Golden Lions Will Roar
Almost canceled out of sympathy for flood victims, Gdynia's Polish Film festival is bailed out by some emergency support from sponsors.

Twenty-three Polish releases will compete for the Golden Lion awards at the 22nd Polish Film Festival on Oct. 14-19. But the biggest success is that it will be held at all this year.

Every fall for 13 years, Gdynia has turned into the capital of Poland's film industry. But the Cinematography Committee decided not to fund the 1997 event, on the grounds that the festival would be out of place after the flooding in southwestern Poland. Instead, committee funds originally intended for the festival were redirected to help offset the lost of damages to Wrocław's Film Production Studios and 10 area cinemas, estimated at zl.5 million.

Festival organizers turned immediately to the private sector. The first one to pledge support was Lew Rywin, president of Canal+ television. He appealed to filmmakers to support a scaled-down version of the festival costing zl.600,000, half of which was contributed by Canal+. Another zl.110,000 was donated by the Gdynia commune which annually sponsors the event. The state-owned television TVP SA and Gdańsk Province officials also participated in the costs, and festival organizers are still going after distributors.

"Sponsor funding will allow us to organize this year's Gdynia festival without the need to rely on central budget money," Tadeusz Ścibor-Rylski, Cinematography Committee chairman, said in a statement.

The festival will be shortened by one day, and some organizers will work as volunteers to help keep costs down. The organizers say the modest budget will not affect juror and organizer fees, nor the prizes. The Golden Lion award carries zl.20,000 in prize money. The best director will be awarded zl.9,000, a special jury prize will be zl.12,000, and the best screenplay writer will receive zl.7,000. Prizes of zl.5,000 each will go to the best director debut, best actor, actress, music composer and photographer.

Among the 23 films in the running are Jerzy Stuhr's Love Stories, honored at the recent Venice film festival; Olaf Lubaszenko's directing debut Sztos; Maciej Dejczer's The Bandit (based on Cezary Harasimowicz's screenplay, which got an award from the Robert Redford Foundation); Juliusz Machulski's Kiler, Krzysztof Zanussi's The Singing Soul, and Janusz Zaorski's Happy New York. Michał Rosa, the winner two years ago, will screen his latest work Farbe and the audience will get the chance to see Maciej Ziębiński's Wrath. Konrad Szołajski, the director of the controversial The Man of... will show The Return From U, and there will be a showing of Maciej Ślesicki's Sara, Adek Drabiński's The Trap, Andrzej Kondratiuk's The Sundial, Krzysztof Wojciechowski's The Story of Prophet Elijah from Wierszalin and Wojciech Marczewski's Time of Betrayal.

The festival jury will be headed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz, who will be assisted by Elżbieta Czyżewska, Filip Bajon, Krzysztof Krauze and Paweł Huelle.

The organizers have also prepared a few special showings, among them Krzysztof Zanussi's Brother of Our God and Washington Square by Agnieszka Holland. Also featured will be a retrospective of films by jury chairman Kawalerowicz (Austeria, The Pharaoh, Mother Joanne of Angels), who recently celebrated a triple anniversary-his 75th birthday, 50 years of work as a director and 40 years of directing the Kadr film studio.

The first Polish Film Festival was held in 1974 and became an annual review of the latest Polish releases. The awards were presented to directors, screenwriters, leading and supporting actors, music composers, set designers, editors and sound and light technicians. Until 1986 the festival was held in Gdańsk, except for a two-year break in 1982-83 during Martial Law. It was then moved to Gdynia.

see also: IMDB's listing