CAMERIMAGE 2017 MAIN COMPETITION LINE-UP!

Friday October 20th, 2017

The Main Competition with the Golden Frog Award has been the most important part of the 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 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.

Brimstone

‘Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing,’ fervently preaches a charismatic Old Testament pastor with Dutch roots who has recently arrived in these parts to preach God’s Will. Among those listening is a young woman named Liz, a loving mother and wife who lost her tongue in unclear circumstances, but who was able to find her calling by acting as her community’s midwife. The woman looks at the preacher in horror – she knows him from her long-forgotten past life and realises that he has come to get her. Who is he? Why is he looking for her? What did he do to her? Or she to him? The answers may be unsettling, shocking even, especially that so little has changed in the last hundred years. You see, the film takes place in 19th-century America, in the times when women suffered endless pain and humiliation at the hands of angry, insecure, lustful men who sought control over them in order to forget about their helplessness in the face of their urges and the workings of cruel fate.

Polish title: Wendeta
Director: Martin Koolhoven
Cinematographer: Rogier Stoffers
Produced by: N279 Entertainment
Polish distributor: Monolith Films Sp. z o. o.
Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Sweden, UK, USA, 2016

Butcher, the Whore and the One-Eyed Man, The

Hungary, 1925. The country is still struggling after their defeat in World War One. Even the biggest cities suffer poverty and the increasing amorality of men. The people are embittered, they cannot find any reason to live, but the worst part is that the conditions are not likely to improve in the years to come. Some decide to take matters into their own hands, like Ferenc, who started a successful business: he is the owner of a slaughterhouse that provides part of the country with quality meat, and he has made a small fortune out of it. One day he meets a war companion, Gusztáv, a former soldier wanted for his heinous acts who is looking to collect an old debt. Ferenc refuses, but offers him a job at his slaughterhouse. Everything would be fine if it were not for the fact that his acquaintance has come with a wife so beautiful and mysterious that Ferenc’s heart skips a beat and the circulation stops in his brain. The butcher decides he has to possess the woman, no matter the cost. Is everything for sale during these harsh times?

Original title: A Hentes, a Kurva és a Félszemű
Director: János Szász
Cinematography: Tibor Máthé
Produced by: UNIO FILM
Hungary, 2017

First They Killed My Father

No child should ever have to experience what was for four years the fate of young Loung Ung when her home country was ruled by the Khmer Rouge, the organisation that ‘freed’ Cambodia from Western control through suffering and the deprivation of human dignity. No adult should ever have to witness the dehumanisation that took place in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. But, as the history of the human species teaches us, such periods of intense violence ‘for a just cause’ are quite common. And the innocent suffer the most. The film recounts some of the events in Cambodia through the eyes of a child, Loung, who cannot grasp the things that are happening around her. First she was moved from Phnom Penh with her family, robbed of all personal effects, and forced to live in difficult conditions. Then there was suffering the hard work in the fields, the increasing poverty, and the loss of hope in people’s eyes. The girl simply tried to survive, even though she was never able to understand how people could do such things to other people.

Polish title: Najpierw zabili mojego ojca
Director: Angelina Jolie
Cinematographer: Anthony Dod Mantle

Produced by: Netflix
Cambodia, USA, 2017

Hochelaga, Land of Souls

Montreal, 21^st century. A young archaeologist presents his doctor’s thesis based on the findings from a dig site at a local football stadium that partly collapsed due to heavy rain. The archaeologist’s crew spent several weeks there, uncovering dozens of artefacts from the distant past which prove that – and this is the doctor’s central argument – this is the exact spot where over five centuries before the first meeting between the native Iroquois people and Europeans took place. During the presentation, the film takes the viewer on a journey through different eras and the lives of humans who dreamt, hated, fought, and died on these lands for over eight hundred years. What is left of them are objects – sometimes things of everyday use, or words inscribed on paper – telling parts of their stories. What is more important, though, is rekindling the memory of their existence and accomplishments. Because only by knowing their past can people work for a brighter future.

Original title: Hochelaga, Terre des Âmes
Director: François Girard
Cinematographer: Nicolas Bolduc
Produced by: Max Films Productions
Canada, 2017

Loveless

Alyosha is a 12-year-old boy who lives in a nice, big flat on the outskirts of Moscow and attends a decent school. He experiences a period of teenage rebellion, but this is only natural for a boy his age. Alyosha lacks just one thing: love. His parents can’t stand each other and have turned his life into a living hell. They use every opportunity to fight, especially because they are unable to decide who will raise the boy after their divorce. The problem is, neither of them wants him. The man has a younger girlfriend, already pregnant, and a flat in which he wants to make a new life for himself. The woman loves an older man who has an even bigger place and seems to cater for all her needs and desires. The times of indecision end when Alyosha mysteriously disappears. He simply walks out of the flat and never comes back. Did he run away? Or was he kidnapped? Maybe murdered? The parents organise a search party, but with each passing hour they begin to realise that they may have already lost that which should be dearest to them.

