This year’s 34th ToruńCAMERIMAGE Festival takes place ten years after the death of Andrzej Wajda, one of the giants of cinema, an Oscar® winner and the director of such films as Kanal, Ashes and Diamonds, The Promised Land, Man of Marble and Katyn. To honour his legacy and mark the anniversary, the Senate of the Republic of Poland has declared 2026 the Year of Andrzej Wajda.
A leading figure of the Polish Film School, Wajda was a frequent guest at CAMERIMAGE. In 2011, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award to Polish Director, accompanied by an exhibition of his drawings. Five years later, his final film, Afterimage, opened the 24th edition of the festival. Bogusław Linda, who comes from our region, starred as the uncompromising painter Władysław Strzemiński, who remained true to his art despite the dictates of socialist realism. Other actors from Kujawy Pomorze Region also played leading roles in Wajda’s films, including Grażyna Szapołowska in Pan Tadeusz: The Last Foray in Lithuania and Piotr Wysocki in The Ashes.
I mention this because 2026 is also the Year of Kujawsko-Pomorskie People of Cinema in our region. In declaring it, the Regional Assembly sought to honour actors, directors and film composers who come from this region, as well as the organisers of its many festivals and, not least, the audiences for whom they all work, who continue to fill cinemas and eagerly await new films. We are proud that this region was the birthplace of Pola Negri, the only Polish actress to secure a lasting place in the history of world cinema, and Helena Grossówna, a dancer, theatre actress and film star known as ‘the most beautiful smile of Warsaw’.
The Kujawy Pomorze Region not only lives and breathes cinema, but also strives to provide filmmakers with the best possible conditions for new projects and audiences with welcoming spaces in which to discover their work.
Today, the European Film Centre CAMERIMAGE is taking shape next to CKK Jordanki. This unique venue will serve not only cinema and its creators, but also the wider cultural and creative communities. Its development reflects our belief that culture and creativity are vital to the region’s growth. I therefore invite all guests of this year’s festival to return next year to ‘Kujawy Pomorze on Screen’.
Piotr Całbecki
Marshal of the Kujawy Pomorze Region