CINEMATOGRAPHERS’ DEBUTS COMPETITION 2019 LINE-UP!

Tuesday October 15th, 2019

Cinematographers’ Debuts Competition was initiated in 2010 due to the Festival’s increasing openness to the noteworthy artists and the new film phenomena they create. The idea of creating additional competition sections was a natural consequence of our previous activities. For years we have been promoting innovative projects that combine intellectual freedom, remarkable insight into world affairs and a desire to inspire other artists of the screen.

Cinematographers’ Debuts Competition brings new discoveries: great movies of high artistic value and great filmmakers whose new ventures surprise not only the Jury members but all audiences around the world as well.

Competition is under the patronage of Polish Filmmakers Association.

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DOLCE FINE GIORNATA

Idyllic, picturesque Tuscany, filled with the atmosphere of creative freedom and the wild parties that see the local artistic community get drunk, laugh, dance, and talk until the early hours about the meaning of life, the idea of success, and the path on which Europe is heading. The community’s leader is Maria Linde, a Nobel-winning Polish poet who found on Italian soil an ideal basis for her personal bubble. But she still feels that something is missing. On one hand, she accepts the biological and communal roles of a mother, a wife, and a grandmother, but on the other, her restless spirit defies the idea of becoming a tamed and predictable artist without a strong voice. In other words, Maria’s internal bomb has been ticking for some time now, and it explodes when it is least expected. While accepting an award from the mayor of the city of Volterra, where she lives, Maria delivers a passionate speech that makes the local community feel uncomfortable, to say the least, and significantly alters the world around her.

Polish title: Słodki koniec dnia

Director: Jacek Borcuch
Cinematographer: Michał Dymek
Produced by: No Sugar Films

Polish distributor: NEXT FILM SP. z o.o.

Country and year: Poland, 2018

IN SEARCH OF ECHO

Mr Zhu is an ageing actor who is struggling to find some interesting parts to play. One day, in order to find his wife, he goes on a journey to an island where they have met. In doing this, he also wants to remind himself of what kind of person he was all those years ago, and to again feel the heat of passion that once drove him relentlessly. When he is not able to locate the woman, he loses himself in the art of photographing the world that surrounds him with his old camera. He immortalises the different perspectives of assessing and appreciating reality, and, at the same time, goes on an oneiric odyssey through the past, the present, and the future, as though the long-forgotten ghosts of previous centuries were influencing the way in which the island’s inhabitants’ perceived the world. Mr Zhu is both fascinated and terrified by what is happening, including encounters with eccentric people who inspire him to think about himself. Will he be able to use this trip to increase his self-worth, and face the challenge of returning to mundane normality?

Original title: Hai Yang Dong Wu
Director: Chi Zhang
Cinematographer: Yi Fang

Produced by: Skyline Media Co.

Country and year: China, 2019

MICKEY AND THE BEAR

Michaela, or Mickey, leads the seemingly ordinary life of a small-town teenager who is excited and a little bit terrified of all the “first times” coming her way. She works part-time at the local taxidermist to earn a bit of extra money for college, tries to keep up with her schoolwork, and parties at night with her friends by the campfire. The only problem is that Mickey’s future seems to be planned out by the strong-willed men who surround her, but who care only about their own needs. One of them is her loving boyfriend, who is predestined to become a passive-aggressive-type husband in years to come. The other is her father, a Iraq war vet with PTSD, an emotional vampire who disintegrates through drugs before his daughter’s eyes. Torn between her dreams of independence and the roles that society demands her to fulfil, between the increasing dysfunctionality of her home and the hope for a brighter future, the girl has to decide who she wants to be. Will she be able to escape from the horrors dormant in the small town that was once her whole world?

