Thursday October 15th, 2020
We announce the line-up of the Student Etudes Competition of the 28th edition of EnergaCAMERIMAGE International Film Festival.
First held in 1997, Student Etudes Competition supports the development of novice filmmakers and provides unique opportunity to confront cinematic achievements of students from various parts of the world. Each year, a growing number of film schools submit their best etudes for consideration of the EnergaCAMERIMAGE selection committee. The winners are chosen by an international jury of prominent filmmakers and industry professionals.
The author of the best cinematography wins the coveted Laszlo Kovacs Student Award - The Golden Tadpole. Silver and Bronze Tadpoles are awarded for the second and third place respectively. Additionally, Polish Filmmakers Association will award the winner of the Student Etudes Competition a cheque for PLN 10 000.
ALL THAT'S LEFT
Henri returns to see his family after a long absence to visit his mother, who was admitted to a psychiatric clinic. Despite his anxieties, unconsciously transmitted by his mother, Henri decides to get her out of the hospital and take care of her.
Original title: Ce qui reste
Director: Hugo Salvaire
Cinematographer: Guillaume Epars
School: Institut des Arts de Diffusion (IAD)
Country and year: Belgium, 2019
BROKEN ROOTS
A family breaks apart. The day Marcos and his little brother have to choose whom of their parents they want to live with, Marcos will try to convince Sergio to go with their Dad. But Sergio doesn’t want to separate from his Mom. The adults’ dispute will also become theirs: divorce doesn’t destroy just a marriage, but a whole family.
Original title: Grietas
Director: Alberto Gross
Cinematographer: Alan Douglas
School: Escola Superior de Cinema i Audiovisuals de Catalunya (ESCAC)
Country and year: Spain, 2019
CLOWN, THE
We live to find our destination. Or our destination gives us life? Are three minutes enough to discuss this?
Original title: Клоун
Director: Vladimir Feklenko
Cinematographer: Victor Gusarov
School: High Courses of Scriptwriters and Film Directors (HSCF)
Country and year: Russia, 2019
DIG
When a neighbour’s horse goes missing in their small Appalachian valley, Caleb must cover for his autistic brother Russell.
Director: Jono Seneff
Cinematographer: Bash Achkar
School: School of Cinematic Arts at University of Southern California (USC)
Country and year: USA, 2019
DRESS, THE
Lust, sexuality, and physicality. These are the deepest desires virgin Julia suppresses while working at a wayside motel. That is until she crosses paths with a handsome truck driver who soon becomes the object of her fantasies.
Original title: Sukienka
Director: Tadeusz Łysiak
Cinematographer: Konrad Bloch
School: Warsaw Film School
Country and year: Poland, 2020
HOME
Early in the morning, the air-raid siren goes off. Mother's darkest thoughts become true. She awakens her young son and hurries, only picking up the outfit that is at hand before running out to protect their lives. In the boy's room, deathly silence reigns, with no hope that the family will ever return there again.
Directors: Marius Krivičius, Lina Margaitytė
Cinematographers: Marius Krivičius, Lina Margaitytė
School: Lithuanian Music and Theatre Academy (LMTA)
Country and year: Lithuania, 2020
KID AND HIS PANDA, A
When a father exhausts his energy entertaining children at work, his son begins to fixate on the costume that transforms him into the agent of other children’s joy.
Director: Sydney Ribot
Cinematographer: Azariah Bjørvig
School: American Film Institute Conservatory (AFI)
Country and year: USA, 2020
KURA
Tola, a young mother and aspiring artist, is working on a children’s book about animal behaviour. Her main inspiration is a domestic hen, which she talks to with help from an internet animal communicator. Things get out of control when her boyfriend tries to sabotage her work, as the animal communicator gets involved with her private live and the hen tries to escape.
Director: Andrzej Brzózka
Cinematographer: Kasper Lorek
School: Łódź Film School
Country and year: Poland, 2020
OFF BEAT
An overweight pizza delivery man stumbles upon the world of ballroom dancing. He realises that he will have to overcome his insecurities in order to find intimacy in his life.
Director: Derin Kiyak
Cinematographer: Saad Yousuf
School: Boston University College of Communication
Country and year: USA, 2020
PEARL
In a desolate Chinese fishing village, a six-year-old girl lives with her younger brother and their single mother, struggling to survive on the brink of poverty. Unbeknownst to the young girl, her mother, an oyster harvester, is given the opportunity to leave her hometown and improve her living situation under one condition: to leave one child behind.
Original title: 珍珠
Director: Yuchao Feng
Cinematographer: Lasse Ulvedal Tolbøll
School: Tisch School of the Arts, Institute of Film and TV at New York University (NYU)
Country and year: China, USA, 2019
POST LOVE
Three elderly women from the west of Ireland rob post offices to move to a romantic paradise and break free from their nursing homes.
