Woman on the Roof by Anna Jadowska, Apokawixa by Xawery Żuławski, Shreds by Beata Dzianowicz, The Silent Twins by Agnieszka Smoczyńska and Norwegian Dream by Leiv Devold – these are five out of ten films qualified for the Polish Feature Film Competition of this year’s edition of Mastercard OFF CAMERA. They will compete for the Dominika Kulczyk & dFlights Award. The Main Dramatic Competition “Making Way” for the Andrzej Wajda Krakow Film Award will feature, among others: Motherhood dir. Pilar Palomero, The Great Silence dir. Katrine Brocks, Bread and Salt dir. Damian Kocur, Spare Keys dir. Jeanne Aslan and Paul Saintillan, A Room of My Own dir. Ioseb ‘Soso’ Bliadze. All films nominated in both competitions will be presented on 30th March 2023. The Festival is just one and a half month away.

Main Dramatic Competition and USD 25,000

The international competition for the Andrzej Wajda Krakow Film Award is the main section of the Mastercard OFF CAMERA Festival. As in previous years, festival audiences will be the first in Poland to see the debuts and second films of the most talked-about artists from around the world.

The first five out of ten productions nominated in this year’s Main Dramatic Competition have just been announced. They will compete for the award of USD 25,000.

• Rebellious fourteen-year-old Carla needs to take a crash course in motherhood when it turns out she is five months pregnant and she is moved to a center for underage mothers and their children. Motherhood directed by Pilar Palomero is a story about women’s experiences related to giving birth and raising children.
• Alma is a young woman who lives a quite life in a convent. An electrifying, muted story about deceit, family secrets and lies, and forgiveness, The Great Silence by Danish filmmaker Katrine Brocks, depicts a relationship of siblings from two completely different worlds: Erik, who has just been released from prison and Alma, for whom a “prison” is not only the convent but also her own mind.
• Hot summer, time passing slowly, hip hop freestyle and… a newly-opened kebab bar in a small Polish town, where Tymek returns for a holiday break. In Damian Kocur’s Bread and Salt a student of the Warsaw University of Music, who is about to conquer the music world thanks to a scholarship he won, finds himself at the heart of events filled with stereotypes, prejudice and violence.
  

• The debut feature by directors duo: Jeanne Aslan and Paul Saintillan – Spare Keys – is a story of the relationship between fifteen-year-old Fifi, who comes from a large family living in social housing, and wealthy twenty-year-old Stéphane, her friend’s older brother. Their paths cross unexpectedly – in the boy’s family villa, the keys to which the teenage girl had stolen a few days earlier. Different social statuses, distinct worlds, but the same need for closeness.

• A Room of My Own directed by Ioseb ‘Soso’ Bliadze is a full of spot-on observations panorama of the everyday life of Georgian millennials. Tina, a shy woman who had escaped an abusive marriage and the countryside, rents a room in the capital city from the vibrant Megi. Enjoying life in the big city, they gradually come closer together

Polish Feature Film Competition and PLN 100,000

The Polish Feature Film Competition of Mastercard OFF CAMERA is dedicated to the most interesting, original and universal Polish titles that opened throughout the past year.

As in previous years, also during the 16th edition of the biggest celebration of independent cinema in this part of Europe, ten feature films will compete for the Dominika Kulczyk & dFlights Award in the Polish Feature Film Competition: PLN 100,000. The Award will be granted by an international jury.

The first five out of ten films qualified for this years’ edition are:

• Woman on the Roof directed by Anna Jadowska is a story of a sixty-year-old midwife Mira Napieralska who has been hiding her needs and feelings for years. The only moment of her everyday life in which she does something for herself is when she sneaks out on the roof to smoke a single cigarette. One day, she does something which may have serious legal consequences, however, it is the moment when she starts to look at her life from a completely different perspective.
• Apokawixa directed by Xawery Żuławski is a unique cinematic cocktail of zombie horror, strong pro-ecological message and a party organized by a group of high school graduates who decide to relieve stress related to the final exam, pandemic and a series of lockdowns. The beach, dancing, drinking and a very thought-provoking story.
  
• Alzheimer’s – the grandpa’s intensifying disease makes the hidden tensions, secrets and grudges of a multi-generational family come to light. Shreds by acclaimed documentary filmmaker Beata Dzianowicz tackles the dynamics of family relations.
  
• Twins June and Jennifer Gibbons at one point stop communicating with the outside world. The first English-language film by Agnieszka Smoczyńska – The Silent Twins – is an invitation to the rich inner world of two black sisters who escape from the gloomy provincial life into neon-colored world of their fantasies.
• A nineteen-year-old immigrant named Robert works in a Norwegian salmon processing plant to pay off his family’s debts. When a strike breaks out in the factory, he is left with just one choice: save his family and become a scab or join the strike and Ivar, a man he is increasingly enamored with. Norwegian Dream directed by Leiv Devold, a graduate of the Film and Television Direction Department of Lodz Film School, is a story about the search for identity and the price of life, in harmony with oneself.

The next five films nominated in the Main Dramatic Competition “Making Way”, and five titles qualified for the Polish Film Competition will be announced on 30th March 2023. This year’s edition of the Mastercard OFF CAMERA International Festival of Independent Cinema will be held in Kraków between 28th April and 7th May 2023. For more information visit www.offcamera.pl/en

Contact for the media:

Michał Zalewski
Mastercard OFF CAMERA Spokesman and PR Manager
phone no: 602 377 594
@: m.zalewski@offcamera.pl