The 26th Warsaw Film Festival ended on Sunday, 17 October 2010.

“I feel great satisfaction after this year’s festival. Our programme included about twenty European and international premieres. More than a hundred filmmakers from Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, and the Americas visited us to present their films in person in Warsaw. We had waited for some of them for years, to mention Jan Sverak, double Oscar winner, or Alexei Uchitel, whose new film The Edge is Russia’s Oscar candidate this year. I have been getting lots of friendly emails - the guests were thrilled with the festival and with Warsaw. We are consistently fulfilling our programme to develop the WFF. The professionals who visit us regularly emphasize the obvious progress the festival has made in recent years. I am extremely grateful to everyone who helped us achieve this, and especially our strategic partner RWE, the local authorities in Warsaw, and the Polish Film Institute, as it is thanks to them that the Warsaw Film Festival has become a world-standard event”, says Stefan Laudyn, the WFF’s director.

THE FESTIVAL IN FIGURES
The WFF comprised 384 screenings in five rooms at Kinoteka and four rooms at Multikino Złote Tarasy. The programme included 134 full-length films and 71 shorts from 53 countries. Apart from three Polish feature films (Chrzest / Christening, Erratum, and Lincz / Lynch), all the films were absolute Polish premieres.
The festival’s guests came from 40 countries all over the world - Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia, and the Americas.
Meetings between filmmakers and audiences held after screenings are a WFF tradition. At the 26th WFF, there were 166 meetings with the makers of films presented at the festival.
The festival was held in the heart of Warsaw, at Multikino Złote Tarasy and Kinoteka.
The festival screenings brought in an audience of more than 109,000 people.

AWARDS
The awards in the five competitive sections of the 26th Warsaw Film Festival, the FIPRESCI Jury Prize, and the Ecumenical Jury Prize were presented to the winners on Saturday evening, 16 October.
The Warsaw Grand Prix, the main prize in the International Competition, funded by the city of Warsaw, went to Incendies directed by Denis Villeneuve (Canada/France).
The Best Director Award went to Olivier Masset-Depasse for the film Illegal (Belgium).
The Special Jury Prize went to director Bogdan George Apetri and screenwriter Tudor Voican for the screenplay for Outbound (Periferic) (Romania/Austria).
The jury awarded two special mentions:

1. For three actresses playing the parts of extraordinary women: Lubna Azabal in Incendies, Anne Coesens in Illegal, and Ana Ulyaru in Periferic.
2. For the humour in A Useful Life (La Vida Util) directed by Federico Veiroj.
The winners of the 1-2 Competition were: The Imperialists Are Still Alive! directed by Zeina Durra (USA) and Erratum directed by Marek Lechki (Poland).

The Free Spirit Award went to Sound of Noise directed by Ola Simonsson and Johannes Stjärne Nilsson (Sweden). The Free Spirit Competition Jury awarded a special mention to Missing Man directed by Anna Fenchenko (Russia).
The award for the best full-length documentary went to Eye Over Prague (Oko nad Prahou) directed by Olga Spatova (Czech Republic). A special mention in this category went to Kick in Iran directed by Fatima Abdollahyan.
In the Shorts Competition the winner was The Cage (Colivia) directed by Adrian Sitaru (Romania/Netherlands).
The FIPRESCI Prize (from the International Federation of Film Critics, www.fipresci.org) for the best Eastern European debut went to the Romanian film Outbound (Periferic) directed by Bogdan George Apetri. This project had been presented as a promising work-in-progress at the CentEast Market Warsaw 2009.
The Ecumenical Jury gave its prize to On Childhood (De la infancia) directed by Carlos Carrera (Mexico). The jury awarded a special mention to Outbound (Periferic) directed by Bogdan George Apetri.

