Festival director Roman Gutek told FNE, "While the official selection for the International Competition will be announced this July, because we are still watching films and of course we have Cannes ahead of us, I can already say that a Polish title Huba (Filmpolis) directed by Wilhelm and Anna Sasnal has been chosen for the competition. Their previous work, a beautiful production entitled From a Distance the View Is Beautiful won the Wrocław Film Prize in the "New Polish Films" competition of the 11th IFF NH, and was released by New Horizons Association and we are very happy to welcome them back to Wrocław. We can also confirm that a new hybrid documentary from Ben Rivers and Ben Russell entitled A Spell to Ward off the Darkness will also compete for our Grand Prix this year."
The festival will take place between 24 July and 3 August 2014 and the program will consist of 340 films including over 180 features.
Apart from the regular thematic sections and the New Horizons International Competition, the FILMS ON ART International Competition, the Polish Short Film Competition and the European Shorts Competition this year the festival will introduce a new section Magnify Competition, created to promote filmmakers from Wroclaw and Lower Silesia as well as Polish and foreign audiovisual industry integration.
Each year the festival showcases one national cinema with the 2014 spotlight on the new cinema of Greece. The festival audience will have a chance to see special screenings of the Berlinale hit L' Envlevement de Michel Houellebecq directed by Guillaume Nicloux, and the Polish premiere of British documentary about singer and writer Nick Cave, directed by Ian Forsyth and Jane Pollard. A special retrospective section will be devoted to the works of Ken Russell and a separate section is devoted to the works of the French New Wave directors in the 70's and the 80's.
In 2014 the fifth edition of NH Studio, organized in co-operation with Creative Europe Desk Polska and London Film Academy, will take place in Wroclaw on 27-30 July. The meeting of Polish and international young filmmakers and film professionals was created to improve their understanding of the market and the workings of the film industry.
"We continue with NH Studio because we see that it brings visible results not only in international contacts between the members but also in their growing activity on the international market. We try to create a group of little over 20 people, mostly young Polish filmmakers, but also international guests, who will have access to our teachers and their expertise while they visit Wroclaw. We only have a couple of days to further their knowledge about the development of the project and pitching it to the right people in a way that will interest potential producers, coproducers and sales agents. But this initial training gets great results and steers them in the right direction," festival artistic director Joanna Łapińska told FNE.
A showcase of contemporary Polish cinema will take place for the third time in Wroclaw during the industry event Polish Days. Between 30 July and 1 August over 200 film professionals from all over the world will have a chance to see new completed Polish films, interesting works in progress and pitches of upcoming films.
"We try to choose films that are challenging and interesting but also the ones that have big box office potential. We also try to showcase pictures that our international guests didn't have a chance to see previously at other industry events. It was important for us to create a platform where Polish filmmakers could meet with distributors or potential coproducers. I think we managed to become a link in this international exchange that is crucial, especially for European cinema," Gutek told FNE.
Finally, the festival will once again bring together young film critics and representatives of international film industry at Sunday in The Country, an event created by T-Mobile New Horizons IFF and the European Film Academy. The topic of this year's meetings will be the future of film criticism and the trans-border exchange of ideas between film professionals from across Europe.
