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

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theater, cinemas or screening venues, usually annually and in a single city or region. Some film festivals show films outdoors or online. Films may be of recent ...

held annually in July in

Wrocław Wrocław is a city in southwestern Poland, and the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship. It is the largest city and historical capital of the region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the Oder River in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Eu ...

, 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 with an "

avant-garde In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...

" specialised competitive

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

. The event is organized by Stowarzyszenie Nowe Horyzonty (New Horizons Association). The founder and moving spirit of the festival is Roman Gutek. The current director, Marcin Pieńkowski, took over the position in 2021.

mBank mBank SA (formerly BRE Bank), set up in 1986, and originally BRE – Bank Rozwoju Eksportu (Export Development Bank), is Poland's fourth largest universal banking group in terms of total assets and loans, and fifth by deposits at the end of Sep ...

is the nominal sponsor of the event since 2023. 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. Between 2010 and 2017 also a FIPRESCI Award was 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 does not apply standard cinematic conventions, instead adopting Non-narrative film, non-narrative forms or alternatives to traditional narratives or methods of working. Many e ...

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 An (; , ) is an artist with a distinctive approach, usually a film director whose filmmaking control is so unbounded and personal that the director is likened to the "author" of the film, thus manifesting the director's unique style or thematic ...

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 — , , ''Sanok'', , ''Sianok'' or ''Sianik'', , , ''Sūnik'' or ''Sonik'') is a town in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship of southeastern Poland with 38,397 inhabitants, as of June 2016. Located on the San ...

, the Festival was moved to

Cieszyn Cieszyn ( , ; ; ) 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 inhabitants ( and lies opposite Český Těšín in the Czech Repu ...

, 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

cinephile Cinephilia ( ; also cinemaphilia or filmophilia) is the term used to refer to a passionate interest in films, film theory, and film criticism. The term is a portmanteau of the words '' cinema'' and ''philia'', one of the four ancient Greek words ...

s and hosts many important guests every year, including

Lisandro Alonso Lisandro Alonso (born 2 June 1975) is an Argentine film director and screenwriter. He has directed six feature-length films and a short film since 2001 and is loosely associated with the ''New Argentine Cinema'' movement. His film '' La libertad ...

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 respect ...

Šarūnas Bartas Šarūnas Bartas (born 16 August 1964) is a Lithuanian film director. He is 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 Director ...

Leos Carax Alex Christophe Dupont (born 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 (1984 film), Boy Me ...

Nick Cave Nicholas Edward Cave (born 22 September 1957) is an Australian musician, writer, and actor who fronts the rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Known for his baritone voice, Cave's music is characterised by emotional intensity, a wide variety ...

Dardenne brothers Brothers Jean-Pierre Dardenne (; born 21 April 1951) and Luc Dardenne (born 10 March 1954), collectively referred to as the Dardenne brothers, are a Belgian filmmaking duo. They write, produce, and direct their films together. Their work tend ...

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

Bruno Dumont Bruno Dumont (; born 14 March 1958) is a French film director and screenwriter. To date, he has directed twelve feature films, all of which border somewhere between realistic drama and the avant-garde. His films have won several awards at the C ...

Asghar Farhadi Asghar Farhadi ( ; born 7 May 1972)Soureh Movie Database
is an Iranian ...

Terry Gilliam Terrence Vance Gilliam ( ; born 22 November 1940) is an American-British filmmaker, comedian, collage film, collage animator, and actor. He gained stardom as a member of the Monty Python comedy troupe alongside John Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Pa ...

Amos Gitai Amos Gitai () is an artist and an Israelis, Israeli filmmaker, born 11 October 1950 in Haifa, Israel. Gitai's work was presented in several major retrospectives in Pompidou Center in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Lincoln Center for ...

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

, Hal Hartley,

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

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 Abdellatif Kechiche (; , born 7 December 1960), also known as Abdel Kechiche, is a Tunisian-France, French film director, screenwriter and actor. He made his directorial debut in 2000 with ''La Faute à Voltaire'', which he also wrote. Known for ...

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

, 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 Awa ...

Lou Ye Lou Ye (), born 1965, is a Chinese screenwriter-director who is commonly grouped with the " Sixth Generation" directors of Chinese cinema. In June 2018, Lou was invited to become a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Care ...

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

Tsai Ming-liang Tsai Ming-liang (; born 27 October 1957) is a Malaysian filmmaker based in Taiwan. 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 T ...

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 at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival for ''The Son's Room'', a Silver Bear Grand Jury Prize ...

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 and ...

Gaspar Noé Gaspar Noé (; ; born 27 December 1963) is an Argentine filmmaker, who lives and worked primarily in France. He is one of the primary exponents of New French Extremity, with his most notable works including the feature films '' I Stand Alone'' ...

, Ulrike Ottinger,

Carlos Saura Carlos Saura Atarés (4 January 1932 – 10 February 2023) was a Spanish film director, photographer and writer. With Luis Buñuel and Pedro Almodóvar, he is considered to be among Spain's great filmmakers. He had a long and prolific career th ...

