Audio Description of the Year 2025 Competition – Polish Film Festival

The competition holds special social and cultural significance. We want audio description to be perceived not merely as an accessibility tool, but also as a vital element of the art of filmmaking. Behind every audio description lie its creators, who face a challenging task: translating images into words. High-quality audio description is a form of translation that demands exceptional sensitivity, a command of cinematic language, a keen sense of rhythm and the written word, and a sense of responsibility toward the viewer. The competition aims to draw attention to audio description – a facet of cinema often invisible to most audiences – and to recognise the people who create it.

The competition consists of two stages. In the first stage, a professional jury will select the 7 best audio descriptions from among the 37 qualified films (list below). Subsequently, the shortlist selected by the experts will be put to a public vote.

The Jury was composed of experts in audio description creation and film criticism specialists:

Katarzyna Anzorge – audio description creator, actress, and voice-over artist; expert in film accessibility

Radosław Czerniakiewicz – audio description consultant associated with the  Train  Online Film Club for the Blind (De Facto Association)

Roman Roczeń – blind musician, social activist, and Accessibility Director at the Kino Dostępne Foundation

Artur Zaborski – film critic and journalist; has co-operated with the Polish Film Festival om Gdynia

The jury will also award a special distinction to a single audio description that stands out for its "mastery of audio-descriptive decision-making"—that is, the conscious selection of the visual elements most crucial for understanding the film, the emotions of a scene, and the relationships between characters. Also important are the rhythm of the description, a sense of timing regarding silence, economy of language, and the ability to convey visual meaning without over-interpretation.

The second stage of the competition will be the Audience Vote, featuring blind and visually impaired members of the Train film club, run by the De Facto Association. The film selected by the audience will receive the competition's main prize.

The awards ceremony will take place on 25^th September 2026, during the Young Gala of the 51^st Gdynia Polish Film Festival. The Main Audience Award of PLN 5,000 and a Jury honourable mention at  of PLN 2,500 will be presented.

The collaboration with the polish Film Festival in Gdynia highlights the growing importance of accessibility in Polish film culture. We believe that the “Audio Description of the Year” award will become a significant distinction for creators, while also helping to popularise accessibility standards and increase the presence of blind and visually impaired audiences in the world of cinema.

The competition is organized by the De Facto Association and the Kino Dostępne Foundation, in partnership with the Pomeranian Film Foundation in Gdynia, the producer of the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. The project is co-financed by the Polish Film Institute