Polish Cinema in Tokyo
There was a Polish stand at the international film market, a Polish feature in competition, and a Polish director in the jury of the Tokyo Film Festival.
The TIFFCOM 2009 International Film Market was held in Tokyo on October 20-22. It accompanied the 22nd Tokyo International Film Festival.
This was the first time that the Polish Film Institute organized the Polish National Cinema Stand at the Tokyo International Film Market. Like in Cannes and Berlin before, the Polish National Cinema Stand was set up to promote Polish films and encourage co-production. Representatives of the Polish Film Institute spoke with foreign producers and sales agents from a number of countries, including Taiwan, Japan, China and Thailand. Programmers of numerous film festivals throughout Asia are interested in presenting Polish cinema to their audiences, including the Shanghai Film Festival. The Hong Kong Film Festival (March 2010) and Tokyo Short Film Festival (June 2010) have announced that they will include a retrospective of Polish cinema in their programmes.
The Polish stand at the film market aroused general interest, which resulted in interviews for several Japanese TV stations. The key points of interest included the system of financing cinema production in Poland, Polish film and acting schools, as well as the subject matter of modern Polish cinema.
One of the contenders of the main competition at the Tokyo International Film Festival, which ended last Sunday, was The Dark House by Wojciech Smarzowski. The Grand Prix was awarded to the Bulgarian feature Eastern Plays by Kamen Kalev. One of the jurors was the Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski.
Translated by Karolina Kołtun