Director: Max Barry
Cinematographer: Tiernan O'Rourke
School: National Film School (NFS) at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design & Technology (IADT)
Country and year: Ireland, 2020
REHEARSAL, THE
A laundromat at night. A woman asks a stranger to try on her husband's shirt, fearing that it has shrunk. As she asks him to rehearse the reunion between her and her husband, the clumsy rehearsal creates a rapprochement between the two unknowns.
Original title: Wiedersehen
Director: Kevin Biele
Cinematographer: Leon Emonds-Pool
Sschool: Internationale Filmschule Köln (IFS)
Country and year: Germany, 2020
RODEO FILM, A
Averill, a black bull rider living in rural California, is at the top of his game. However, Averill has a few secrets; he’s fallen out of love with the sport and is carrying on a love affair with his brother’s wife, Frankie. He’s living a lie in more ways than one. His brother, once a great bull rider himself, expects Averill to compete and win as the family has always done. When Averill loses his cross, a family heirloom, he takes it as a sign that maybe now is the time for a change.
Director: Darius D. Dawson
Cinematographer: Erin G. Wesley
School: American Film Institute Conservatory (AFI)
Country and year: USA, 2019
SHABBAT
A romantic meeting of a young Jewish girl and a Pole during a warm summer night in Łódź – a modern Polish city that will change for that one night into a city of the past.
Original title: Szabat
Director: David Bajerski, Damian Kosowski
Cinematographer: David Bajerski
School: Łódź Film School
Country and year: Poland, 2020
SINKING SHIPS
Sara endured many years in a relationship full of control and violence. As she and her family go on vacation, an opportunity to break away suddenly presents itself.
Original title: Sinkende Schiffe
Director: Andreas Kessler
Cinematographer: Leonard Frederic Caspari
School: Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg
Country and year: Germany, 2020
SISTERS
Meabh, a spirited fifteen-year-old, shields her two younger sisters, Lucy and Aine, from the ongoing neglect and abuse they are experiencing in their catholic children’s home by telling them transcendent Irish Fairy Tales. Desperate to protect them, Meabh takes the blame for her sisters’ rule breaking, resulting in severe punishment from the head nun, Sister Joan. Fearful her sisters will be adopted by another family without her, Meabh plots an escape.
Director: Étáin Nash
Cinematographer: Andrew Khew
School: National Film School (NFS) at Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design & Technology (IADT)
Country and year: Ireland, 2020
STRATUM DEEP
Robert, a young coal miner, is severely injured yet forced to rescue his father in the accidental collapse of their coal mine. A historical fiction, set in the aftermath of the 1980s miners’ strike.
Director: Lian Meng Rose
Cinematographer: Nathalie Pitters
School: National Film and Television School (NFTS)
Country and year: Wielka Brytania, 2020
SUMMER SHADE
Gal, a 13-year-old redhead girl, runs away from her older sisters, towards her favourite relaxing summer spot: the magical refreshing pond near her summer house. Except, shortly after her arrival, a group of ultraorthodox Hassidic Jews arrive at the place and violently kick her out.
Director: Shira Haimovici
Cinematographer: Tamas Apor Meder
School: London Film School (LFS)
Country and year: Israel, UK, 2020
ULEGŁOŚĆ
Piotr is a good but unlucky angler, who catches the largest and most disgusting fish at the Millennium Fishing Competition. His life from this moment begins to change for the better, and he begins to see a salutary amulet in the fish that he caught. At the same time, the fish brings apocalyptic destruction to the world and Piotr will have to choose between his own good and his entire island community.
Director: Michał Ciechomski
Cinematographer: Paweł Grabarek
School: Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School
Country and year: Poland, 2020
VERDICT IN THE CASE OF K., THE
After the verdict in a trial, a family tries to find their way back to normality. The morals of the single father and his two children are questioned by the conflicting expectations of society. An unthoughtful decision reopens old wounds and causes the alienation of a brother and sister.
Original title: Das Urteil im Fall K.
Director: Özgür Anil
Cinematographer: Lukas Allmaier
School: Institut für Film und Fernsehen FILMAKADEMIE WIEN
Country and year: Austria, 2020
WHITE WINGED HORSE
A man returns to his Iranian hometown, searching for his childhood sweetheart who had promised him eternal love – if he were to return as a white-winged horse.
Director: Mahyar Mandegar
Cinematographer: Soroush Alizadeh Toosi
School: Tehran University of Art
Country and year: Iran, 2020
FINANCED BY THE MINISTRY OF CULTURE AND NATIONAL HERITAGE OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND AS PART OF THE TASK: CO-ORGANIZATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL OF THE ART OF CINEMATOGRAPHY EnergaCAMERIMAGE 2024
CO-FINANCED BY: THE CITY OF TORUŃ AND KUJAWSKO-POMORSKIE REGION
