First held in 1997, the Film and Art School Etudes Competition (formerly the Student Etudes Competition) supports the development of novice filmmakers and provides unique opportunity to confront cinematic achievements of students from film schools all around the world. Each year, the winners are chosen by an international jury of acclaimed filmmakers and industry professionals.
The author of the best cinematography wins the coveted László Kovács Student Award – the Golden Tadpole. In addition, the Polish Filmmakers Association (SFP) will present the winner with a cheque for PLN 10,000.
Beyond the main award, the student competition also recognizes the second- and third-place entries with the Silver Tadpole and the Bronze Tadpole respectively.
List of Nominees:
ARE YOU A FRIEND OF DOROTHY?
DIRECTOR: Andrés García Aguirre
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Andres Bernal
SCHOOL: New York Film Academy (NYFA)
COUNTRY AND YEAR: USA, 2024
Set in the 1950s, Detective Neil is tasked with investigating an alleged case of sexual perversion in a quiet apartment complex. A dedicated enforcer of moral purity, Neil believes he is upholding the values of justice, liberty and the American way. However, on arrival at the scene, the case takes a dark turn. A routine investigation escalates into an act of unchecked brutality
DANDELION
DIRECTOR: Fiona Obertinca
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Bruce Puyu Wang
SCHOOL: American Film Institute Conservatory (AFI)
COUNTRY AND YEAR: USA, 2024
In 1970s Los Angeles, a rebellious queer teen is removed from yet another foster placement and finds herself in the company of a mysterious social worker.
EVER AFTER
DIRECTOR: Helen Hideko
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Felix Pochlatko
SCHOOL: Vienna Film Academy – Institute for Film and Television
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Austria, 2025
Belly sinks into the depths of a mysterious underwater garden, the only place she feels free. Above water she is bullied at school, while her mother shows her nothing but tough love. But to truly live in this dark fairy-tale realm, she must grow a mermaid’s fins, a transformation that demands a painful sacrifice.
FATHERS
ORIGINAL TITLE: Otcové
DIRECTOR: Petr Vlček
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Mikuláš Hrdlička
SCHOOL: Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts (FAMU)
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Czech Republic, 2024
In the early 20th century, in a rural village, Lída, a young housewife, is suddenly confronted with the emptiness of her marriage after the death of her illegitimate daughter. To grieve, she must confront her past and find the strength to forgive.
HAIPHONGPOL
ORIGINAL TITLE: Hajfongpol
DIRECTOR: Leon Korzyński
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Witold Prokopczyk
SCHOOL: Warsaw Film School
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Poland, 2025
Drew, a Vietnamese immigrant in Warsaw, spends his days working in his mother’s grocery shop, constrained by her rigid expectations. Behind closed doors, he leads a secret life as a nail artist, crafting intricate designs and breaking cultural taboos. When he meets Bo, a nail artist and owner of a nearby beauty salon, she recognises his talent and spurs him into action.
THE HOTEL
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DIRECTOR: Halil Tanisan
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Halil Tanisan
SCHOOL: Łódź Film School
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Poland, 2025
A man arrives at a desolate hotel, its eerie silence wrapping around him like a warning. As he wanders the dimly lit corridors, he finds no sign of life, only a lone, unattended meal waiting in the dining room, which he decides to eat. By nightfall, violent illness takes hold. In a desperate search for help, he staggers through the hotel’s darkness.
INKUBUS
DIRECTOR: Reza Sam Mosadegh
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Luca Louis Hain
SCHOOL: Hamburg Media School (HMS)
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Germany, 2024
Seventeenth-century Germany: after marrying into a peasant family, Hildegard finds herself caught in a maelstrom of patriarchal and clerical violence. When her stepdaughter, Agnes, draws the attention of the Inquisition to the family, Hildegard must summon the strength to fight for Agnes and, ultimately, for herself.
THE LIGHTNING ROD
ORIGINAL TITLE: Matalapaine
DIRECTOR: Helmi Donner
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Annika Miettinen
SCHOOL: Department of Film (ELO), Aalto University
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Finland, 2025
A young mother, Irina, fleeing a toxic relationship, seeks refuge at her grandmother’s house. Instead of protection, she is met with hostility to her needs. In the midst of a raging summer storm, the two women from different generations must face the consequences of suppressing their feelings for too long.
A MAN FATE FORGOT
DIRECTOR: Jake R. Fuzak
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Yash Bhatnagar
SCHOOL: Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, Chapman University
COUNTRY AND YEAR: USA, 2024
Callous and crippled, former pirate Ed meets Regina, an escaped enslaved woman who offers him justice for his crew, a chance to walk again, and a shot at redemption – in exchange for a favour. After initially refusing, Ed sacrifices himself by securing justice for his crew, freeing Regina, and inspiring her to become a pirate.
MARINA
DIRECTOR: Paoli de Luca
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Francesca Avanzini
SCHOOL: Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia – National Film School (CSC)
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Italy, 2025
Marina, a year after she started her gender transition, spends a summer weekend at her best friend Camilla’s house. Everyone tells her how beautiful she has become, but she doesn’t see herself that way. Instead, she constantly compares her body to Camilla’s, observing and sketching it in her notebook. When Lorenzo arrives at the house with his friends, their impetuous presence severely tests both women and their friendship.
