate includes Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert’s “Let Me Out” and Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s follow-up to “The Silent Twins,” “Hot Spot.”

“Foreign producers and buyers are actively looking...

Exclusive: Netflix’s Director of Local Language Originals for the Cee, Anna Nagler, has outlined the streamer’s ambitions in region, as its biggest drama series from the region, High Water, launches globally today.

In an exclusive interview, Nagler said the streamer’s “doors are open” to creatives and their ideas in Central and Eastern Europe, as Netflix pushes into original shows from international territories despite the company’s well-documented stock price drop this year.

This comes after Netflix opened its regional Cee office in Poland this year. Since launching in Poland in 2016, the SVoD player has claimed to have invested more than 490M Pln (115M) on original films and series such as erotic movie franchise 365 Days in the country, creating more than 2,600 jobs across the production sector in 2020 and 2021.

“Opening the Warsaw office was important but also we’re getting closer to the creative community in general,” Nagler told Deadline.

Slovak director Robert Kirchhoff is in postproduction with his documentary “All Men Become Brothers,” which follows the life of Czechoslovak politician Alexander Dubček (1921-1992), Film New Europe reports.

Dubček was leader of Czechoslovakia from January 1968 to April 1969. He attempted to reform the communist government during the Prague Spring, but was forced to resign following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968.

The film is produced by Kirchhoff’s Atelier.doc and coproduced by Radio and Television Slovakia, Czech Republic’s Endorfilm and Czech Television.

Kirchhoff’s past titles include “Normalization,” which received a Special Mention from the Between the Seas jury at Jihlava Intl. Documentary Film Festival.

Production took place from 2018 to 2021 on locations in Kyrgyzstan, Italy, Czech Republic, Germany, Turkey and Slovakia. Well-known figures from Czechoslovak and international politics and culture, such as Italian politician Romano Prodi, Italian novelist Umberto Eco, Czech novelist and playwright Pavel Kohout, and Czech director...

Industry event to showcase four completed films, eight works in progress and 10 pitches.

New feature projects by Piotr Domalewski, Jan Holoubek and Daria Woszek are among 22 films being presented at the 10th edition of industry event Polish Days, which will run from July 24 – 26.

Polish Days takes place during the New Horizons International Film Festival in Wrocław, presenting new projects to festival programmers, sales agents, producers and distributors.

This year’s event will feature closed screenings of four completed films, the pitching of 10 projects in development and eight works in progress.

The closed screenings section will offer sneak previews of Łukasz Machowski...

Polish Days is the industry event for the Wroclaw-based New Horizons International Film Festival (August 12-22).

Anna Jadowska’s Woman On The Roof was the winner of the third annual Screen International Best Pitch Award presented at this year’s Polish Days, the industry event for the Wroclaw-based New Horizons International Film Festival (August 12-22).

The €1.4m production, by Warsaw-based Donten & Lacroix Films with Paris-based Blick Productions and Sweden’s Garagefilm, is Jadowska’s latest feature film after Touch Me (2003), It’s Me (2005) and Wild Roses (2017).

She directed the Netflix series Ultraviolet 2.0. The Bear and a segment of its mini-series Erotica 2022,...

Programme includes five completed films, six works-in-progress, nine development.

The programme for the 2021 edition of Polish Days industry event includes Lipstick On The Glass, the latest film from Polish director Kuba Czekaj.

Czekaj’s film, which is currently in post-production, is participating as one of six works-in-progress, alongside nine titles in development and five completed films.

The film follows a woman who is induced to abandon her gangster husband to join a feminist sect.

It is produced by Paweł Kosuń and Agnieszka Janowska for Poland’s Centrala Film, and Arek Gielnik for Germany’s Indi Film.

The film will be...

At the Award Ceremony of the 24th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) awards were handed to the winners of the four competition programmes of the festival and PÖFF’s sub-festivals Youth and Children’s Film Festival Just Film and International Short Film and Animation Film Festival PÖFF Shorts.

The jury of Official Selection – Competition headed by Mark Adams selected director Ivaylo Hristov’s drama “Fear“ as their favourite, handing the film the Grand Prix of the festival. Blending drama with deadpan comedy, the film’s story is set on the Bulgarian border, on a new route for African migrants arriving from Turkey with hopes to reach Germany. The protagonist, the former school teacher, comes across an African man who will bring a dramatic turn to her life.

The Best Director award goes to Turkish director Nisan Dağ for “When I’m Done Dying“, a vibrant portrayal of an upcoming hiphop artist struggling with drug addiction.

Nisan Dağ wins best director for ‘When I’m Done Dying’.

Director Ivaylo Hristov and producer Assen Vladimirov have won the Grand Prix for best film, for Bulgarian drama Fear, at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF).

