PLUS CAMERIMAGE
16th International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography

November 29th to December 6th

The Grand Theatre will again become the Festival Centre and the Lodz Community Centre (R. Traugutta 18) will turn into a parallel Centre of the Festival, having been chosen as the seat of the brand-new Documentary Film Section. Screenings will also be located at the Charlie Cinema (Piotrkowska 203/205) and the Silver Screen multiplex (Piłsudskiego 5).

The PLUS CAMERIMAGE 2008 Festival programme will abound in a wide variety of riveting film themes. The Festival’s repertoire will include regular programme items such as Main Competition, Polish Films Competition, Student Etudes Competition, workshops, seminars, modern film equipment and technologies presentations as well as meetings with eminent cinema personalities. As every year, attendees will be treated to the Festival laureates’ oeuvre and the European film industry achievements, including those of Poland.

This year they will be thrilled with the momentum and diversity of the documentary film section, which was launched at the 15th anniversary edition of the Festival. The opportunity to visit a unique film equipment exhibition featuring the latest accomplishments of the world’s biggest producers will constitute an unquestionable asset of PLUS CAMERIMAGE 2008.


More detailed information about the specific parts of the program will be published at a later date. Please note that the following outline programme may be extended and the details regarding the already existing points may change.


THE PRELIMINARY PROGRAM OF PLUS CAMERIMAGE 2008 INCLUDES:

Main Competition
From among all the submitted entries, the Selection Committee will choose about 15 feature films produced in 2007 and 2008 that will take part in the competition. The submission deadline was September 5th. During the Festival the chosen movies will be judged by an international Jury who will select the winner of the Golden Frog. The Jury will consist of world-acclaimed directors, cinematographers, film critics and other representatives of the film industry.

Student Etudes Competition
A competition of etudes selected from submissions sent by film schools from all over the world. Films that will not make it into the competition but still possess high visual values will be presented within the Student Etude Panorama. The competing films will be judged by an international Jury comprised of recognised personages of film industry: cinematographers, directors and other professionals. The screenings of student etudes will be traditionally held on Wednesday, December 3rd. The author of the best student cinematography will be granted the Laszlo Kovacs Student Award - Golden Tadpole.

Polish Films Competition under the patronage of Plus network operator
This section of PLUS CAMERIMAGE will present around 8 recent Polish films produced in 2008. The selection process of the Competition has been closed on September 30th. During the Festival, selected movies will be judged by members of an international Jury. The aim of the competition is to confront our domestic productions with the opinion of foreign artists, professionals and other experts.

Documentary Films Competition "Image of the World - World in Images"
Documentary films will compete at the Plus Camerimage Festival for the first time. The competition is organised by Plus Camerimage and Discovery Networks Central Europe. The aim of this brand-new section is to recognise the documentary film as a creative interpretation of reality. The International Jury will evaluate the best achievements in the field of cinematography putting an emphasis on the visual and aesthetic aspects of a work and will grant honorary awards to cinematographers of the best films: the Grand Prix of Documentary Film Competition - Golden Frog and the Main Prize of Documentary Films Competition - Plus Camerimage Statuette.
The new section, under the name "Image of the World - World in Images", will consist of the competition for the best documentary film, special screenings of documentary productions from different parts of the world and also workshops led by professionals in this field. The organisers will invite world-acclaimed producers who will give a series of seminars on creating and producing documentary films.

Oscar Winning Documentaries
"Oscar Winning Documentaries", being part of the Documentary Section of PLUS CAMERIMAGE, is organised in cooperation with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It is a selection of short and feature documentary films to win the Oscar® for documentary filmmaking since the category was established by the Academy in 1941. The whole project "Oscar's Docs 1941 - 1997 Series" is a special retrospective organised by the AMPAS and it features the best prints available in the documentary collection of the Academy Film Archive. Very often they are newly struck or restored editions. Together with the Archive's Director, Mike Pogorzelski and the Archive's Documentary Curator, Ed Carter, Plus Camerimage organizers selected 13 films which tell their stories in an exciting visual way. The review becomes an important part of the Plus Camerimage documentary section "Image of the World - World in Images".