MEMORY MERCHANT
DIRECTOR: Adrian Breza
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Alberts Bērziņš
SCHOOL: Baltic Film, Media and Arts School (BFM) of Tallinn University
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Estonia, 2025
Magnus is seriously ill and needs money. He turns to an auction where people sell their memories to survive. At first, he offers small, simple ones, but they attract no buyers. Frustrated, he approaches the Auction Master to find out what went wrong, and that is when he learns that the system wants more.
NEVERLANDEX
ORIGINAL TITLE: Nibylandex
DIRECTOR: Agata Kapuścińska
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Mateusz Gzel
SCHOOL: Warsaw Film School
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Poland, 2025
Peter is convinced that everything in the outside world will, sooner or later, kill him because of his allergies. He is fed terrifying stories by his overprotective father, who still treats him like a child. The only glimmer of hope comes from the postcards his mother sends as she travels the world treating the very condition that confines him. One day, Peter discovers an old crossword puzzle, setting him on a path to self-reliance.
NOT TO COME BACK
ORIGINAL TITLE: Niepowrót
DIRECTOR: Katarzyna Lewek
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Katarzyna Lewek
SCHOOL: Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School in Katowice
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Poland, 2025
They meet for the first time in years. In the family home, where the past presses in, reality and longing collide.
NS4
DIRECTOR: Paweł Jach
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Paweł Jach
SCHOOL: Łódź Film School
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Poland, 2024
An employee at the National Research Institute NS4 works on projects to safeguard the viability of organic life.
PHOTO PLAY XX
DIRECTOR: Zolomon Zelko
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Max Losson
SCHOOL: Florida State University (FSU) College of Motion Picture Arts
COUNTRY AND YEAR: USA, 2025
A transgender woman who has died by suicide washes up on the shores of the River Styx. As she pays the Ferryman’s toll, she must confront the womanhood she tried to leave behind.
SERVICE
ORIGINAL TITLE: Serwis
DIRECTOR: Michał Edelman
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Nikodem Marek
SCHOOL: Łódź Film School
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Poland, 2024
Piotruś is perpetually broke. By night he fronts an underground band; by day he waits tables in a hotel restaurant. At an exclusive corporate party he is under constant pressure: serving difficult clients, placating his eternally dissatisfied boss, and offloading drugs to Joan, a foreign hotel guest. All while nursing a brutal hangover.
SKIN ON SKIN
DIRECTOR: Simon Schneckenburger
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Nico Schrenk
SCHOOL: Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Germany, 2025
In an industrial slaughterhouse in Germany, Jakob works as a security guard, while Boris, from Bosnia, slaughters pigs. Amid the cold brutality of their surroundings, the two men form a quiet, unspoken bond, united by a shared longing for freedom.
THEY MADE YOU INTO A WEAPON AND TOLD YOU TO FIND PEACE
DIRECTOR: Roxana Stroe
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Antonia Schäfer
SCHOOL: National Film and Television School (NFTS)
COUNTRY AND YEAR: UK, 2025
Inspired by the Lebensborn programme, a lesser-known Nazi initiative during the Second World War, the film reimagines a state-run facility where children are raised under strict ideological control. Lit by UV lamps, this world is seen through the eyes of 11-year-old boy Joshua, whose sense of order is shaken when a newcomer challenges the unspoken rules.
TOUGH LOVE
DIRECTOR: Oisin Mckeogh
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Maiya Rice
SCHOOL: National Film School (NFS) at IADT in Dublin
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Ireland, 2024
After accidentally killing a client, a recently divorced housewife-turned dominatrix must figure out how to get herself out of this mess, all while dealing with her manipulative teenage son.
THE USB PARADOX
DIRECTORS: Felix Foltas, Jonas Perkmann
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Felix Foltas
SCHOOL: Salzburg University of Applied Sciences
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Austria, 2025
When pilot Samantha’s spacecraft is struck by lightning, a system reboot is required. It should be a routine procedure, nothing to panic about. Co-pilot Josh reaches for the system-reboot flash drive and tries to plug it in, but the bloody thing just won’t go in!
WALUD
DIRECTORS: Daood Alabdulaa, Louise Zenker
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Henri Nunn
SCHOOL: University of Television and Film Munich (HFF)
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Germany, Syria, 2024
2014. Amuna and her husband Aziz, an ISIS fighter, live as shepherds in the rural Syrian desert. When he takes a very young European ISIS convert as his second wife, Amuna’s day-to-day life is thrown into turmoil.
WHERE TIME STOOD STILL
ORIGINAL TITLE: Sadac Dro Idga
DIRECTOR: Nino Benashvili
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Shuli Huang
SCHOOL: NYU Tisch School of the Arts
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Georgia, USA, 2024
The ascetic life of a widowed mother and her daughter in an isolated village in the Caucasus Mountains is interrupted by the arrival of a foreign traveller seeking shelter. His presence awakens erotic longing in both women, and after he departs they are left to simmer in guilt.
WHO WE USED TO BE
ORIGINAL TITLE: Wie Es War
DIRECTOR: Lukas Treudler
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Marvin Rizzo
SCHOOL: Hamburg Media School (HMS)
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Germany, 2025
After an accident that leaves Mila paralysed, she and Paul begin to drift apart. Mila focuses on the future, while Paul is haunted by guilt and the past. To save their relationship, they must find a way to reconnect before everything falls apart.