28/11/2019 - The 12th edition of the festival will unspool from 29 November-2 December, showcasing movies by Filip Bajon, Jan Komasa, Jagoda Szelc, Adrian Panek and Jacek Borcuch

The period film The Butler [+see also:
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film profile] by Filip Bajon, which won two Eagles (the Polish film industry’s annual national awards) this spring, scooped the Silver Lions at the Gdynia Film Festival, and portrays the intertwined destinies of a Polish family between 1900 and 1945 in the north of the Kashubia region, will tomorrow open the 12^th edition of Kinopolska, out of competition and in the presence of its director. Every year, the festival, which will unspool in Paris from 29 November-2 December, in the Le Balzac cinema, just off the Champs-Elysées, trains its spotlight on the sheer diversity of Polish film output, which sometimes finds it tricky to secure decent distribution in France (apart from big names such as Pawel Pawlikowski). Interestingly, Filip Bajon will be honoured twofold at the event, as the opening ceremony will be preceded by a special screening of Damaged [+see also:
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Standing tall on the Kinopolska programme is a competition that will see six fiction features go head to head. Perhaps the most prominent of them is Corpus Christi [+see also:
film review
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interview: Bartosz Bielenia
interview: Jan Komasa
film profile] by Jan Komasa, the Polish candidate for the 2020 Oscar and the winner of the Europa Cinemas Label in Venice’s Giornate degli Autori, but also screened at Toronto, and awarded at Stockholm, Gdynia and CinEast. This title will be distributed in France from 5 February 2020, courtesy of Bodega Films.

Also in the running are Monument [+see also:
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film profile] by Jagoda Szelc (who rose to fame at Berlin in 2018 with her feature debut, Tower. A Bright Day [+see also:
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interview: Jagoda Szelc
film profile], and who is currently preparing The Delicate Balance of Terror), which scooped a Special Jury Prize at Gdynia; Werewolf [+see also:
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interview: Adrian Panek
film profile] by Adrian Panek (Audience Award at Tallinn, Best Director and Best Score Awards at Gdynia, and incidentally set to be released in Spanish theatres tomorrow, by Cinemaran); and A Coach’s Daughter [+see also:
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film profile] by Lukasz Grzegorzek (a road movie revolving around a father and his beloved daughter, who set off on a journey across Poland to take part in a long series of tennis tournaments).

The competition also includes Autsajder [+see also:
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film profile] by Adam Sikora, which is set in 1981, as martial law is introduced in Poland in order to stamp out any resistance to the communist regime. It follows a student at art school who has no interest in politics – but politics catches up with him…

Lastly, Michał Rosa will also be partaking in the competition with Piłsudski, a biopic dedicated to Józef Piłsudski, a key figure in 20^th-century Polish politics.

Out of competition, the closing film will be Dolce Fine Giornata [+see also:
film review
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interview: Jacek Borcuch
film profile] by Jacek Borcuch, which was singled out in the Sundance competition with a Special Jury Prize for Krystyna Janda’s performance and which will go on general release in French theatres on 29 January 2020, courtesy of New Story.

The 12^th edition of Kinopolska, which will be attended by several of the directors whose films are on the line-up (Szelc and Borcuch) or by their crew members, will also pay tribute to author Witold Gombrowicz (as part of the commemoration of the 50^th anniversary of his death), in conjunction with the Polish Institute in Paris and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Warsaw. Also featuring on the programme are three film adaptations of his works (Ferdydurke by Jerzy Skolimowski, Pornography [+see also:
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film profile] by Jan Jakub Kolski and Cosmos [+see also:
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interview: Victória Guerra
film profile] by Andrzej Zulawski) and the documentary Gombrowicz, l’Argentine et moi by Alberto Yaccelini.

(Translated from French)