Milestones of Polish Artistic Documentary Film
The history of Polish artistic documentary film dates back to the post-war period and in the ensuing 50 years it has revealed many superlative film-makers and their works. The Festival’s organisers aim at promoting the finest achievements of Polish documentarians among the Plus Camerimage international audience. The films to be presented are, inter alia, Kazimierz Karabasz’s much awarded The Musicians, Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Talking Heads, Marcel Łoziński’s Oscar nominee 89mm from Europe and Jacek Bławut’s The Abnormal, a film hailed at the 1990 Gdynia Polish Feature Film Festival as the biggest artistic event.

The review screenings will be honoured with the presence of the doyen of Polish documentary film, Kazimierz Karabasz, who will receive the Special Award for Outstanding Achievements in Documentary Filmmaking, the first Plus Camerimage award in this category.

Nokia Mobile Movie Competition
Everyone interested in film is able to take part in Nokia Mobile Movie Competition by sending the organizers the applications. Basing on the materials submitted, ten finalists will be chosen by the Director of the Festival and given multimedia computers Nokia N96 to make their short films (50-150 sec.) during the 16th edition of Plus Camerimage. The topic is Chasing the Dreams. All movies will be presented at the Grand Theatre and at www.nokia.pl/filmy website. The winners will be announced at the Closing Ceremony of Plus Camerimage.
Inquiries about the Competition: daria@camerimage.pl, phone: +48 56 62 100 19 ext.106, fax: +48 56 652 21 79; Submission deadline: October 31th

Pierre Lhomme Retrospective
We will revisit selected works of this year’s laureate of the Lifetime Achievement Award. Pierre Lhomme, AFC, cinematographer for such films as Le Divorce, Cyrano de Bergerac, Camille Claudel, Four Nights of a Dreamer, received seven nominations for a César Award and was granted this French award twice. He is also a laureate of the Technical Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival (1990), the BSC Award (1991), the BAFTA Award (1992) and the Premio Gianni di Venanzo in 2005. He is also the Honorary President of the AFC (French Association of Cinematographers). Within the retrospective of his movies Plus Camerimage organisers plan to present among others Cyrano de Bergerac starring Gerard Depardieu.
The upcoming edition of Plus Camerimage will give an opportunity to make oneself acquainted not only with his great films but also with an album on the laureate’s life and professional output specially published for that occasion.

Andrzej Żuławski Retrospective
At this year’s Festival the Lifetime Achievement Award to the Polish Director with Unique Visual Sensitivity, the same as the one given last year to Roman Polański, will be presented to Andrzej Żuławski, one of the most remarkable and controversial Polish directors. Żuławski, who produced most of his films abroad, has made 12 features, the best part of which has been critically acknowledged as brilliant. He has also published 20 books, deemed by wordsmiths intellectually sophisticated. His international renown came mostly with the films whose original, expressive style stirs extreme emotions in the spectators. Żuławski is an eminent figure in the contemporary cinema, who for years has been struggling with his maladaptation to the surrounding reality. It is his swim against the tide that has brought him the most outstanding results. Owing to films such as Trzecia część nocy, Diabeł or Possession , film critics touted him as a revelation.

Sir Alan Parker Retrospective
Lifetime Achievement Award to the Director with Unique Visual Sensitivity will be presented to Sir Alan Parker, director of such films as Mississippi Burning and Midnight Express or Birdy. He was a founding member of the Directors' Guild of Great Britain. By the British Academy he was honored with the prestigious Michael Balcon Award for outstanding contribution to British cinema. In 1998 Parker accepted the Chairmanship of the British Film Institute, and in 1999 he was handed the first chairmanship of the British Film Council. Sir Alan Parker has also lectured at film schools around the world. Most renowned achievements of Sir Alan Parker will be presented at the Festival in the review of his films, photography exhibition of the stills from his movies and photos from the set taken by different photographers, and an album on his life and work specially published by Plus Camerimage organisers.