RESULTS OF THE AUDIENCE POLL

On the night of Sunday/Monday (17/18 October), after adding up the votes of the festival audience, we had the results of the 26th WFF Audience Poll. The winners were:
In the feature film category: Sound of Noise, dir. Ola Simonsson, Johannes Stjärne Nilsson
In the documentary category: Keep Surfing, dir. Björn Richie Lob
In the shorts category: That Thing You Drew, dir. Kerri Davenport-Burton
In the children’s film category: Noémie, The Secret, dir. Frédérik D'Amours
Subsequent places in the Audience Poll went to:

In the feature film category:

2. Brother, dir. Marcel Rasquin
3. The Woman With a Broken Nose, dir. Srđan Koljević
4. When We Leave, dir. Feo Aladag
5. Third Star, dir. Hattie Dalton
6. Incendies, dir. Denis Villeneuve
7. The Drummond Will, dir. Alan Butterworth
8. Soul Boy, dir. Hawa Essuman
9. The Children of Diyarbakir, dir. Miraz Bezar
10. Children of the Green Dragon, dir. Bence Miklauzič

In the documentary category:

2. For Once in My Life, dir. Jim Bigham, Mark Moormann
3. Eye Over Prague, dir. Olga Špátová
4. Bad Girls. Cell 77, dir. Janusz Mrozowski
5. Thieves by Law, dir. Alexander Gentelev
6. Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, dir. Omar Majeed
7. The Game of Death, dir. Christophe Nick, Thomas Bornot
8. My Kidnapper, dir. Kate Horne, Mark Henderson
9. Nyman in Progress, dir. Silvia Beck
10. Bödälä - Dance the Rhythm, dir. Gitta Gsell

INDUSTRY EVENTS
For years now, the WFF has been expanding its professional aspect. This year the festival was accompanied by the following industry events:
- CentEast Market Warsaw – the sixth edition of the film market specializing in Eastern European films; 212 professionals from 22 countries were accredited: producers, distributors, film sales agents, festival programmers from Bratislava, Budapest, Cannes, Cluj Napoca, Haugesund, Karlovy Vary, Kazimierz, Linz, Minsk, New York, Prague, Riga, Sofia, Vladivostok, Vologda, and Wrocław, and representatives of film institutions;
- CentEast Warsaw-Moscow – presentations of selected works-in-progress from Eastern Europe, on 15 October in Warsaw and on 17 October in Moscow at the 2morrow Film Festival:
- Aglaja, dir. Kristina Deák, Hungary / Romania / Poland
- Besporno, dir. Alexander Shapiro, Russia
- Crulic – drumul spre dincolo, dir. Anca Damian, Romania / Poland
- Piko, dir. Tomas Rehorek, Czech Republic
- Pokoleniye P, dir. Victor Ginzburg, Russia
- Wymyk, dir. Greg Zgliński, Poland
- an untitled project directed by Wojciech Smarzowski, Poland
- Warsaw Screenings – screenings of the latest Polish projects, for professionals specially invited to Warsaw;
- FIPRESCI Warsaw Project / Talent Press – a training programme for young film journalists, organized in association with FIPRESCI;
- The Art of Editing – open workshops taught by Poland's leading film editors.

TECHNOLOGY
For the first time in the history of the WFF, most of the films were screened from digital media (Digital Betacam, HD, DCP).
This year we also had our first 3D screening, presenting The City of Ruins. This film, produced by the Warsaw Rising Museum, is a breathtaking digital reconstruction of Warsaw as it looked following its systematic destruction by the Germans after the Warsaw Rising had failed.

TRAILER
This year’s WFF trailer, presenting Warsaw’s modern city centre, was produced by Platige Image. The trailer features a recording of Fryderyk Chopin’s Prelude in F Major, Op. 28 No. 23 made specially for the WFF by the famous pianist Karol Radziwonowicz.

PATRONS, PARTNERS, SPONSORS
The Warsaw Film Festival is held under the honorary patronage of the Mayor of Warsaw.
RWE is the WFF’s strategic partner.
Our sponsors and partners are Empik, Multikino, Złote Tarasy, Twins s.c., and Epson
The technological partner of the WFF is the Plus Network Operator.
The official car of the WFF is the Chevrolet.
Media Partners: Filmweb, Gazeta Wyborcza, Ströer, Trójka, and VIVA television.
The WFF is subsidized by the Warsaw City Office, the Polish Film Institute, and the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.

SEE YOU NEXT YEAR
The 27th Warsaw Film Festival will be held just a year from now, on 7-16 October 2011.