Directors’ Debuts Competition was initiated in 2010 due to the Festival’s increasing openness to the noteworthy artists and the new film phenomena they create. The selection committee nominates first or second non-documentary feature films made by young directors and cinematographers. The idea of creating additional competition sections was a natural consequence of our previous activities. For years we have been promoting innovative projects that combine intellectual freedom, remarkable insight into world affairs and a desire to inspire other artists of the screen.
Directors’ Debuts Competition brings new discoveries: great movies of high artistic value and great filmmakers whose new ventures surprise not only the Jury members but all audiences around the world as well.
Competition is under the patronage of Polish Filmmakers Association.
BAGGER DRAMA
DIRECTOR: Piet Baumgartner
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Pascal Reinmann
PRODUCTION: Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Switzerland, 2024
A new Heimatfilm with people searching and machines dancing. A family finds it difficult to talk about feelings, love or intimacy. The family business demands their full attention: renting, selling and repairing excavators. Everyone has to pitch in. When the daughter suffers a fatal accident, the family stops functioning. The son would rather go to the USA than take over the company. The father takes a liking to the new choir director, and the mother suddenly finds herself alone.
THE CHRONOLOGY OF WATER
DIRECTOR: Kristen Stewart
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Corey Waters
PRODUCTION: CG Cinéma,Curious Gremlin, Fremantle, Lorem Ipsum, NeverMind Productions, Scala Films, Scott Free Productions, Telekompanija Forma Pro
COUNTRY AND YEAR: USA, France, Latvia, 2025
It might seem that Lidia Yuknavitch, raised in an environment steeped in violence and alcohol, is destined for self-destruction and failure. Yet the written word enters her life, unexpectedly offering an escape into literature. The Chronology of Water is an adaptation of Yuknavitch’s autobiographical bestseller, a story about finding one’s voice and about how traumatic experiences can become a source of creative inspiration by reclaiming the right to tell one’s own painful stories – especially those that concern women and girls.
EAST OF WALL
.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
DIRECTOR: Kate Beecroft
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Austin Shelton
PRODUCTION: Station Road, Stetson's Kingdom
COUNTRY AND YEAR: USA, 2025
East of Wall is an authentic portrait of female resilience in the ‘New West’, inspired and performed by the women and girls who live it. Set in the Badlands of South Dakota, Tabatha, a young, rebellious rancher who rescues and resells horses, must make hard choices to deal with her fractured family, financial uncertainty and unresolved grief, all while providing refuge for a group of wayward neighbourhood teenagers.
ELEANOR THE GREAT
DIRECTOR: Scarlett Johansson
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Hélene Louvart
PRODUCTION: Dauphin Films, Maven Pictures, Pinky Promise, These Pictures, Wayfarer Studios
COUNTRY AND YEAR: USA, 2025
Eleanor Morgenstein has always stayed engaged and connected to the people around her. So, after a devastating loss, she relocates from Florida to New York City to live with her daughter and grandson, hoping to reconnect with her family. Instead, she feels even more adrift and invisible. One day she unknowingly wanders into a support group where she doesn’t quite belong, only to reveal a story that unwittingly brings her a level of attention she did not intend. Eleanor finds herself caught up in the enlivening consequences as a young journalism student pursues her as a friend and mentor. When things go too far, Eleanor must confront the truth. In her directorial debut, Scarlett Johansson brings together themes of ageing, family, loss and what constitutes deceit, as this story of friendship and past turns into a profound tale of complicated humanity.
GIRL
ORIGINAL TITLE: Nǚhái
DIRECTOR: Qi Shu
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jing-Pin Yu
PRODUCTION: Mandarin Vision
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Taiwan, China, 2025
Taiwan, 1988. Hsiao-lee, a quiet and withdrawn girl, grows up in silent gloom. Her encounter with Li-li – vibrant and carefree – reawakens long-buried dreams. But just as she begins to open up to the world, her mother’s past resurfaces, mirroring her own pain. Caught between inherited sorrow and a longing for freedom, Hsiao-lee must navigate the shadows of a life she never chose.
IF I HAD LEGS I'D KICK YOU
DIRECTOR: Mary Bronstein
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Christopher Messina
PRODUCTION: A24, Bronxburgh, Central Pictures, Fat City
COUNTRY AND YEAR: USA, 2025
If you feel like the world is out to get you, you’re falling behind and have too much on your plate, remember: others have it worse. Linda teeters on the edge between duty and exhaustion, between the comforting illusion of routine and chaos. Her daughter needs constant care, her husband is absent, her job is crushing her and the ceiling is quite literally falling down. The therapist rolls his eyes; the institutions pile on obstacles… The whirl of everyday life turns into an untamed existential nightmare. No wonder that, if she only could and found the time, she’d kick everyone and everything in a fit of helpless rage.
REEDLAND
.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
ORIGINAL TITLE: Rietland
DIRECTOR: Sven Bresser
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Sam du Pon
PRODUCTION: Viking Film
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Netherlands, Belgium, 2025
When reed-cutter Johan discovers the lifeless body of a girl on his land, he is overcome with a conflicted sense of guilt. While caring for his granddaughter, he sets out on a quest to track down evil. But darkness can thrive in unexpected places.
SAND CITY
ORIGINAL TITLE: Balur Nogorite
DIRECTOR: Mahde Hasan
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Mathieu Giombini
PRODUCTION: Cinema Cocoon, Khona Talkies
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Bangladesh, 2025
Two parallel stories about two individuals: an indigenous woman and a man from the majority population. They are not directly connected; the only thing they share is sand. Emma, the film’s protagonist, collects sand for her cat litter. Each week she sets out on her scooter and picks up a litter’s worth of sand. One day she discovers a severed finger in the sand, its nail painted crimson. Rather than panicking, she gradually develops an unusual attachment to the lone finger. Hasan, meanwhile, works in a glassworks. He steals silica sand and other valuable materials from the plant to make glass at home and dreams of building his own massive glass factory. What begins as a solitary activity soon becomes a fantasy that gradually destroys him.
SOLITARY
.jpg&w=3840&q=100)
DIRECTOR: Eamonn Murphy
CINEMATOGRAPHER: David Christopher Lynch
PRODUCTION: Prophecy Films Limited
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Ireland, 2025
In rural Ireland, Brendan, a widowed farmer, lives a quiet life on the edge of a village. When his home is broken into, a growing sense of fear and isolation takes hold. As violence touches the community and trust in the system fades, Brendan must confront what it means to feel safe, to grow old and to be truly alone.
TRUTH & TREASON
DIRECTOR: Matt Whitaker
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Bianca Cline
PRODUCTION: Kaleidoscope Pictures
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Lithuania, USA, 2025
In the heart of Nazi Germany, 16-year-old Helmuth Hübener is living on borrowed time. Armed with nothing but a typewriter and the truth, he wages a silent war against Hitler’s regime – deciphering enemy broadcasts, smuggling classified intelligence and dismantling the Nazi empire from the inside. Now, with his every move being watched, he must outrun, outthink and outmanoeuvre one of the most ruthless secret police forces in history.