The Main Competition with the Golden Frog Award has been the most important part of the EnergaCAMERIMAGE Festival from its beginning. The Competition exists since 1993 i.e. since the first edition of the Festival. From the very beginning the idea behind the competition is to present the feature films where the image significantly contributes to the way a story is told. The visual value of these films results from the cooperation between a director and a cinematographer and the unusual sensitivity of the author of a film image. The Main Competition emphasizes the enormous contribution of the cinematographer to the film work.

The aim of the Main Competition is to present films with unique visual appeal which will then be evaluated by International Jury who will choose and award the authors of the best cinematography.

Also this year we will present the most interesting phenomena of world's cinematography, distinctive in terms of creative use of the image in film narration.

ANIMALS

Where does human tendency to violence against the unfamiliar come from? What makes a young man, brought up with the values of his parents, turn into a monster at some point? This is not a kind of a story you might expect. Thirty-year-old Brahim would like to celebrate his beloved mother’s birthday, but he feels uncomfortable among his parents’ friends and neighbours. Some of them know, or at least suspect, that Brahim is homosexual, however, it is difficult to determine to what extent the glances cast in his direction are the result of disgust with this fact. Brahim wants to clear his head and come out of the closet and tell everyone once and for all that he loves men and that it does not make him a different person. After he realises that nothing will come of it that night, he leaves the party disappointed, only to run into four brutal homophobes who abduct him, throw him into their car and begin to torture him. Brahim needs to find a way to somehow get out of that situation.

Director: Nabil Ben Yadir
Cinematographer: Frank van den Eeden
Produced by: 10.80 Films, a team productions bvba, Les Films du Fleuve
Country and year: Belgium, France, 2021

BELFAST

photo by Rob Youngson / Focus Features

While the world celebrates astronauts landing on the Moon, the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland, becomes a war zone in August 1969, with two fractions fighting each other about the issue of being part of the United Kingdom. We observe this through the eyes of three generations of one Protestant family which lives in a rented house near one of the conflict zones. With a special focus on the perspective of nine-year-old Buddy who is not able to grasp why his neighbours turned into blood-thirsty mob who torch down some of the houses. The boy knows that this is something quite important, and that it will shape his future self, but he just cannot bring himself to worry about it as much as his school crush, who doesn’t seem to be interested in him at all. Not to mention the fact that his parents are apparently seriously considering moving to England, or even further – across the ocean. Buddy tries to find courage to deal with all of this in his mother’s quiet strength, his father’s cheerful attitude, and the life lessons he hears from his grandparents.

Director: Kenneth Branagh
Cinematographer: Haris Zambarloukos
Produced by: TKBC
Polish distributor: UIP Polska
Country and year: UK, 2021

C'MON C'MON

Johnny is a radio journalist who is somewhat confused and has lost track of who he is. He travels from one American city to another to talk with young people about their fears and expectations of the future. He finds comfort and hope in how they discuss their ideas. One day he is asked by his estranged sister to take care of his nine-year-old nephew Jesse, as she has to go help her ex-husband, whom she still loves, to pull himself together. After the initial problems with expressing their emotions Jesse and Johnny learn to get along just fine. However, when Jesse’s mother’s stay prolongs indefinitely, Johnny is forced to take Jesse with him on a trip through United States to finish his radio project. Jesse meets his uncle’s friends and helps him prepare for the interviews. The result is, they both learn a lot from one another, especially Johnny who gets fascinated by his eccentric and intelligent nephew’s way of looking at life. The lessons they learn will change them forever.

Director: Mike Mills
Cinematographer: Robbie Ryan
Produced by: A24 Films, Be Funny When You Can
Polish distributor: GUTEK Film
Country and year: USA, 2021

DUNE

Sometime in the distant future, a galaxy monstrously far away from the Solar System is ravaged by a war for dominance in the intergalactic Empire. Its epicentre is Arrakis, an unhospitable planet ruled by gigantic sand worms and the Fremen who have learned to co-exist with the giant beasts. The planet is extremely valuable due to its unlimited deposits of the so-called spice melange, the most important commodity in the known universe that enables both interdimensional space travel and powerful mind-altering abilities including prescience. A few centuries before, the stewardship of the planet was given to the House Harkonnen that ruled Arrakis with terror, though now House Atreides is about to take control. They are far more reasonable and diplomatic; they would like to include the Fremen in their plans. Duke Leto Atreides arrives on the planet with his concubine Lady Jessica, his son Paul, and his trusted companions, not knowing that the balance of the universe will soon be threatened by forces internal and external. Especially that Paul seems to be the only one able to earn the Fremens’ trust.

