WARSAW FILM SCHOOL AT INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVALS
They qualify for the most important short film festivals, bring home the main awards and the audience awards, are included in the official selection of legendary Polish film festivals. And they are students or graduates of the Warsaw Film School. They are the young film-makers who are worth remembering.
"On the Web" by Katarzyna Babicz, the story of a man addicted to pornography, who loses everything in order to really gain something, and "The Woodkin" by Mateusz Motyka, the tale about a father, a son, a hunt and a stray bullet are two award-winning films at the recently finished festival Short to the Point in Romania. There, Kasia Babicz was given the laurels for the Best Young Director, and Mateusz Motyka - the Best Student Short Film Award. "The Woodkin" will also be shown at the festival SHOTS: International Independent Short Film Festival – one of the best short film festivals according to Filmfreeway 2017.
Adelina Borets, in turn, with her extremely personal documentary film, "Wormwood Star," about the village Małe Kleszcze, which was sentenced to death by the Chernobyl catastrophe and from which her grandma and father were displaced, won the first place in the international competition and the Audience Award at the 15th Ecological Film Festival in Nowogard, and also qualified for the 5th International Documentary Film Festival in Ierapetra, the hottest city of Crete, and for the Female Eye Film Festival in Toronto, held under the meaningful motto "Always honest, not always pretty," which last year was won by another student of the Warsaw Film School, Veronica Andersson, with her film "Liberation."
"Wormwood Star," together with three other films from the Warsaw Film School, "Family" by Patrycja Widłak, "Techno" by Tadeusz Łysiak, and "Daughter" by Mary Tamkovich, will also be shown in the competition at the 37th Koszalin Debut Film Festival "The Young and the Cinema." And before that, these four films were included in programme of the 58th Krakow Film Festival. "Daughter" has just had its screening at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival – a festival qualifying for the Academy Awards nominations. "Nuclear Shadows" by Marek Leszczewski, another film from the Warsaw Film School, qualified for the same festival. The film was also included in the prestigious group of finalists at the "Euro Fest" European International Film Festival.
The film which brought yet another statuette from abroad is "Place Cards" by Andrzej Święch, also made at the Warsaw Film School – at the Flash Film Festival in Berlin, the film got the statuette for the best short drama, and at the Korean festival 2018 GUKIFF, it won the European film competition. "Place Cards," which has just qualified for another festival, ShortShorts at the Seaside in Great Britain, is a refined miniature about waiting and absence, enclosed in the scene showing the preparations for a birthday party.
source: press release