Original title: Nelyubov

Polish title: Niemiłość
Director: Andrei Zvyagintsev
Cinematographer: Mikhail Krichman

Produced by: Fetisoff Illusion

Polish distributor: Against Gravity Sp. z o. o.
Russia, France, 2017

mother!

Knock, knock! Who’s there? I’m a stranger. I’m lost. It’s dark, you know. Dear girl, ask your father if I could stay here for the night. Oh, you’re the lady of the house! Wonderful, thank you for inviting me in. Knock, knock! Who’s there…? I’m the wife. You know, of the guy who’s sleeping here tonight. I’ll just be here for a second. Is there any alcohol? Knock, knock! Who’s there… Oh, it’s our parents. Let’s all stay for the night, we’ll chat and have fun. But I’m the lady of the house, don’t I have something to say on the matter? Oh dear, no you don’t. I’m the man of the house, a great writer with writer’s block, but still great. You’re my young and beautiful wife who’s supposed to make a good impression, just like our beautiful house in the middle of nowhere. Please, make our guests comfortable and stop whining. Yes, dear…
This is only the beginning of a surreal nightmare for the young, naïve, and very impressionable woman. One thing’s for sure, either she’s going out of her mind, or this truly is hell.

Director: Darren Aronofsky
Cinematographer: Matthew Libatique
Produced by: Protozoa Pictures
Polish distributor: United International Pictures Sp. z o. o. (UIP Poland)
USA, 2017

On Body and Soul

A blood-soaked slaughterhouse is one of the least romantic places for two delicate and sensitive souls to start an intimate relationship. But it is exactly there, among the daily work of cutting cows’ corpses into pieces of quality meat, that Endre and Mária begin their tender love story. He is the establishment’s manager, a middle-aged man with a paralysed hand who is detached from the outside world. She is a recently hired quality inspector, much younger, painfully shy, and unable to cope with the intricacies of human relationships. Their connection first materialises in a dream they both share every night – in it, they are a deer and doe roaming freely through a snow-covered forest. In time, they discover they can offer each other much more in the daylight. The question is, will they be able to transform this fragile connection based on an ephemeral dream into a strong bond in a world ruled by carnality and sexual gratification?

Original title: Teströl és lélekröl

Polish title: Dusza i ciało
Director: Ildikó Enyedi
Cinematographer: Máté Herbai

Produced by: Inforg-M&M Film KFT.

Polish distributor: Aurora Films
Hungary, 2017

Still Life

Working in a slaughterhouse is mostly associated with dehumanisation and shared responsibility for the mass murder of animals. And yet someone has to do it – meat is one of key elements of the modern world’s eating habits. The job of the film’s human protagonist is leading groups of pigs and cows to the place of their death; but he is not some sadistic killer, just a normal guy with normal plans and dreams for which he needs money, even if the job often gets the better of him. There is an animal protagonist, too – the young man’s dog, who stays with him every night at the slaughterhouse, forced to meet the often terrified, sometimes distressingly calm gazes of the animals cramped in tight spaces awaiting their doom. There is no way of telling what the dog thinks, or whether it is aware of the fact that by being a dog it is immune to the purpose of its surroundings. Such a dualism of perspectives enables a different light to be cast on the slaughterhouse.

Original title: Gorge Coeur Ventre
Director: Maud Alpi
Cinematographer: Jonathan Ricquebourg
Produced by: Mezzanine Films
France, 2016

Sweet Country

The story is set in the 1920s in the Australian outback and unravels the myriad ways in which the British colonisers destroyed the lives, centuries-old traditions, and once-fertile land of the Aborigines. Whether the ‘blacks’ are kicked around by their white ‘masters’, made to bow their heads before their drunken ‘bosses’, or (of their own volition, of course) converted to the ‘good’ Christianity with smiles on their faces, one thing is certain: they have become slaves in their own continent. The film tells the tale of an old Aborigine, Sam Kelly, who after a tragic incident goes on the run with his wife, chased by a group of furious white lawmen. Their escape is at the same time a journey through the beautiful Aboriginal homelands and a summation of all the monstrosities that have happened on that blood-soaked soil. Among the people chasing them, there are men who are painfully aware of the tragedy of Australia’s native people, but they too share the guilt. Does Sam and his wife’s escape have any chance of succeeding?

