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Young people have something to say in the cinema.  Soon they will show it in Koszalin

Young people have something to say in the cinema. Soon they will show it in Koszalin

This is where great careers start, where it’s worth starting a film summer. The Festival in Koszalin is today the best and most important event dedicated to Polish young cinema.

There are only days left until the inauguration of this year’s edition of the Koszalin Festival of Film Debuts “Youth and Film”. This event is a review of young Polish cinema. And it has been going through a good run for years – young artists take up important topics more courageously than the older generation, conduct a discussion with the present and experiment with form. It’s worth checking what the effects are.

The event in Koszalin will be held this year for the 42nd time, this time between June 12 and 17, and its latest edition gives at least a few strong reasons to go to Koszalin for a few days.

A colorful caravan of debuts

The first is certainly a very powerful program. In accordance with its assumption, long tradition, and even the name itself, the festival in Koszalin is focused on the debuts and works of young people who are just starting their film career. The organizers are trying to show in a very comprehensive and holistic way what novice artists have created in the last twelve months. The program of the event therefore includes several sections presenting various film forms.

Of course, the feature debut competition is the most important. This year, as many as 15 titles will compete in it. Some of them are already known from other festivals and even from cinemas, such as Damian Kocur’s “Bread and Salt” awarded abroad or Michał Chmielewski’s “American” road movie “Roving Woman”, but there will also be interesting premieres in Koszalin. This includes two female propositions, both very original – the directors are also the authors of the scripts: Justyna Łuczaj’s “Ponytail” – a psychologically complicated story from a province forgotten by fate, which refers to the mythological story of Oedipus, and “Different Roads to Holiness” by Aniela Astrid Gabryel – in this story, several people meet who have chosen very different paths of self-realization.

In the face of the very dynamic development of documentary cinema, both in the world and in Poland, the competition of full-length documentary debuts will certainly be worthy of attention. As many as ten titles will compete, presenting the world from a very different angle. The stakes included stories about an educational center, work in a mine or a novitiate in a convent. An unusually large number of films talk about art and people who deal with it: young pianist stars or a radical performer with many years of experience.

The full-length film competitions are complemented by competition in the field of short films. It will be divided into three sections: fiction, documentary and animation.

Honesty above all

The second important argument to go to Koszalin for the “Youth and Film” festival is something that always helps to get to the essence of the films watched, to learn their context and the circumstances surrounding their creation. These are conversations with creators and creators. They are an important tradition in Koszalin, for which the festival has been famous for years. Discussions after subsequent screenings are held under a very significant slogan: “Honesty for honesty”. And indeed – honesty is always the starting point and foundation of conversations there.

And these can be extremely exciting – often difficult questions are asked, you can often hear loud praise and ardent criticism, often the temperature turns out to be much higher than on the nearby Baltic beaches.

For young artists, it is often the first opportunity to meet and confront a “real” audience – many of them previously showed their films only at closed screenings at school. And the shows and discussions in Koszalin are attended by people from the industry, but there are also a lot of “ordinary” spectators and spectators. It often happens that discussions do not end when their official part is closed, but move to the lobby or to the gardens of Koszalin cafes and other premises. There is rarely an opportunity to meet so closely and directly, exchange impressions, and maybe even support filmmakers, especially when their careers are already “accelerating” and they will not have time for such conversations.

A beach instead of a banquet

There is at least one more reason to go to the festival in Koszalin. It is its unique atmosphere and climate. Many people who attend this event point out that it is completely different there than at many well-known festivals.

– There is no “napinka”, no pressure, no “Gdynia” – says one such person. Because the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia is known for its pompous, bombastic atmosphere, elegant, expensive creations and exclusive banquets, which are only accessible to the chosen ones. In Koszalin it is completely different. The festival dress code is very casual, and since the event almost always takes place in beautiful, early summer weather, short sleeves, short pants, short light dresses dominate.

No one forgets even for a moment that the seaside Mielno is located right next to Koszalin. A large number of festival guests and guests are accommodated there, official and quite informal festival events are held there, and finally you can always just go to the beach there if you want to take a break from watching movies for a while. Doesn’t all this sound like a very strong incentive to go to Central Pomerania in mid-June and check what’s going on with the youngest generation of Polish cinema?

Source: Gazeta

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