Director: Annabelle Attanasio
Cinematographer: Conor Murphy

Produced by: Lizzie Shapiro, Taylor Shung
Country and year: USA, 2019

PACIFIED

The Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro promoted sportsmanship and positive values throughout Brazil and all over the globe, and they definitely changed the lives of many an athlete who took part in them. Nevertheless, the event did not have any meaning for the poverty-stricken inhabitants of the favelas. Jaca knows all too well that sportsmanship alone is not enough to change anything. He has recently been released from prison, and wants to escape the world of violence that nearly saw the end of him. He would like to set up his own pizza joint and change people’s lives with good food and kind words, but his former colleagues start knocking on his door. At the same time, Jaca finds out he might be a father. Her name is Tati and she is an intelligent, good-natured teenager who does her best to stay out of harm’s way and earn a chance for a brighter future. These two individuals, lost among the ocean of the poverty of the favelas, forge a special bond that makes them both better human beings. It is hard to predict, however, if it is strong enough to make them persevere what is to come.

Original title: Pacificado

Director: Paxton Winters
Cinematographer: Laura Merians

Produced by: Muskat Filmed Properties, Reagent Media
Country and year: Brazil, USA, 2019

SWALLOW

Hunter must be the happiest woman on Earth. She has a perfect husband, who has just become the youngest Managing Director in the history of his company. She has impossibly wealthy in-laws, who gift them with a luxurious car or an impressive house. She is exhilarated as her body begins to change to accommodate a new person inside of her, which the whole family awaits excitedly. It does not matter that her beloved hubby prefers the bluish light of his mobile phone to listening to her daily summaries of being a housewife, though he does not tolerate a badly-ironed tie. It is quite fine that his passive-aggressive parents are not at all interested in her opinion, because they prefer projecting their fantasies about the perfect daughter-in-law on her. It is completely understandable that, while pregnant, she starts craving weird things. Well, fine, biting ice cubes and eating glass balls may be a little alarming, but it is not like this is the beginning of Hunter’s emotional and mental rebellion that will lead her to question her world… right?

Director: Carlo Mirabella-Davis
Cinematographer: Katelin Arizmendi

Produced by: Charades, Logical Pictures, Stand Alone Production, Syncopated Films
Country and year: USA, France, 2019

SYSTEM CRASHER

Benni is a nine-year-old blonde girl, with captivating blue eyes and the face of an angel. The only thing in the world she craves is to love and to be loved in return. However, the reality of her situation is that she had a hellish childhood that left her scarred for life, to such an extent that the traumatized girl became a threat even to her own relatives. She has yet to live a full decade on this world, but she acts as though she has lived through many, especially when she becomes an aggressive, swearing force of nature who tests out her vulgar behaviour with everyone surrounding her. What is more, when someone says she cannot do something or touches her face, she becomes furious, savagely attacks older boys, throws chairs at doors and windows, threatens to kill her peers or herself with a knife. It is not that Benni hates all people; she just needs a little love and someone’s full attention. Will she find a person who will conquer her defence mechanisms, or is she already condemned to a heavily medicated life?

Original title: Systemsprenger
Polish title: Błąd systemu
Director: Nora Fingscheidt
Cinematographer: Yunus Roy Imer

Produced by: KINEO Filmproduktion, Peter Hartwig, Weydmann Bros.

Polish distributor: Aurora Films
Country and year: Germany, 2019

VISION

A French journalist arrives in Japan to immerse herself in an ancient woods that is, according to legend, home to a mythical plant that supposedly blooms only once per millennium, and has the power to heal any kind of pain. Pain is something Jeanne knows all too well. In the beginning, she needs help from experienced translator Hana, but after a while, she starts to communicate on her own, especially when she stays with enigmatic forest-dweller Tomo, who hosts her in his home. Additionally, Jeanne begins to become entranced by the surrounding sensual world of sounds, smells, tangibility that goes beyond anything she has ever witnessed. She loses herself in surreal dreams and memories, in yearning for what she once had, but what was brutally taken from her. Looking for answers about her past and future in the here and now, the cerebral Jeanne goes through an emotional and mental transformation to become a person responding to the beauty and the loss forever inscribed in the cyclicity of nature.

Director: Naomi Kawase
Cinematographer: Arata Dodo

Produced by: Kumie, Slot Machine
Country and year: Japan, France, 2018