Editor

The 2. American Film Festival will take place on 15-20 Nov in Wrocław, Poland. This year’s festival will screen 76 films, including 40 Polish and 6 European premieres. The festival’s full program can be found on the website www.americanfilmfestival.pl.

The Highlights section will feature latest hits starring top US actors. The opening film will be Todd Solondz’s newest film, Dark Horse, which competed in the main competition in Venice this year. Mr. Solondz will be present in Wrocław for his directorial retrospective.
The audience in Wrocław will be the first one in Poland to see the latest films from Gus Van Sant (Restless), Kevin Smith (Red State) and Miranda July (The Future). Other highlights will be the tragicomedy Jack Goes Boating - Philip Seymour Hoffman’s directorial debut, Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine starring Ryan Gosling and Oscar-nominated Michelle Williams, and the star-studded (Keira Knightley, Eva Mendes, Sam Worthington) Last Night. The closing film will be Whit Stillman’s quirky comedy Damsels in Distress, which was also the closing film of the Venice IFF this year.
In the competitive Spectrum section, the audience will enjoy Michael Di Jiacomo’s Somewhere Tonight starring John Turturro - a film about a couple of New York loners, who meet over a sex phone. Other films in this section will be Alison Bagnall’s The Dish and the Spoon with a great performance of America’s rising star, Greta Gerwig, as well as William Eubank’s Love – a metaphysical film about loneliness, often compared to Duncan Jones’ Moon.
The competitive documentary section American Docs will feature SXSW’s audience award winner Marwencol by Jeff Malmberg and The Other F-Word by Andrea Blaugrund. This year’s films will explore phenomena such as exploitation cinema (American Grindhouse with appearances by Quentin Tarantino). This section will also show Errol Morris’ latest provocative film Tabloid. Another film on the subject of media is Andrew Rossi’s Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times.
2.AFF will also tribute established masters, such as this year’s Cannes winner Terrence Malick and the Polish-born, six time Oscar winner Billy Wilder. The festival programmers will also put the spotlight on one of the most prolific young US filmmakers – mumblecore’s prime representative – Joe Swanberg. This retrospective salute marks a first ever for Swanberg who will come to Wrocław to introduce and discuss his films.
The festival will also show Nicolas Ray’s last experimental film We Can't Go Home Again, reconstructed by the director’s wife, Susan.
Festival Passes (170 PLN/ca. 40 EUR) are on sale until 6 Nov. Online ticket sales goes live on 3 Nov.