Béla Tarr Béla Tarr (born 21 July 1955) is a Hungarian filmmaker. Debuting with the film '' Family Nest'' (1979), Tarr began his directorial career with a brief period of what he refers to as "social cinema", aimed at telling everyday stories about ordi ...

, Peter Tscherkassky,

Agnès Varda Agnès Varda (; born Arlette Varda; 30 May 1928 – 29 March 2019) was a Belgian-born French film director, screenwriter and photographer. Varda's work employed location shooting in an era when the limitations of sound technology made it easier ...

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 "P ...

, Vincent Ward, and

Andrzej Żuławski Andrzej Żuławski (; 22 November 1940 – 17 February 2016) was a Polish film director and writer best known for his 1981 psychological horror film ''Possession (1981 film), Possession''. Żuławski often went against mainstream commercialism in ...

. In 2016, when

was holding the title of

European Capital of Culture A European Capital of Culture is a city designated by the European Union (EU) for a period of one calendar year during which it organises a series of cultural events with a strong pan-European dimension. Being a European Capital of Culture can ...

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

Steve McQueen Terrence Stephen McQueen (March 24, 1930November 7, 1980) was an American actor. His antihero persona, emphasized during the height of counterculture of the 1960s, 1960s counterculture, made him a top box office draw for his films of the late ...

'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 nutritional needs for a sustained period. In t ...

''.

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 ''The White Ribbon'' () is a 2009 German-language mystery drama film, written and directed by Michael Haneke. Released in black-and-white, the film offers a dark depiction of society and family in a northern German village just before World War ...

'' * 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 Australia ...

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

* Retrospective: Jennifer Reeves * 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 ...

* 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'' * New horizons international competition * Films on art international competition * New Polish films competition * Polish short films competition * European short debuts competition * Panorama * Special screenings * Documentaries / Essays * Third eye * Midnight madness: Philippe Mora;

samurai cinema , also commonly spelled "''chambara''", meaning "sword fighting" films,Hill (2002). denotes the Japanese film genre called samurai cinema in English and is roughly equivalent to Western and swashbuckler films. ''Chanbara'' is a sub-category of ...

* Cinema of Turkey * Retrospective:

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French and Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as ...

* 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 received the 1998 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Set Design for t ...

* 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 '' Mephisto'' (1981), ''Never Say Never ...

* Retrospective:

Laura Mulvey Laura Mulvey (born 15 August 1941) is a British feminist film theorist and filmmaker. 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 ...

* Retrospective:

Wojciech Jerzy Has Wojciech Jerzy Has (1 April 1925 – 3 October 2000) was a Polish film director, screenwriter and film producer. Early life and studies Wojciech Jerzy Has was born in Kraków. Has himself was agnostic. However, his family on both sides was ...

* Retrospective:

Daniel Szczechura Daniel commonly refers to: * Daniel (given name), a masculine given name and a surname * List of people named Daniel * List of people with surname Daniel * Daniel (biblical figure) * Book of Daniel, a biblical apocalypse, "an account of the acti ...

* 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'' (; ; 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 Farhadi. It focuses on a ...

'' * Closing – Pedro Almodóvar's ''

The Skin I Live In ''The Skin I Live In'' () is a 2011 Spanish psychological thriller film written and directed by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Antonio Banderas, Elena Anaya, Marisa Paredes, Jan Cornet and Roberto Álamo. It is based on Thierry Jonquet's 1984 n ...

'' * 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 Anja Breien (born 12 July 1940) is a Norwegian film director and screenwriter. One of the leading figures of the Norwegian film industry, and one of the first women to rise to prominence as a writer-director in Norway, Breien's body of work in f ...

* Retrospective:

* Retrospective: Werner Nekes * Retrospective: Jack Smith * Retrospective:

* Retrospective:

Andrzej Munk Andrzej Munk (16 October 1921 – 20 September 1961) was a Polish film director, screen writer and documentalist. He was one of the most influential artists of the post-Stalinist period in the People's Republic of Poland. His feature films '' M ...

* 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 ''On the Road'' is a 1957 novel by American writer Jack Kerouac, based on the travels of Kerouac and his friends across the United States. It is considered a defining work of the postwar Beat and Counterculture generations, with its protagoni ...

'' * 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 portmanteau of ''mock'' and ''documentary'') is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events, but presented as a Documentary film, documentary. Mockumentaries are often used to analyze or comment on current event ...

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

Carlos Reygadas Carlos Reygadas Castillo (; born October 10, 1971) is a Mexicans, Mexican filmmaker. Influenced by existentialist art and philosophy, Reygadas' movies feature spiritual journeys into the inner worlds of his main characters, through which themes ...

* Retrospective: Ulrich Seidl * Retrospective:

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

Festival programme 2023

23rd mBank New Horizons International Film Festival was held in Wrocław from 20 July to 30 2023. 251 films including 196 features and 55 shorts were screened. *Grand Prix award: 2023 heist comedy-drama '' The Delinquents'' by Rodrigo Moreno. * Special Mention: ''After'' (France) by Anthony Lapia * Audience Award: ** ''Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry'' (Switzerland, Georgia) by Elene ** ''Naveriani'' Produced by Alva Film

References

External links

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

Festival programme 2023

See also

References

External links