New Horizons Film Festival (previously: Era New Horizons; pl: Nowe Horyzonty) is an international

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upo ...

held annually in July in

Wrocław Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

, Poland. It has been organised since 2001. It is one of the biggest and most popular film festivals in Poland. Since 2008 it is accredited by

FIAPF The FIAPF (Fédération Internationale des Associations de Producteurs de Films; en, International Federation of Film Producers Associations), created in 1933, is an organization composed with 36 member associations from 30 of the leading audio ...

with an "

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

" specialised competitive

status Status (Latin plural: ''statūs''), is a state, condition, or situation, and may refer to: * Status (law) ** City status ** Legal status, in law ** Political status, in international law ** Small entity status, in patent law ** Status confere ...

. The event is organized by the Stowarzyszenie Nowe Horyzonty (New Horizons Association). The moving spirit and the director of the festival is Roman Gutek.

T-Mobile T-Mobile is the brand name used by some of the mobile communications subsidiaries of the German telecommunications company Deutsche Telekom AG in the Czech Republic ( T-Mobile Czech Republic), Poland ( T-Mobile Polska), the United States (T-Mobil ...

mobile phone network operator was a nominal sponsor of the event until 2017. Festival presents mainly arthouse cinema. The most important from the several competitions held at the festival (including new Polish films, films-on-art and short films contests) is the "New horizons international competition". It aims to present bold, unconventional and uncompromising films that are searching for the new forms of expression – "the new horizons of cinema". Prizes in the competition are: the Grand Prix, special mentions, and Audience Award. Since 2010 also a

FIPRESCI Award The International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI, short for Fédération Internationale de la PRESse CInématographique) is an association of national organizations of professional film critics and film journalists from around the world fo ...

is awarded. Another important sections of the event are: retrospectives of the greatest film authors,

experimental film Experimental film or avant-garde cinema is a mode of filmmaking that rigorously re-evaluates cinematic conventions and explores non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many experimental films, parti ...

makers and

national cinema National cinema is a term sometimes used in film theory and film criticism to describe the films associated with a specific nation-state. Although there is little relatively written on theories of national cinema it has an irrefutably important ro ...

s, panorama of the most important auteur films of the season, "Midnight madness", and thematic sections.

Festival history

After the first edition, organized in

Sanok Sanok (in full the Royal Free City of Sanok — pl, Królewskie Wolne Miasto Sanok, rue, Санок, ''Sanok'', ua, Cянік, ''Sianik'', la, Sanocum, yi, סאניק, ''Sonik'') is a town in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of south-eastern ...

, the Festival was moved to

Cieszyn Cieszyn ( , ; cs, Těšín ; german: Teschen; la, Tessin; szl, Ćeszyn) is a border town in southern Poland on the east bank of the Olza River, and the administrative seat of Cieszyn County, Silesian Voivodeship. The town has 33,500 inhabitan ...

, where it was held four times between 2002 and 2005. From 2006 the event takes place in

. Since then it has apparently spread and now it is frequented by number of cinephiles and hosts many important guests every year, including

Theo Angelopoulos Theodoros "Theo" Angelopoulos (; ; 27 April 1935 – 24 January 2012) was a Greek filmmaker, screenwriter and film producer. He dominated the Greek art film industry from 1975 on, and Angelopoulos was one of the most influential and widely re ...

Šarūnas Bartas Šarūnas Bartas (born 16 August 1964) is a Lithuanian film director. One of the most prominent Lithuanian film directors internationally from the late 20th century. His 2015 film ''Peace to Us in Our Dreams'' was screened in the Directors' Fortn ...

Leos Carax Alex Christophe Dupont (born 22 November 1960), best known as Leos Carax (), is a French film director, critic and writer. Carax is noted for his poetic style and his tortured depictions of love. His first major work was '' Boy Meets Girl'' (198 ...

, Nick Cave, Dardenne brothers,

Lav Diaz Lavrente Indico Anciro Diaz (born December 30, 1958) is a Filipino independent filmmaker and former film critic. Frequently known as one of the key members of the slow cinema movement, having made several of the longest narrative films on recor ...

