"DREAM UP THE TITLE" WINS TWO AWARDS AT PARADISO FILM FEST
"Dream Up the Title", directed by Klaudia Fortuniak, received two awards at Paradiso Film Fest in Italy. The film won the Best Student Film Director Award, while Aleksandra Nowakowska, Karolina Pyszko, and Zosia Pohl were honoured with the Best Costume Design Award.
Paradiso Film Fest takes place in Palazzo Adriano, a picturesque Sicilian mountain town that gained worldwide recognition as the principal filming location of Giuseppe Tornatore's Academy Award-winning classic Cinema Paradiso. Celebrating the town's rich cinematic heritage, the festival combines film screenings with masterclasses, photography exhibitions, art installations, guided tours, concerts, book presentations, and meetings with filmmakers.
In its statement, the jury praised Klaudia Fortuniak's directorial vision:
A vision capable of transporting the audience into a world that is chaotic and fascinating, ironic and fragile. The short film demonstrates remarkable directorial maturity in its work with the actors and in the way it intertwines reality and dream: one world in colour and another in black and white, eventually blending into a single image, as though time were briefly suspended and the two universes had finally found a synthesis.
The jury also highlighted the film's costume design:
Dream and reality constantly brush against one another. Just as the protagonist changes her life because of what she dreams, her costume portrays her as though she had never truly woken up, creating a radiant image that enhances her dazed performance. A costume that does not merely decorate, but defines the atmosphere of a film that proves to be surreal and wonderfully mad.
Set in a drought-stricken Łódź deprived of its rivers, "Dream Up the Title" follows Małgorzata, who embarks on a journey to find them. Tricked in a dream about the departure time, she falls asleep and misses the trip. Although she eventually finds the rivers, she is unable to recover her dream. The film explores the experience of neurodiversity, the search for one's place in a world shaped by neurotypical norms, and the fragile boundary between dreams and reality.
The leading roles are played by Izabella Dudziak, known for No Ghosts in the Apartment on Dobra Street and Tell Me What You Feel, and Mateusz Górski. The film's cinematographer is Mateusz Nowak, editing was done by Piotr Pohl, Korek Bojanowski served as executive producer, and the project was developed under the artistic supervision of Jan Komasa.