On the Horizon – films from Wrocław in Gdynia

The Gdynia Film Festival in cooperation with the T-Mobile New Horizons IFF in Wrocław invites to screenings of the films awarded during the last edition of the event.

Within the programme of the 39. Gdynia Film Festival, there are four solid titles of the last, 14. Edition of the T-Mobile New Horizons Festival (24 July – 3 August 2014).

The main prizewinners of competitions: “White Shadow” by Noaz Deshe, “Återträffen” (“The Reunion”) by Anna Odell, as well as the films by filmmakers connected to the Wrocław Festival for years: “Die Frau des Polizisten” (“ The Police Officer’s Wife ”) by Philip Gröning and “Fehér isten” (“White God”) by Kornél Mundruczó will come to Gdynia from Wrocław. “Different shades of the cinema, briiliantly defining the spirit of new-horizonality,” says Joanna Łapińska, the Artistic Director of T-Mobile New Horizons. “It is a great opportunity for the Polish cinema to look over itself in the mirror of the international cinema.”

The Artistic Director of the Gdynia Film Festival, Michał Oleszczyk, emphasises his pleasure resulting from the cooperation of the festivals: “After “Gdynia on the Horizon”, it is time for Horizons in Gdynia. The presence of the best New Horizons films will enable our viewers to widen the Festival experience with the new, bold artistic cinema from the whole world.”

“White God” by Kornél Mundruczó (Hungary, Germany, Sweden 2014) is, according to the director, a combination of melodrama, adventure cinema and a film about vengeance, as well as a disturbing political metaphor posing a commentary to the current events in Hungary and whole Europe. In Hungary, a law has been just passed which places severe limitations on the owners of mixed-breed dogs. The thirteen-year-old Lili is fighting tooth and nail to keep her four-legged pet, Hagen.

In “White Shadow” (Tanzania, Germany, Italy 2013), the director Noaz Deshe treats of the drama of albinos in Tanzania, Kenya and Congo. The film was awarded the Luigi De Laurentis Award for a Debut Film at the Venice IFF, it is also the winner of New Horizons and the prizewinner of the Audience Reward of 2014.

“The Reunion” (Sweden 2013) is a multilayered film, which is part feature, part documentary, and part performance art, by the well-known for the controversial actions Swedish artist Anna Odell. The numerous prizewinner (among others, at the IFF in Venice) is a reconstruction of a graduate reunion with her attendance. But this is barely half the project – in the second part, the director calls up her former classmates and records their reactions during the presentation of the film.

Philip Gröning is the author of the screenplay, the director of photography and the director of the film “The Police Officer’s Wife” (Germany 2013), the prizewinner of the Special Jury Pize in Venice. A young couple who, at first glance, appear happy. She finds fulfillment as a mother, her smiling husband is a police officer. Behind closed doors, however, the reality of their home life is not so colorful. Feeling defeated as a result of his unspoken and unfulfilled aspirations, he begins to beat his wife.

T-Mobile New Horizons is the Partner of the 39. Gdynia Film Festival.

During the last edition of T-Mobile New Horizons, the Gdynia Film Festival presented an authorship programme of screenings proposed by Michał Oleszczyk. It was a double film screening maintained in the American double-bill tradition, during which the viewers watched two films from 1971: a foreign one (“Bleak Moments” by Mike Leigh) and a Polish one (“Behind the Wall” by Krzysztof Zanussi). The titles were selected in such a way that, together, they created a dynamic – thematic, formal, cultural – dialogue. After the screening, Michał Oleszczyk held workshops with the audience, during which together with the viewers, he analised similarities and differences between the two films.