Polish Films in Tallinn

Five Polish films are featured in the lineup of the 14th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in Estonia. A short feature made by a student of the Łódź Film School also received an award at one of the Black Nights festival’s side events.

November 24 brought the closing of the “Sleepwalkers” event, which focuses on shorts and student films from around the world. The “Sleepwalkers” competition is a side event of the Black Nights festival, which runs from November 19 through December 5. The best Student Documentary Film award went to Spacer z przewodnikiem (Walk With a Guide) by Maciej Cendrowski.

This year’s edition of the Black Nights IFF also brings the seventh edition of the EurAsia competition – a selection of 22 films that includes Essential Killing by Jerzy Skolimowski. Essential Killing will compete for the Grand Prize against Danny Boyle’s latest feature 127 Hours, Three Seasons in Hell by Tomáš Mašin featuring Karolina Gruszka, and Copie Conforme by Abbas Kiarostami. Skolimowski’s feature also screens in the Screen International Critics’ Choice section of the festival.

The lineup of the Forum section of the festival includes Matka Teresa od kotów (Mother Teresa of Cats) by Paweł Sala. Forum screens a total of 15 titles, including Aurora by Cristi Puiu, Adrienn Pal by Ágnes Kocsis, and Surviving Life by Jan Švankmajer.

Among the 36 titles of the Panorama section is Borys Lankosz’s Rewers (Reverse), which recently saw its theatrical release in France. The Tallinn Panorama section also features new films by Alejandro González Inárritu, Danis Tanovic, Xavier Dolan, and Jaco Van Dormael.

The festival programme for films by directors whose previous works featured at Black Nights at least twice includes Wenecja (Venice) by Jan Jakub Kolski. The fifth Polish full-length feature screening in Tallinn is Gwiazda Kopernika (Nicolaus’s Star) by Zdzisław Kudła and Andrzej Orzechowski.

This year’s edition of Black Nights will be accompanied by the European Film Awards ceremony, which will be held on December 4.

Further details about the 14th Black Nights IFF in Tallinn available at: www.2010.poff.ee.

Translated by Karolina Kołtun