, Bruno Dumont, Asghar Farhadi,

Terry Gilliam Terrence Vance Gilliam (; born 22 November 1940) is an American-born British filmmaker, comedian, animator, actor and former member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam has directed 13 feature films, including '' Time Bandits'' (1981), '' ...

Amos Gitai Amos Gitai ( he, עמוס גיתאי; born 11 October 1950) is an Israeli filmmaker, who was trained as an architect. Gitai's work was presented in several major retrospectives in Pompidou Center in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and ...

Peter Greenaway Peter Greenaway, (born 5 April 1942) is a Welsh film director, screenwriter and artist. His films are noted for the distinct influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting, and Flemish painting in particular. Common traits in his films are th ...

Hal Hartley Hal Hartley (born November 3, 1959) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer and composer who became a key figure in the American independent film movement of the 1980s and '90s. He is best known for his films '' The Unbelievable Tr ...

Agnieszka Holland Agnieszka Holland (born 28 November 1948) is a Polish film and television director and screenwriter, best known for her political contributions to Polish cinema. She began her career as assistant to directors Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda, ...

Naomi Kawase is a Japanese film director. She was also known as , with her former husband's surname. Many of her works have been documentaries, including ''Embracing'', about her search for the father who abandoned her as a child, and ''Katatsumori'', about ...

, Abdellatif Kechiche,

Kim Ki-duk Kim Ki-duk ( ; 20 December 196011 December 2020) was a South Korean film director and screenwriter, noted for his idiosyncratic art-house cinematic works. His films have received many distinctions in the festival circuit, rendering him one of ...

, Andrey Konchalovskiy,

Sebastián Lelio Sebastián Lelio Watt (born 8 March 1974) is a Chilean director, screenwriter, editor and producer. He received critical acclaim for directing the films ''Gloria'' (2013) and ''A Fantastic Woman'' (2017), the latter of which won an Academy Award ...

Lou Ye Lou Ye (), born 1965, is a Chinese screenwriter- director who is commonly grouped with the " Sixth Generation" directors of Chinese cinema. Films Born in Shanghai, Lou was educated at the Beijing Film Academy. In 1993, he made his first film ''W ...

Dušan Makavejev Dušan Makavejev ( sr-Cyrl, Душан Макавејев, ; 13 October 1932 – 25 January 2019) was a Serbian film director and screenwriter, famous for his groundbreaking films of Yugoslav cinema in the late 1960s and early 1970s—many of wh ...

Tsai Ming-liang Tsai Ming-liang (; born 27 October 1957) is a Malaysian-Taiwanese filmmaker. Tsai has written and directed 11 feature films, many short films, and television films. He is one of the most celebrated "Second New Wave" film directors of Taiwanese ...

Nanni Moretti Giovanni "Nanni" Moretti (; born 19 August 1953) is an Italian film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. His films have won accolades including a Palme d'Or at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival for ''The Son's Room'', a Silver Bear at the ...

Cristian Mungiu Cristian Mungiu (; born 27 April 1968) is a Romanian filmmaker. He won the Palme d'Or at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival for his film ''4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days'', which he wrote and directed. He has also won the awards for Best Screenplay an ...

Gaspar Noé Gaspar Noé (, ; born 27 December 1963) is an Argentine filmmaker based in Paris, France. He is the son of Argentine painter, writer, and intellectual Luis Felipe Noé. In the early 1990s, Noé along with his wife Lucile Hadžihalilović were ...

Ulrike Ottinger Ulrike Ottinger (born 6 June 1942) is a German filmmaker and photographer. Early life From 1959 she was a visiting student at the Academy of Arts in Munich and worked as a painter. Her mother, Maria Weinberg, was a journalist and her father, Ul ...

Carlos Saura Carlos Saura Atarés (born 4 January 1932) is a Spanish film director, photographer and writer. Along with Luis Buñuel and Pedro Almodóvar, he is considered to be one of Spain’s most renowned filmmakers. He has a long and prolific career t ...

