• Off Plus Camera crowns debut directors
  • 18.04.2011

 

Two debut directors were crowned this weekend during the closing ceremony of the international Off Plus Camera Festival, an event hailed by the Polish Film Institute as becoming “one of the most important events for young, independent directors.”

 

Korean director Park Jung-Bum walked away with the top honour for his emigration saga The Journals of Musan, while 29-year-old Pole Jan Komasa took the FIPRESCI critics prize for his cyberspace drama, Suicide Room.

 

President of the Jury of the main competition, Jerzy Skolimowski – fresh from releasing his thriller Essential Killing – noted the high standard of the entries, saying that “five or six of the films could have won the top prize at any film festival.”

 

In OFF Plus Camera’s parallel competition of purely Polish movies, Marcin Wrona’s fast-paced crime caper The Christening was singled out as the winner.

 

Main section laureate Park Jung-Bum, whose debut also triumphed at the Rotterdam Film Festival, was awarded 100,000 US dollars for his tale of a North Korean emigrant struggling to make his way in South Korea.

 

The director said he would put the money towards his next film.

 

“Thank you very much, I cannot believe that this prize is for me,” he told the audience, adding that it was a very important project for him, because it recounted the story of his late friend.

 

Hotshot Polish director Jan Komasa, who was honoured by the international association of critics FIPRESCI, now has two causes to celebrate, as on Sunday evening it was announced that the Polish Film Institute has granted 6 million zloty (1.5 million euro) for the production of his next film, A City, which explores the World War II cataclysm of the Warsaw Uprising.

 

Other budding talents boosted at the festival included 17-year-old amateur Pawel Soja, who was chosen by both the public and the jury for his spirited short films.

 

Festival director Szymon Miszczak rounded things off by declaring that he was already turning his mind to next year’s festival, which will be the 5th incarnation of the Krakow event. (nh/jb)