Special Award to the Producer
This year will see the introduction of the Special Award to the Producer that will be presented to a person whose film achievements pointing to his visual sensitivity earned him a significant place in the history of cinema. The award will be granted to Jeremy Thomas - producer who during his long-time career many times collaborated with director Bernardo Bertulucci, and their fruitful cooperation was crowned with the 1988 Oscar award for Best Film - The Last Emperor. Thomas also produced the remarkable works of David Croneberg - Naked Lunch and Crash. Moreover, he funded the films of Stephen Frears, Karel Reisz, Volker Schlondorff, Bob Rafelson, Jerzy Skolimowski and Jonathan Glazer. While filming Nagisa Oshima’s Taboo and Takeshi Kitano’s magnificent Brother he had the opportunity to work with Japanese film-makers. In 1996 the European Film Academy granted him the European Film Award for his contribution to world cinema.


The remaining recipients of Plus Camerimage 2008 awards such as Krzysztof Kieslowski Award, Duo Award: Cinematographer - Director will also be announced at a later date.

Romanian, Portuguese and Slovak Film Review
The review of cinematographic works of a given European country (or region), being an essential section of the annual Plus Camerimage programme, intends to bring the international audience closer to the contemporary cinema of the Old Continent. This year we will present several dozen of the most interesting film productions from Romania, Portugal and Slovakia made in recent years. The screenings will be complemented by meetings with film-makers from the aforementioned countries. The film reviews come into being with the support of diplomatic institutions of the above countries.

Slovak Film Review is organized with support of Slovak Institute in Warsaw (Slovenský Inątitút) and the Slovak Film Institute (Slovenský Filmový Ústav). A great part of the review will be devoted to the ouvre of Dusan Hanák, described as one of the most original European documentarians, whose films are layered with provocation, satire and peculiar poetics that combines documentary and feature genres. The Festival will show, inter alia, Pictures of the Old World, a film that had been put on the shelf for 17 years and after its 1991 premiere garnered an Oscar nomination and won several awards at international festivals, I Love, You Love, which was also withheld from release for almost 8 years and afterwards collected the Silver Bear at the Berlin Festival, and Paper Heads (1995) - a feature-length documentary that records a happening organised during the first May Day celebrations after the fall of communism. The Slovak Film Review will be accompanied by an exhibition of Slovak film posters at the Museum of Cinematography (Pl. Zwycięstwa 1).

The Romanian productions will feature this year’s Oscar candidate for Best Foreign Language Film, The Rest Is Silence directed by Nae Caranfil and photographed by Marius Panduru. The Festival will be attended by cinematographer Tudor Lacaciu who is to present his two latest films, Boogie (2008) and The Paper Will Be Blue (2006). The Romanian Film Review is prepared in cooperation with the Romanian Society of Cinematographers RSC, which was founded this year.

Manoel de Oliveira Retrospective
A great part of the Portuguese Film Review will be dedicated to one of the most remarkable exponents of the Iberian cinema. This distinguished director will be celebrating his 100th birthday this December. To honour the exceptional jubilee, the Director of the Festival has planned a review of Oliveira’s major film accomplishments. The Festival will revisit 9 of his films: inter alia Magic Mirror, Belle toujours (a continuation of Luis Buñuel’s 1967 Belle de jour set nearly 40 years after the events of the original film), Abraham Valley, an updated Portuguese version of Madame Bovary, and I'm Going Home. In 2004 Manoel de Oliveira became the laureate of the Plus Camerimage Lifetime Achievement Award to the Director with Unique Visual Sensitivity. The review is orgaised in coperation with Portuguese Embassy in Warsaw, Institute of Camões (Instituto Camões) and the Portuguese Society of Cinematographers AIP (Associação De Imagem Portuguesa AIP)

Animation Review
This section had its debut at the last edition of the Festival and was highly acclaimed by the audience. At this year’s Plus Camerimage we will present the films awarded at the previous editions of the Ottawa International Animation Festival.