Béla Tarr Béla Tarr (born 21 July 1955) is a Hungarian filmmaker. Debuting with the film ''Family Nest'' (1977), Tarr began his directorial career with a brief period of what he refers to as "social cinema", aimed at telling everyday stories about ordin ...

, Peter Tscherkassky, Agnès Varda,

Andrzej Wajda Andrzej Witold Wajda (; 6 March 1926 – 9 October 2016) was a Polish film and theatre director. Recipient of an Honorary Oscar, the Palme d'Or, as well as Honorary Golden Lion and Honorary Golden Bear Awards, he was a prominent member of the ...

, Vincent Ward, and

Andrzej Żuławski Andrzej Żuławski (; 22 November 1940 – 17 February 2016) was a Polish film director and writer. Żuławski often went against mainstream commercialism in his films, and enjoyed success mostly with European art-house audiences. In the late 1 ...

. In 2016, when

was holding the title of European Capital of Culture, festival included events related to this occasion (i.e. a special section called Masters of European Cinema).

New horizons international competition winners

Grand Prix

At the beginning the festival's Grand Prix was an

audience award An audience award is typically an award at a film festival (or some other type of cultural festival or similar competition) which is selected by the audience attending the festival, rather than by the festival jury or a group of critics. Example ...

, but since 2009 it is given by the International Jury. The first main prize selected that way was awarded to Steve McQueen's ''

Hunger In politics, humanitarian aid, and the social sciences, hunger is defined as a condition in which a person does not have the physical or financial capability to eat sufficient food to meet basic Human nutrition, nutritional needs for a sustaine ...

''.

Audience award

Since the main prize became jury-selected in 2009, the Audience Award became a separate recognition, the second in importance. Three films managed to win both Grand Prix and Audience award: '' White Shadow'' in 2014, '' Bait'' in 2019 and '' The Metamorphosis of Birds'' in 2020.

Festival programme 2009

* Opening gala – Michael Haneke's '' The White Ribbon'' * Closing – Martin Provost's '' Séraphine'' * New horizons international competition * Films on art international competition * New Polish films competition * Polish short films competition * European short films competition * Panorama * Special screenings * Documentaries / Essays * Third eye * Midnight madness:

ozploitation Ozploitation films are exploitation films – a category of low-budget horror, comedy, sexploitation and action films – made in Australia after the introduction of the R rating in 1971. The year also marked the beginnings of the Australian ...

* Cinema of Canada * Cinema of Sweden * Golden era of Hungarian cinema * Retrospective:

* Retrospective:

Jennifer Reeves Jennifer Todd Reeves (born 1971) is a New York–based independent filmmaker. She has also taught as a part time professor of film at Bard College, The Cooper Union, Millennium Film Workshop and the School of Visual Arts. Background Reeves's ...

* Retrospective:

Krzysztof Zanussi Krzysztof Pius Zanussi (born 17 June 1939) is a Polish film and theatre director, producer and screenwriter. He is a professor of European film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland where he conducts a summer workshop. He is ...

* Retrospective:

Piotr Dumała Piotr Dumała (born 9 July 1956 in Warsaw) is a Polish film director and animator. He is noted for his animation technique. While training to be a sculptor, he discovered that scratching images into painted plaster could be a beautiful way to cr ...

* 60 years of WFDiF * From Polański to... * New horizons of film language: editing * Season 2008/2009 * Films for children * Silent films with live music * Screenings at the market square * Concerts * Exhibitions

Festival programme 2010

* Opening gala – Xavier Beauvois' '' Of Gods and Men'' * Closing – Francis Ford Coppola's ''

Tetro ''Tetro'' is a 2009 American-Argentine drama film written, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Vincent Gallo, Alden Ehrenreich and Maribel Verdú. Filming took place in 2008 in Buenos Aires, Patagonia, and Spain. An intern ...

Philippe Mora Philippe Mora (born 1949) is a French Australian film director. Early life and career Philippe Mora was born in Paris, France in 1949, and grew up at the centre of the Australian arts scene of the 1950s and began making films with an 8mm camera ...

