Emi Buchwald’s second fiction feature The Story of the House of Fiedler was the big winner among the projects pitched at this year’s edition of the Polish Days, the industry programme of the New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw, which ran July 26-28.
Warsaw-based Telemark’s €2.2m production about a family of gardeners relocating their home to save their house from being demolished to make way for a data centre took home three awards worth around €40,000 (160,000 Zlotys) in total.
They consisted of a 35,000 Zlotys cash prize from Mid March Media & The Bridge, Wroclaw Feature Film Studio offering production and postproduction services worth 50,000 Zlotys, and No Problemo Music making a co-production contribution for sound post-production worth 75,000 Zlotys.
Koi Studio’s €3.3m production of Natasza Parzymies’ Lady Preachers also received a second award worth 50,000 Zlotys from Wroclaw Feature Film Studio as well as the Fixafilm’s Postproduction Award of image postproduction services worth 30,000 Zlotys.
Speaking to Screen, the film’s producer Agnieszka Dziedzic said that hearing the international perspective about the love story between Poland’s most celebrated writer Maria Konopnicka and the painter and suffragist Maria Dulebianka had been “invaluable,”
“I was delighted by the interest from sales agents and by how naturally the story resonated beyond Poland, Dziedzic said. “We always felt it could be a big film at home, but discovering that its themes also speak to international audiences was one of the highlights of Polish Days.”
Meanwhile Autograf Film’s production of Tomasz Śliwiński’s €785,000 dramedy The End of the World, blending grotesque horror with a personal story about human relations, received a cash prize of €2,000 from postproduction house PFX and an in-kind award of image post-production services worth 30,000 Zlotys from Central European production and postproduction house ORKA.
Other awards presented at Tuesday evening’s (July 28) closing ceremony went to Japanese director Kei Ishikawa’s Polish-set father-son drama Excursion, Kalina Alabrudzińska’s psychological millennial drama POLKA, and Michał Chmielewski’s second feature film project The Neighborhood, a comedy drama exploring the relationship between parents and their children in the seemingly perfect world of suburban life.
International reaction
The Polish Days’ 16th edition attracted more than 90 international guests including programmers from such festivals as Cannes, Berlin, Venice, and Rotterdam as well as international sales agents and potential co-producers.
Looking at this year’s line-up of 10 projects in development and eight works in progress, one of the Film Days’ regular attendees, Denis Krupnov of London-based sales company Reason8 Films, remarked that “the variety of films at this year’s edition was fantastic going from children’s film through to horror. It was also particularly good to see that a good number of projects that had been presented here in development a couple of years ago [such as Adrian Panek’s biopic Wanda of the legendary Polish mountaineer Wanda Rutkiewicz] are now back as works in progress, which shows that the system is working well.”
Now attending for the third time, Agar Burgos, head of festivals at Paris-based Reel Suspects, added that the Polish Days can also provide a perfect snapshot of the current situation in Polish cinema.
“You can get an idea of the kind of stories they are wanting to tell and the issues they are looking to address in their films. What’s more, you are able to get to see a younger generation of filmmakers with new voices,” she said.
Attending the industry event in Wroclaw for the first time this year, Leena Khobragade, former director of Goa’s Film Bazaar, had praise for what she felt was “a really cute and cozy market”.
“I had very positive vibes from my two days here,” said Khobragade, who now works for the Kerala International Film Market. “You can meet everybody here and they all have time to chat about the projects. It’s not like Cannes where it’s difficult to find people and the locations of the [New Horizons] festival and the Polish Days’ venues are so close to one another which is another plus.”
Another first-timer to Polish Days, Romanian producer Aurelian Nica of Bucharest-based Kinetoscop, added: “It’s one of the nicest industry events I’ve been to in Central and Eastern Europe. There’s a very warm feeling, a really relaxed atmosphere, and it’s well organised,” he said.
UK delegation
This year’s international guests also included a delegation of six producers from the UK such as Studio Pictures’ David Braithwaite, who is working on a number of projects with the UK-based, Polish-born writer-director and script consultant Rafael Kapelinski, and Brock Media’s Sarah Brocklehurst who is currently developing the debut feature by Baby Reindeer director Weronika Tofilska
Another member of the delegation, Lincia Daniel of B19 Media, whose production credits include Freestyle, the first UK romance set in the world of basketball, said that she had come to Wroclaw “to find out about film funding for films that are fully or partially shooting in Poland. I am in very early development on a project whose script is based in Poland and the UK, so it was a chance to see what is available ahead of time to work out the best options for the financing.”
During their time at the Polish Days, the UK producers were also able to visit the set of two productions currently shooting at Wroclaw Feature Film Studio and meet Marta Kzeptowska, the new head of international cooperation at the Polish Film Institute.
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