Director: Warwick Thornton
Cinematographer: Dylan River, Warwick Thornton
Produced by: Bunya Productions
Polish distributor: Aurora Films
Australia, 2017

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri

Mildred Hayes is sick of everything. She is sick of the ineptitude of the police department in finding the murderer of her teenage daughter. She is sick of people telling her that everything will be alright, that it is just the way it is. She is sick of feeling guilty for being a bad mother. So Mildred rents three forgotten billboards that stand on the road leading into her town. On them she puts a very clear message to all who do not want to ease her suffering. This means war, and she knows it. The embittered, desperate woman does not realise that her provocation will start a chain reaction which will affect many lives, including those of the people close to her. She also does not realise that, as in every brutal morality tale about the intricacies of human nature, her actions will allow her to better understand her enemies, people who are often angry and impulsive, but who can also show their generous, beautiful sides – and maybe, just maybe, she will give them a second chance.

Polish title: Trzy billboardy za Ebbing, Missouri
Director: Martin McDonagh
Cinematographer: Ben Davis
Produced by: Blueprint Pictures
Polish distributor: Imperial CinePix Sp. z o. o.
USA, UK, 2017

Volhynia

It begins with a Polish-Ukrainian wedding, though even then, in 1939, the tension between Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews living in the Volhynia region seemed almost palpable. It ends in 1943 with a massacre of both the guilty and the innocent, of men and boys, of women and children. In between there are numerous waves of hatred and murder, sometimes brought on by the raging war, other times resulting from decades-old prejudices that have grown in the hearts and minds of subsequent generations. In the middle of this genocide we see 17-year-old Zosia transition from a young and hopeful woman and mother into a physically and mentally broken person who does not even know if she wants to survive. As she runs away with little children, the girl witnesses the bestiality of the ideologically-ordered mass murder committed by former neighbours and drunken friends. Bestiality and callousness. One might even say inhumanity, though it has long been known that killing is very characteristic of the human species.

Original title: Wołyń
Director: Wojtek Smarzowski
Cinematographer: Piotr Sobociński Jr.

Produced by: Film it

Polish distributor: Forum Film Poland
Poland, 2016

Wonder Wheel

Wonder Wheel tells the story of four characters whose lives intertwine amid the hustle and bustle of the Coney Island amusement park in the 1950s: Ginny (Kate Winslet), a melancholy, emotionally volatile former actress now working as a waitress in a clam house; Humpty (Jim Belushi), Ginny’s rough-hewn carousel operator husband; Mickey (Justin Timberlake), a handsome young lifeguard who dreams of becoming a playwright; and Carolina (Juno Temple), Humpty’s long-estranged daughter, who is now hiding out from gangsters at her father’s apartment.
Poetically photographed by Vittorio Storaro, Wonder Wheel is a powerful dramatic tale of passion, violence, and betrayal that plays out against the picturesque tableau of 1950s Coney Island.

Polish title: Na karuzeli życia
Director: Woody Allen
Cinematographer: Vittorio Storaro
Produced by: Gravier Productions, Inc.
Polish distributor: KINO ŚWIAT Sp. z o. o.
USA, 2017

Wonderstruck

The United States, 1977. Ben is 12 years old and lives in Minnesota with his aunt. His mother recently died in a car crash. This was before she was able to reveal the identity of his father, leaving her son confused in a cruel and unforgiving world. One day, Ben is struck by lightning, which results in the loss of his hearing. But seconds before he discovers a clue to his father’s whereabouts. He escapes from the hospital and goes to New York on the adventure of a lifetime. The United States, 1927. Rose is deaf, she lives in New Jersey with her father in a beautiful house that does not give her any joy. Whenever she can, the girl goes to the movie theatre to escape from the troubles of life. She never knew her mother, though she has an idea about who she might be. She decides to verify her hunch, escapes from the confines of her father’s house, and goes to New York on an adventure. Two worlds separated by time, space, and aesthetics, though with one common element: youth. And youth can work true miracles when it is not bound by an adult’s imagination.

Director: Todd Haynes
Cinematographer: Ed Lachman
Produced by: Killer Films, FilmNation Entertainment, Cinetic Media, Picrow, Amazon Studios
USA, 2017