; samurai cinema * Cinema of Turkey * Retrospective: Jean-Luc Godard * Retrospective:

Brothers Quay Stephen and Timothy Quay ( ; born June 17, 1947) are American identical twin brothers and stop-motion animators who are better known as the Brothers Quay or Quay Brothers. They were also the recipients of the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding ...

* Retrospective:

Klaus Maria Brandauer Klaus Maria Brandauer (; born Klaus Georg Steng; 22 June 1943) is an Austrian actor and director. He is also a professor at the Max Reinhardt Seminar. Brandauer is known internationally for his roles in ''The Russia House'' (1990), ''Mephisto'' ...

* Retrospective:

Laura Mulvey Laura Mulvey (born 15 August 1941) is a British feminist film theorist. She was educated at St Hilda's College, Oxford. She is currently professor of film and media studies at Birkbeck, University of London. She previously taught at Bulmershe ...

* Retrospective: Wojciech Jerzy Has * Retrospective: Daniel Szczechura * New horizons of film language * Season 2009/2010 * Screenings at the market square * Concerts * Exhibitions

Festival programme 2011

* Opening gala – Asghar Farhadi's ''

A Separation ''A Separation'' ( fa, جدایی, Jodâyi; also titled ''Nader and Simin, A Separation'') is a 2011 Iranian drama film written and directed by Asghar Farhadi, starring Leila Hatami, Peyman Moaadi, Shahab Hosseini, Sareh Bayat, and Sarina Farhad ...

'' * Closing – Pedro Almodóvar's ''

The Skin I Live In ''The Skin I Live In'' ( es, link=no, La piel que habito) is a 2011 Spanish science fiction psychological thriller film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet and Roberto Ál ...

'' * New horizons international competition * Films on art international competition * New Polish films competition * Polish short films competition * European short debuts competition * Panorama * Documentaries / Essays * Third eye * Special screenings * 'Round midnight * Behind the pink curtain * Red westerns * Norway expanded * New horizons of film language: production design * Hommage: Anja Breien * Retrospective: Bruno Dumont * Retrospective: Werner Nekes * Retrospective: Jack Smith * Retrospective:

* Retrospective: Andrzej Munk * Retrospective: Mariusz Wilczyński * Season 2010/2011 * Films for children * Screenings at the market square * Concerts * Discussion panels, workshops * Exhibitions

Festival programme 2012

* Opening gala – Michael Haneke's '' Amour'' * Closing – Walter Salles' '' On the Road'' * New horizons international competition * Films on art international competition * Polish short films competition * European short films competition * Panorama * Special screenings * Gdynia in Wrocław * Documentaries / Essays * Third eye: The Happy End. Images for the end of the world * Midnight madness: From stage to screen *

Mockumentaries A mockumentary (a Blend word, blend of ''mock'' and ''documentary''), fake documentary or docu-comedy is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events but presented as a documentary. These productions are often used to analyze or ...

* New horizons of film language: sound * The Karol Irzykowski Film Studio * Films for children * The Cinema of Mexico * Retrospective: Carlos Reygadas * Retrospective:

Ulrich Seidl Ulrich Maria Seidl (born 24 November 1952 in Vienna) is an Austrian film director, writer and producer. Among other awards, his film ''Dog Days'' won the Grand Jury Prize at Venice in 2001. His 2012 film '' Paradise: Love'' competed for the Palme ...

* Retrospective:

* Retrospective: Peter Tscherkassky and Eve Heller * Retrospective: Witold Giersz * Season 2011/2012 * Screenings at the market square * Concerts * Discussion panels, workshops * Exhibitions

References

External links

New Horizons Film Festival Official website
(en) {{Authority control Culture in Wrocław Film festivals in Poland Tourist attractions in Wrocław Film festivals established in 2001 Summer events in Poland

Festival history

New horizons international competition winners

Grand Prix

Audience award

Festival programme 2009

Festival programme 2010

Festival programme 2011

Festival programme 2012

See also

References

External links