22-05-2011

New Award for Experimental Polish Film

By Katarzyna Grynienko
    WARSAW: The Polish Film Institute (PFI, www.pisf.pl) and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw (MSN, www.artmuseum.pl) are establishing a new award for experimental films and unconvential films projects. The competition, with a prize of 500,000 PLN, is part of an agreement signed by the two institutions on 18 April 2011.

    The award was created to promote artistic cinema that breaks away from conventional film narrative and construction.

    "We plan to support formal innovation that is harmoniously joined with radical artistic imagination and intelligence," PFI said in an official statement. The creators of the award think it can foster an aesthetic renaissance in Polish cinema and put it on the map of world cinema. The award is also a reaction to the new phenomenon of films originating from the field of visual art finding distribution.

    The Film Award of PFI and MSN aims to assist in the production of films that would continue some of the most interesting experiments found in Polish cinema, such as the works of Jerzy Skolimowski, Grzegorz Królikiewicz, Wojciech Wiszniewski and Stefan Themerson. "We will support the works that, as with the films of those directors, arise from the permanent confrontation of the aesthetics, knowledge and solutions offered by contemporary art and cinema." PFI commented. The project is managed by Artur Majer from PFI and Łukasz Ronduda from MSN.

    The winner of the 500,000 PLN (EUR 128,000) prize money, funded by the PFI, will be obligated to take a course in film directing at the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing (www.wajdaschool.pl), which is also a supporter of this project. The Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw will co-producer of the awarded projects and will make them part of the museum's modern art collection. A special press conference launching the project will be held at the MSN on 25 May 2011 in Warsaw.