WARSAW: Film New Europe together with the International Visegrad Fund has announced the winner of the first-ever prize to for best documentary co-production from a Visegrad country. Slovak director Martina Sakova, the co-director of The Housemaid, a German Slovak documentary was awarded the Prix at the closing ceremony of the International Bratislava Film Festival (http://www.iffbratislava.sk/) on 11 November. The Prix was handed over by the Vsiegrad Fund Deputy Executive Director, Ms. Linda Kapustova Helbichova The film was directed by Anna Hoffman and the two young directors collaborated closely on the project about a young Slovak housemaid working abroad. The prize recognizes the artistic achievements of filmmakers in the Visegrad countries and encourages cultural cooperation between partners within Visegrad and partners of other EU countries.

The legendary Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi will be honoured in his hometown as he will be on hand to receive the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the ceremony of this year's Grand OFF World Independent Film Awards which will be held on 27th November 2010 in Kamienica Theatre, Warsaw.

20 film professionals from more than 12 different countries will make up the 6 competition juries for films screening at the main programme of the 14th Black Nights Film Festival which runs from 24th November - 5th December 2010.

Two of the ten SHOOTING STARS, who were presented as Europe's Best Young Actors at this year's Berlin International Film Festival, have been nominated as "European Actress 2010" for the upcoming European Film Awards: Zrinka Cvitesić from Croatia for her role in On the Path by Jasmila Äbanic and Lotte Verbeek from The Netherlands for her performance in Nothing Personal by Urszula Antoniak.

Furthermore, two former SHOOTING STARS were nominated as "European Actor 2010": Elio Germano, Italian SHOOTING STAR 2008, for Our Life by Daniele Luchetti and Jakob Cedergren, Danish SHOOTING STAR 2005, for Submarino by Thomas Vinterberg.

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Short film "Hanoi-Warsaw" directed by Katarzyna Klimkiewicz received the Special Award on Cottbus Film Festival Germany 2010.
The Cottbus Film Festival is one of the most important festivals of Eastern European Cinema.
The main prize of the 20th Cottbus Film Festival won the Serbian/German/Swedish coproduction directed by Oleg Novkovic - White, White World.
Three awards earned the Hungarian/Dutch/Austrian coproduction Adrienn Pal: best director for Agnes Kocsis, best actress for Eva Gabor, and the prize of the Ecumenical Jury.
The best actor award took Taavi Eelmaa for The Temptation of St. Tony directed by Veiko Ounpuu.
The Polish short film produced by Kino Polska Television directed by Katarzyna Klimkiewicz - "Hanoi-Warsaw" was awarded with Special Prize.

Film "Hanoi-Warsaw" is the result of the competition for best scenario - "The Debutants", announced by Kino Polska Television.
The purpose of the competition was to select young talents and to stimulate interest in short-form narrative.
The main prize was production the film based on the winning script by Kino Polska Television.
The project's co-producers were Mastershot Studio, 1.2 Film Association, Polish Filmmakers Association and the Andrzej Munk Studio "The Young and Film".


More information:

Joanna Dąbek
Specjalista ds. Promocji i Marketingu
e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Telewizja Kino Polska, ul. Cybernetyki 7, 02-677 Warszawa
tel. /22/ 356 74 45

The Cottbus Film Festival, Connecting Cottbus awarded Tinatin Kajrishvili the CoCo Best Pitch Award and € 3000 for presenting the project "Flight - Tbilisi - Tbilisi" (director Vano Burduli). 15 projects from 12 countries were running for this prize in the CoCo Selection 2010.

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The last year of the decade marks a great turn-around for Polish cinema, which overcame an initial fall in production in 2000-2004 and maintained a constant growth despite the international economic crisis. Since joining the European Union in 2004, Poland has noticed major economic developments that greatly influenced the film industry sector. European integration made Polish filmmakers more open to international projects resulting in over 35 coproductions created in 2010.

Polish cinema began its steady increase in production and cinema attendance in 2005, when a new cinematography bill led to the establishment of the Polish Film Institute (PFI, www.pisf.pl/). As the main public investor, PFI co-finances new film productions, supports distribution and international promotion, and shapes the education of Polish filmmakers and their viewers. The other public sources of funding for cinema in Poland are the Television Agency of the Polish public broadcaster Telewizja Polska (www.tvp.pl/), The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage (www.mk.gov.pl), and several other public institutions including the new system of Regional Film Funds. An important part of the Polish film market are big film studios such as KADR (www.kadr.com.pl/), OKO (www.sfoko.com.pl/), PERSPEKTYWA (www.studioperspektywa.pl/), TOR (www.tor.com.pl/), ZEBRA (www.zebrafilm.pl/) and Documentary and Feature Film Production Company (WFDiF, www.wfdif.com.pl/).