Polish title: Diuna
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Cinematographer: Greig Fraser
Produced by: Legendary Entertainment, Villeneuve Films, Warner Bros. Studios
Polish distributor: Warner Bros. International
Country and year: USA, 2021

EIGHT FOR SILVER

Though the film begins in 1916, during the horrific bloodshed that was the Battle of the Somme, the most brutal battle of World War I, the actual plot revolves around the events almost four decades earlier. The end of the 19th century, wealthy estate owner Seamus Laurent does not care about the laments of the Roma people who claim the lands they occupy were theirs for centuries. When he tries to scare them off, a bloody massacre follows. One of the women, just before her dying breath, curses the Laurent family and the whole area. Seamus is not someone who takes such things seriously, but when the local children, including his own, start to have gruesome nightmares and the air fills with dread and suspicion, the man has to reconsider his worldview. People begin to whisper of a hideous beast who lives in the forest and viciously tears apart both the innocent and the guilty, and that in turn attracts a certain mysterious man who is a specialist in the occult. Will he be able to rescue the Laurents? And what does it all have to do with World War I?

Director: Sean Ellis
Cinematographer: Sean Ellis
Produced by: LD Entertainment, Piste Rouge
Country and year: USA, France, 2021

FRENCH DISPATCH, THE

Photo Courtesy of Searchlight Pictures.
© 2020 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation All Rights Reserved

From the visionary mind of Academy Award® nominee Wes Anderson, The French Dispatch brings to life a collection of stories from the final issue of an American magazine published in a fictional 20th-century French city. On the occasion of the death of its beloved Kansas-born editor Arthur Howitzer, Jr., the staff of “The French Dispatch”, a widely circulated American magazine based in the French city of Ennui-sur-Blasé, convenes to write his obituary. Memories of Howitzer flow into the creation of four stories: a travelogue of the seediest sections of the city itself from The Cycling Reporter; “The Concrete Masterpiece,” about a criminally insane painter, his guard and muse, and his ravenous dealers; “Revisions to a Manifesto,” a chronicle of love and death on the barricades at the height of student revolt; and “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner,” a suspenseful tale of drugs, kidnapping and fine dining.

Polish title: Kurier Francuski z Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun
Director: Wes Anderson
Cinematographer: Robert D. Yeoman
Produced by: American Empirical Pictures, Indian Paintbrush, Studio Babelsberg
Polish distributor: The Walt Disney Company Polska
Country and year: Germany, USA, 2021

GETAWAY KING, THE

The communist era of the Polish People’s Republic is famous for the dullness and mundanity of life. In that country everyone felt as if they were in prison, shops were permanently short of goods, and only films and TV series from the mythical West - or at least those that were allowed to be screened in Poland - brought the desired escape only for a short moment. But what if we changed the way we think about that time and talk about the joys and sorrows of the PPR from the point of view of a man who did not trouble himself with any arbitrary limitations, and just lived as if there were none? A man who lied, cheated and was notorious for showing the authorities the middle finger, but who never resorted to violence and had managed to preserve his respect for human life? A man who showed off whenever he could, liked to have fun, and who was able to escape from any prison or a well-guarded court room? Yes, there really was such a man, his name was Zdzisław Najmrodzki, and he was known as the local prince of thieves and master of escapes, while his misdemeanours went down in history. And this is his (largely) true story.

Original title: Najmro. Kocha, kradnie, szanuje
Director: Mateusz Rakowicz
Cinematographer: Jacek Podgórski
Produced by: TFP
Polish distributor: Dystrybucja Mówi Serwis
Country and year: Poland, 2021

HINTERLAND

When World War I is officially declared as finished, the real nightmare begins for each and every surviving soldier who travels back home. They find the world drastically changed from what they have imagined and it doesn’t give them much needed mental comfort after horrors of war. Peter Perg is one such soldier, a veteran and a former prisoner of Russian labour camps. He comes back to Vienna with a group of his physically and mentally exhausted friends just to discover that they are not welcomed, as if their very existence was a painful reminder of the world gone by. They observe in horror how the city that was once the crown jewel of the Austro-Hungarian Empire has become but a shadow of its former glory. Peter realises that he has to look to the future and not get carried away by the nostalgia for the past. While trying to find something he could do in that city seemingly made of scars that he calls his home, he gets recruited by a team of investigators who are on the trail of a vicious serial killer. As it turns out the man has a penchant for murdering veterans of World War I…

Polish title: Miasto wyklętych
Director: Stefan Ruzowitzky
Cinematographer: Benedict Neuenfels
Produced by: Amour Fou Luxembourg, FreibeuterFilm GmbH
Country and year: Austria, Luxembourg, 2021

KING RICHARD

Richard Williams did not have an easy life – he grew up in a world in which having a black skin meant being inferior, no matter what one’s ambitions and talents may be. Hardly surprising then, that the man desperately wants his children to grow up in a more open and inclusive world. He is unlike many other parents, who at some point of their lives have to give up on their ambitions and are simply content with the fact they have raised their children to be good human beings. Richard has a plan that he begins to put into effect even before his daughters, future tennis champions Venus and Serena, are born. Then, with the girls growing up and becoming strong and independent women, Richard by-passes any doors that were slammed shut in his face by going in through the windows. He largely ignores what white coaches tell him, and he pushes his daughters to break every mental and physical barrier they encounter. Finally, Richard succeeds, and it is up to the viewer to judge everything he had to do to make his dream come true.