Workshops and seminars
These events organised at the Festival provide a great opportunity for a direct contact with world-acclaimed cinematographers, directors, editors and other professionals of the film industry. It is possible to watch them at work, observe their attitude towards their profession, and, what is most important, learn from them. During the history of the Festival workshops and seminars have been led by such famous filmmakers as Laszlo Kovacs, Billy Williams, Chris Doyle, Michael Tronick, Manoel de Oliveira, Andrzej Żuławski, Oliver Stapleton, Krzysztof Zanussi, Dick Pope, Phedon Papamichael, Sławomir Idziak, Margarethe von Trotta and Franz Rath.

This year they will traditionally be located at the Festival Centre and the Opus Film Studio, as well as at the Editing Studio of the Łódź Film School. Among others, Panavision workshops and Arri worshops will be led by the outstanding professionals. A detailed programme of workshops and seminars at Plus Camerimage 2008 will be announced at a later date.

Plus Camerimage Market
The show and presentation of film equipment and technologies was, for the first time, made available not only to the festival audience but also to the general public two years ago. It has been held every year in the Festival Centre at the Grand Theatre in Łódź and it has been a great opportunity to acquaint oneself with products and technologies at the stands of such companies as ARRI, Panavision, P+S Technik, MAT, K5600, Sony, Nokia, Sachtler, Technocrane, LCA, Finn Light as well as during the presentations of Kodak, Framestore, Discovery, Technicolor, Color By Deluxe, Osram, Quantel and others. Plus Camerimage Market is a unique presentation of the latest achievements of film industry companies, the only exhibition of this kind in Poland. We invite everyone to the Market at the upcoming edition of the Plus Camerimage Festival to the Festival Centre to get acquainted with modern technologies used in filmmaking.

ISOBEL CAMPBELL and MARK LANEGAN - opening concert of the 16th Plus Camerimage
The most electrifying, magnetic and sensuous duo of the last decade will give their first and only concert in Poland on November 29th. The performance will provide a musical setting for the opening of the 16th Plus Camerimage Festival in Łódź. These two artists contrast so sharply that their gender difference seems trifle. She: a Scottish singer and cellist with a soft voice halfway to a murmur. Once a member of Belle & Sebastian, noted for intelligent songs for sensitive hearts. He: a Californian, former singer of the grunge legend, Screaming Trees, an occasional member of Queens Of The Stone Age, tattooed, sombre, dark-souled, or at least seemingly so. His incredible, hypnotic timbre makes the list of those who want to collaborate with him on their albums and those who have had the opportunity to work with him truly impressive.
The concert at the Arthur Rubinstein Łódź Philharmonic Concert Hall will be one of the biggest musical events of this autumn.

Mug Shots Exhibition
33 mug shots taken in the years 1912 to 1948 by anonymous photographers, portraying Sydney’s thieves, frauds, prostitutes, murderers, drug traffickers, procurers, fences or gamblers will be displayed at the exhibition entitled City of Shadows. Mug-Shots. Early 20th Century Police Photography, Sydney, Australia. Several tons of the mug shot negatives were saved from a flooded police warehouse in Lidcombe, a suburb of Western Sydney, around 1990. The photographs were first exhibited in November 2005 at the Justice & Police Museum in Sydney. In Poland, the mug shots were presented by Yours Gallery in Warsaw at the beginning of 2008. The exhibition aroused a great interest. Plus Camerimage 2008 gives Lodz citizens and the Festival’s international audience an opportunity to admire these unique photographs put on show at the Lodz Community Centre (R. Traugutta 18).