Here are three films of the Directors' Debuts Competition under patronage of Polish Filmmakers Association! The rest of the competition's line-up will be announced shortly.



Heat Wave

In his feature debut Jean-Jacques Jauffret offers the viewers a puzzle, both in terms of the plot and its narrative structure. Its solution requires concentrating on what is obvious and what cannot be seen on the screen. Jauffret tells his story through the changing perspectives of the film's protagonists, playing with the perception of time, and including important information in the space outside the frame. While getting with the characters to the “Heat Wave's" final act, we are witnessing, step by step, a series of events that will soon alter the lives of everyone in the film. For a tragedy - it does not matter whether big or barely noticeable - does not need to be a result of rational reasoning; the cause may be somebody's unintentional error, or the fact that a person just had a bad day.

Still from "Heat Wave"
Shooting such a structurally complex film demanded a great discipline on the set. Jauffret and his cinematographer, Samuel Dravet, carefully prepared all the shots and composition of frames, so that they could fully control the reality shown on screen. Due to this in some scenes they were able to define the characters through their everyday chores, and in other moments to herald that the unknown danger is nigh. The camera moves deliberately after the characters, often filming something that has no importance to the film whatsoever, and thus injecting a kind of false sense of calm into the screen. Then again, wide shots, on which people look like mere additions to the vastness of nature or simply ants in an ant hill, bring out the impression of vague anxiety.

Original title: Après le sud
Directed by: Jean-Jacques Jauffret
Cinematography: Samuel Dravet

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Attenberg

In "Attenberg"Athina Rachel Tsangari continues the poignant analysis of the mechanisms of human psyche, recently taken up in Giorgos Lanthimos's “Dogtooth" which Tsangariproduced. She displays a vision of humanity as a species deceiving itself that its not governed by primeval instincts and biological conditionings. Both men and women of “Attenberg" cannot set themselves free from the control of physiological, social and anatomical rules, reflexes and reactions. Tsangari creates this pessimistic vision through a tale of maturation and elderly declination of health, thus trying to promote an awareness in understanding one's limitations. For only by increasing self-awareness can a human being spend the time that was given to him/her in a valuable way.

Still from "Attenberg", courtesy of Gutek Film
The world in “Attenberg" is not real, but it is filled with symbols, giving Athina Rachel Tsangari and cinematographer Thimios Bakatakis an opportunity to fully use the complexity of the film language. Long and carefully composed shots stress the idiosyncrasies of the characters' actions, thus accentuating existence of an underneath layer of meaningful message. The staging and the lighting within the frames emphasize the artificial quality of the characters' actions, and their dependence on their anatomy and physiology. The film's dynamics is accentuated with the songs of the band Suicide that illustrate the plot. All in all, it is evident that “Attenberg" is an original film, both in content and form.

Original title: Attenberg
Directed by: Athina Rachel Tsangari
Cinematography: Thimios Bakatakis
Polish distributor: Gutek Film
Polish premiere: 25th November 2011

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Kidnapped

Miguel Ángel Vivas's film begins with a “Hitchcockian earthquake", only to bring more emotional heat afterwards. A tale of a rich family who is assaulted by three psychopaths in balaclavas is shocking both in terms of realistically displayed moments of sheer brutality, and psychological tortures that the main characters have to endure. “Kidnapped" is also a perfect directorial job, the one in which the visuals and the plot are equally important. This is not an assault typical for Hollywood movies, but a truly brutal attack that will make many viewers squirm with disgust. By watching carefully the prologue's dialogues and mannerisms, the viewer will be able to prepare himself (at least partially) for an intense experience that is the second part of the film. “Kidnapped" is not for the faintest of heart.

Still from "Kidnapped"
Cinematography by Pedro J. Márquez brilliantly emphasizes all the suspense and the feeling of entrapment of “Kidnapped". Márquez uses extremely long shots to follow characters while walking through all the rooms of a large villa in which the protagonists were taken hostage, thus using its spatial quality to the limits. The cinematographer uses film camera smartly, taking the advantage of everything that is and isn't within the frame. Márquez also makes a great use of different types of visual ideas - POV shots, coming from behind the character, camera imitating person's wobbly walk, division of the screen into two frames - to make “Kidnapped" visually visceral experience. Though its most important aim is to make the viewer tremble with the members of the assaulted family, shaken, confused, trying desperately to get out of the nightmarish situation they are in.

Original title: Secuestrados
Directed by: Miguel Ángel Vivas
Cinematography: Pedro J. Márquez



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Directors' Debuts Competition (together with 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 section 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.

Directors' 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 organized under the patronage of Polish Filmmakers Association