Polish title: King Richard: Zwycięska rodzina
Director: Reinaldo Marcus Green
Cinematographer: Robert Elswit
Produced by: Overbrook Entertainment, Star Thrower Entertainment, Warner Bros. Pictures, Westbrook Studios
Polish distributor: Warner Bros. International
Country and year: USA, 2021

LAST DUEL, THE

photo by Patrick Redmond.
© 2021 20th Century Studios. All Rights Reserved.

From 20th Century Studios and visionary filmmaker Ridley Scott comes The Last Duel, a gripping tale of betrayal and vengeance set against the brutality of 14th century France. Based on actual events, the historical epic unravels long-held assumptions about France’s last sanctioned duel between Jean de Carrouges and Jacques Le Gris, two friends turned bitter rivals.

Polish title: Ostatni pojedynek
Director: Ridley Scott
Cinematographer: Dariusz Wolski
Produced by: 20th Century Studios, Pearl Street Films, Scott Free Productions, TSG Entertainment
Polish distributor: The Walt Disney Company Polska
Country and year: USA, UK, 2021

LAST EXECUTION, THE

Franz graduated from college and dreams about a career at a university as well as a peaceful life at his girlfriend’s side, but he is fully aware of the fact that such a life is beyond his reach. Or maybe not? He is not an opportunist, nor is he interested in the political struggle between East and West Germany, but when he is offered an opportunity to get his dream job at a university and earn a decent living, he agrees without hesitation. What he has to do in return is to work for a year for the Stasi Security Service which is responsible for national security. Franz obediently follows every order he gets while daydreaming of a new house he will buy for his girlfriend; therefore, he does not see that he is like the frog from the story that is thrown into water that is gradually heated to a boiling point. When Franz is sent on a secret mission to West Germany, he realises the extent of the illusion he has been living in so far.

Original title: Nahschuss
Director: Franziska Stünkel
Cinematographer: Nikolai von Graevenitz
Produced by: C-Films Deutschland GmbH, Franks Filmproduktion, Network Movie Film-und Fernsehproduktion
Country and year: Germany, 2021

RESPECT

photo by Quantrell D. Colbert

The film tells the story of twenty years in the life of Aretha Franklin, the legendary American singer known as “the Queen of Soul.” It begins in 1952 when the young Aretha sings gospel in a church choir and tries to cope any way she can with the many fights she has at home with her parents. We observe her as she slowly acquires her international recognition with hit songs, , as well as struggles of toxic relationships throughout her life. In the meantime, we watch the successive steps she took to become a star, and how she was changed by the proud and dominating men who projected their inner demons and ambitions onto her. We also see how she tried to promote the civil rights movement, how she dealt with the ups and downs of her career, how she sang her heart and guts out, and how she ended up in the clutches of alcoholic addiction. This is a story of a girl who became a true star but fought for the rest of her life to stay her former self.

Director: Liesl Tommy
Cinematographer: Kramer Morgenthau
Produced by: Bron Studios, CineSite, Creative Wealth Media Finance, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
Polish distributor: Forum Film Poland
Country and year: Canada, USA, 2021

TRAGEDY OF MACBETH, THE

This is a new cinematic interpretation of a timeless Shakespearean drama. Distinguished Scottish leader Macbeth returns home completely exhausted with yet another war won in the name of the King. On his way back he meets three witches who tell him that he will soon become the next King of Scotland, and who are so persuasive with their prophesy that the poor power-hungry Macbeth believes every word they say. With the help of his wife, Lady Macbeth, he plans and carries out a successful assassination of King Duncan, thus fulfilling the prophecy. When he becomes king, he does everything in his power to get rid of all potential candidates to the throne. He is so determined to reach his goal that it becomes an obsession. Not only does Macbeth believe everyone wishes to kill him, but he also sees curious visions that remind him of all the sinful deeds he had done while driven by his ambition. Is Macbeth really losing his mind, or is this his instinct telling him that he needs to survive at all costs? Lady Macbeth, too, begins to experience horrible visions, and when she is not able to cope with them, she turns her husband’s already troubled life into living hell.

Director: Joel Coen
Cinematographer: Bruno Delbonnel
Produced by: IAC Films
Country and year: USA, 2021