JURY 2021
JURY
Piotr Stasik – Chairman
Born in 1976, director, screenwriter, producer, organiser of cultural activities and sociologist, graduate of the Institute of Applied Social Sciences of the University of Warsaw and of the Documentary Film Programme at the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing. Co-founder and long-time head of "ę" Society of Creative Initiatives. Author of, among other things, 21 x Nowy Jork (2016), nominated for the European Film Award, as well as Dziennik z podróży (2013), Koniec lata (2010) or 7 x Moskwa (2005), awarded at Polish and international festivals.
Patrycja Polkowska
Graduate of Cultural Studies at the University of Warsaw. She studied direction at the Film School in Łódź. She is an author of short documentaries and feature films screened at festivals in Poland and abroad (e.g. Tampere Film Festival, Ji.hlava IDFF, FF Transatlantyk). Her latest documentary, "Efekt halo", was awarded at the OFF Cinema, Spektrum and Etiuda&Anima Festival. She also creates music videos and spots. She is currently working on her full-length feature film debut.
Petr Vlček
Graduate of Polish and film studies at the Faculty of Philosophy of the František Palacký University in Olomouc. From 2007 to 2017, he was the Production Manager of the Academia Film Olomouc popular science film festival, which is the oldest documentary film festival in the Czech Republic. Since 2010, he has also been cooperating with the Summer Film School festival in Uherské Hradiště, one of the oldest and most important film events in the Czech Republic, for which he prepares a selection of Polish films, both recent and classic ones. He organises numerous film events, as part of which reviews of works by the following outstanding Polish filmmakers have been made so far: Agnieszka Holland, Jerzy Hoffman, Janusz Majewski, Marcin Koszalka, Leszek Dawid, Sławomir Fabicki, Magdalena Piekorz, Robert Gliński, Daniel Szczechura, Piotr Dumała, and Mariusz Wilczyński. He organised two great retrospectives on the work of Krzysztof Kieślowski – in 2006 in Olomouc and in 2011 as part of the Summer Film School. He is currently working as the Vice Dean for Student Affairs at FAMU in Prague.
Maciej Cuske – Chairman
He was born in 1972 in Bydgoszcz. He has been making independent films on 8mm and 16mm since secondary school. In 2004, he graduated from the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing. Since then, he has mainly been making documentaries. He is fascinated by ordinary life and constantly looks for uniqueness, humour and warmth in it. Whether it is somewhere far away or just outside the window of his own house, he looks at people in the surrounding reality, finding elements of cinema in their lives. Since 2009, he has been an expert in the Polish Film Institute, he has been conducting film workshops for adults and youth all over Poland; he also co-creates Bydgoszcz Film Chronicle - a place for young artists/cinema enthusiasts in his city. He is a member of the Polish Film Academy and Documentary Filmmakers Guild. He conducted classes on Documentary Filmmaking at the Warsaw Film School. He is a lecturer at the Andrzej Wajda School. He received numerous awards for his films at home and abroad, including the Golden Castle Grand Prix at the 24th IDFF OFF CINEMA in Poznań for the film "Wieloryb z Lorino".
Yifan Sun
Yifan Sun was born and raised in Inner Mongolia, China. She received her B.A. in Film Studies at Beijing Film Academy. She is currently working on her thesis film and is set to graduate from Lodz Film School as soon as the Covid-19 pandemic eases. Her recent short documentary film Family² was a finalist at the 2019 Student BAFTA and won the Gold medal at the 2019 Student Academy Awards. Her previous short fiction film was also selected and screened at various international film festivals. She values tolerance and believes that human feelings are tangible and can be unfolded through films.
Zuzanna Solakiewicz
Author of documentary films: "Kabaret Polska" (2008), "Tak, to jest" (2010), "Jorcajt". (2012). Her full-length documentary debut, "15 stron świata" (2014), won the Critics' Week Award at the Locarno IFF, the Grand Prize at the International Documentary and Short Film Festival in Belgrade, the Young Jury Award and the MUBI Award at the FAME International Film Festival in Paris, as well as a Special Award at the T-Mobile New Horizons Film Festival, IFF Bratislava and the Docs Against Gravity IFF; it was screened at many international festivals as well as distributed on TV and digital platforms.