The event presented its awards in Tallinn, Estonia this evening. Hristov and Vladimirov share the €10,000 grant that comes with the win.

Scroll down for the full list of awards

They were awarded the prize by a jury consisting of Mark Adams, Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, Izabela Kiszka-Hoflik and Ester Kuntu.

The jury praised “a beautifully-made film that astutely balances dry humour with important contemporary drama.

Chloé Zhao’s drama, shot by Joshua James Richards, also picked up the Fipresci Award.

Nomadland cinematographer Joshua James Richards was awarded the Golden Frog at Poland’s EnergaCamerimage International Film Festival on Saturday (November 21).

The US drama, starring Frances McDormand and directed by Chloé Zhao, also won the Fipresi award. Nomadland is a strong awards season contender and previously won the Golden Lion at Venice and People’s Choice audience award at Toronto.

The 28th edition of the cinematography festival, which took place entirely online this year, closed with Andrew Levitas’ Minamata and an honorary award for the film’s star,...

Indie ethos, costume drama and rich fantasy won the day at the world’s top cinematography event, EnergaCamerimage Film Festival, on Saturday, with Joshua James Richards’ naturalistic filming in Chloé Zhao’s “Nomadland” taking the Golden Frog plus Fipresci jury honors. The chronicle of life on the rough edges of America’s society among retirees living on the road in trailers, based on Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction book “Nomadland: Surviving in the Twenty-First Century,” is considered a strong Oscars contender.

The 28th edition of Camerimage also wrapped with its award to an actor of unique visual sensitivity for Johnny Depp, whose Japan-set war correspondent story “Minamata,” filmed by Benoit Delhomme, screened at the fest. Depp said in a letter to the fest that shooting with the celebrated Dp was “a sort of dance” encouraged by director Andrew Levitas, who “encouraged us to explore.”

Fest president Marek Zydowicz described the fest...

When the coronavirus pandemic arrived in Poland earlier this year, producer Jakub Razowski, of Watchout Studio (“The Coldest Game”), was already prepping a summer shoot for “Prime Time,” a thriller starring Bartosz Bielenia, fresh off his breakout role in Jan Komasa’s Oscar-nominated “Corpus Christi.”

Razowski and first-time director Jakub Piątek had cast from a deep pool of veteran stage actors, whose availability was limited to the summer months when Polish theaters traditionally go dark. If the production didn’t move forward, Razowski says, “we knew that the next possibility to book our cast would be the summer of 2021.” The cameras rolled, with cast and crew using a rigorous set of coronavirus protocols introduced by the Polish Film Institute.

“The Covid situation made everything a bit more expensive — tests, masks, liters of sanitizers, extra time for temperature checkups, consequences of working in social-distancing regime — but those costs were nothing compared...

Three out of competition titles also added to programme.

Estonian film festival Tallinn Black Nights has selected 15 titles for the First Feature Competition at its hybrid 24th edition which runs November 13-29.

The festival has also added three out of competition debut films to the programme; the 18 titles in total include 10 world premieres, seven international, and one European.

Scroll down for the full list of titles

World premieres include The Translator, from Syrian filmmakers Rana Kazkaz and Anas Khalaf. Set during the 2011 Syrian revolution, it follows a political refugee living in Australia who makes the journey back to his native country,...

Three out of competition titles also added to programme.

Estonian film festival Tallinn Black Nights has selected 15 titles for the First Feature Competition at its hybrid 24th edition which runs November 13-29.

The festival has also added three out of competition debut films to the programme; the 18 titles in total include 10 world premieres, seven international, and one European.

Scroll down for the full list of titles

World premieres include The Translator, from Syrian filmmakers Rana Kazkaz and Anas Khalaf. Set during the 2011 Syrian revolution, it follows a political refugee living in Australia who makes the journey back to his native country,...

Just when it felt like spirits might be flagging during this summer’s virtual edition of Polish Days—the industry program of the New Horizons Intl. Film Festival—the organizers turned to the unlikeliest of heroes: Wirginia Szmyt, better known by her stage name D.J. Wika, an 82-year-old icon of the Warsaw music scene, and the subject of director Agnieszka Zwiefka’s forthcoming documentary “Wika!”

D.J. Wika put on a rousing online set for the directors, producers, sales agents, and industry guests who might have otherwise been mixing on a dance floor in Wrocław, Poland, where New Horizons is typically held each July. But for anyone missing the energy of the buzzy summer fest, which because of the coronavirus pandemic has been postponed until the fall, “we tried our best to recreate it,” says New Horizons’ head of industry Weronika Czołnowska.

Czołnowska and her organizing crew still hope...