Poland has several hundred private production companies, which are the main source of new titles. The Polish Filmmakers Association (www.sfp.org.pl/) reports that the majority of independent producers has an average of 1-2 films per year, while the leaders in the market such as Opus Film (www.opusfilm.pl), Akson Studio (www.akson-studio.pl/) and Apple Film (www.applefilm.pl/) produce 4-6 each year. Apart from the natural division between companies specializing in feature and documentary film, some producers such as Ozumi Films (www.ozumifilms.com/) and MS Films (www.msfilms.pl/) are more engaged in international co-production and others such as Van Worden (www.vanworden.pl/) and MTL Max Film (www.mtlmaxfilm.pl/) excel in big commercial titles.

Since the creation of PFI, the Polish film market has produced an average of over 40 feature movies per year. In 2010 the Institute granted 128.3 million PLN (32.3 million EUR) to support projects in production and development stages as well as script development. PFI supported 138 titles in the "Film Production" Operational Program including 77 feature productions in the "Author cinema" category, 38 in the "History topic films" category, 11 in the "Films for youth and family audience" category and 12 in the "Films with a big attendance potential" category. Not all of them will enter the production stage in 2010.

The financed titles include 35 international co-productions including features such as Blind Watching directed by Andrzej Jakimowski internationally recognized for his film Tricks, produced by Zjednoczenie Artystów i Rzemieślników (www.zair.eu); Futurogical Congress, a new film from Bashir's Waltz director Ari Folman produced by Opus Film (www.opusfilm.pl/); Salvation by one of the most significant modern Russian filmmakers

Ivan Wyrypajew produced by Baltmedia (www.baltmedia.pl); and 13 documentaries and 3 animated films including the new film from Brothers Quay titled The Hour-glass Sanatorium based on the novel by Bruno Schulz produced by Opus Film.

The most significant Polish films of 2010 include titles that gained international recognition such as Essential Killing by Jerzy Skolimowski produced by Prasa & Film (www.prasaifilm.pl/), a title that won the special jury prize at the 2010 IFF Venice (www.labiennale.org/) and is currently competing for an Oscar nomination, as well as Venice directed by Jan Jakub Kolski and produced by Akson Studio, awarded for the best artistic contribution at the 34th Montreal World Film Festival (www.fmm-montreal.org/). The Polish Oscar candidate All That I Love, directed by Jacek Borcuch and produced by Prasa & Film, also gained both local and international recognition, finishing in 4th place in the Polish film box office for 2010. This year the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia (www.fpff.pl/) moved its dates to May, instead of its traditional fall schedule, with the Golden Lion prize given to the historic drama Little Rose directed by Jan Kidawa-Bloński and produced by WFDiF, while the critically acclaimed drama Christening directed by Marcin Wrona and produced by ODEON Film Studio (www.odeon.com.pl/) won the Silver Lion prize. Best directing debut went to Marek Lechki for his drama titled Erratum, produced by his company Harmony Film Production in co-operation with Heliograf (www.heliograf.pl) and Voiceland (www.voiceland.pl/).

2009 was a record year for Polish cinema attendance reaching 32.9 million viewers. In 2010 the record will be hard to beat mainly because the decreased cinema attendance in the first half of the year following the April plane crash which resulted in the death o the President and many leading Polish figures and the morning period that followed. The results of the first six months of 2010 were 18.4 million viewers, which is a significant decline from the same period in 2009. However, a notable increase in attendance can be observed in the second half of the year, when a record opening weekend attendances occurred with six films. One of these was the premiere of the comedy Cake directed by Patryk Vega and produced by Magic Hour Film Studio, reaching third place in the overall Polish box office for 2010. Another recent success is Maiden Vows (War of Love) directed by Filip Bajon and produced by Studio Filmowe Kalejdoskop (www.kalejdoskop.art.pl/), an adaptation of a Polish classic comedy written by Aleksander Fredro which was released on 8 October 2010 and already been seen by 500,000 viewers.

The call for documentary film projects for the Dragon Forum 2011 is still on! Search the drawer for your documentary dreams and put them on the road to development! »Application form.

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