Uberto Pasolini’s Still Life to open this year’s Warsaw Film Festival (WFF) tonight, which will close with Roman Polanski’s Venus In Fur on Oct 20.

The number of world, international and European premieres in the WFF line-up have never been as high as this year, with the selection of no less than 22 world premieres, 21 international premieres and 22 European premieres.

The world premieres include six titles in the festival’s main International competition:

  • Romanian film-maker Anca Damian’s English-language feature debut A Very Unsettled Summer, her first film since Crulic

  • Estonian Ilmar Raag’s unusual love story in a small village Love Is Blind

  • Zaza Urushadze’s Estonian-Georgian co-production Tangerines, which has also been invited to festivals in Mannheim-Heidelberg and Cottbus

  • Iranian director Amir Toodehroosta’s Paat where dogs go underground in Tehran

  • Zdeňek Tyc’s moving drama Like Never Before about an oddball painter approaching death in his country home

In addition, there will be four films in the 1-2 Competition for first and second features:

  • local film-maker Sebastian Buttny’s Heavy Mental about life of 30somethings in today’s Poland

  • Hungarian Márk Bodzsár’s black comedy Heavenly Shift

  • Marko Šantic’s Seduce Me which won Best Direction Award at this year’s Festival of Slovenian Film in Portoroz

  • Branislav ‘Brane’ Bala and Nemanja Bala’s contemporary rock’n’roll musical Love Hunter (USA).

FILMS FROM 57 COUNTRIES

WFF’s 29th edition, which is showing 123 feature-length fiction films and documentaries and 84 shorts from 57 countries, will have special screenings of such films as Alexander Veledinsky’s prize-winning The Geographer Drank His Globe Away; Caroline Link’s Exit Marrakech; Erik Matti’s On The Job; Nicole Holofcener’s Enough Said; and Ludwig II by the late Peter Sehr and his wife Marie Noelle.

Presentations in its Discoveries sidebar of the Silver Bear winner Harmony Lessons, Slovakia’s Oscar candidate My Dog Killer, the Israeli-German co-production Youth and US indie debut feature Concussion, among others.

WFF festival director Stefan Laudyn and his programming team have selected the Next Generation 2013 showcase of shorts by young German film students as well as a Polish Short Films Panorama.

A new sidebar has been launched this year dedicated to Classics from Poland, with presentations of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s 1979 film Camera Buff and two films from his Dekalog - A Short Film About Killing and A Short Film About Love; Krzysztof Zanussi’s 1969 production The Structure of Crystal; Juliusz Machulski’s Deja Vu from 1988; and Krzysztof Krauze’s The Debt from 1999.

STRONG CHINESE PRESENCE

Chinese cinema features strongly throughout the WFF programme as the China-Eastern Europe Film Promotion Project is launched at the parallel CentEast Market with a selection of works-in-progress and completed films.

Four titles have been selected for the festival’s competitive sections: Trap Street by Vivian Qu is running in the International Competition, Distant by Zhengfan Yang in the Free Spirit Competition, and the Shorts Competition feature a world premiere screening of 1000 Cranes by Kaz Cai and Butter Lamp by Hu Wei.

Jia Zhang-ke, who was named Best Director at Cannes in May, will come to Warsaw for a special screening of A Touch Of Sin, while the Discoveries sidebar will present Emperor Visits The Hell by Li Luo and Witness by Gao Zehao.

In addition, The World Today’s line-up will show Love and Rock by Xing Di and the Family Cinema Weekend Let Panda Fly by Zhao Bandi from China.

WFF’s full line-up can be found at www.wff.pl.

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