Poland’s Energa Camerimage film festival has long been considered a cineaste’s dream. Established 31 years ago as a specialty event focused on cinematography, the Toruń fest has expanded significantly in recent years but has retained its essence as a pure celebration of the art of filmmaking, prioritizing craftsmanship behind the camera — DPs, directors and production designers — over celebrities and industry functions.
“The reason people keep coming back here to Poland is that they get to talk about art; it’s not another trade show or a festival with red carpets every night,” says Camerimage director Kazimierz Suwała, who estimates that the festival usually welcomes between 700 and 800 cinematographer guests over the course of its week-long run every November. “You come here to meet your fellow artisans. We have DPs who come from LA and joke that they live just next door to each other, but it’s easier to get together to actually talk about filmmaking here at Camerimage.”
Not that this year’s festival will be without stars. Two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett will serve as the president of the festival’s main competition jury, Emmy-winning Shogun star Hiroyuki Sanada will receive a new award honoring excellence in TV, and iconic indie cinematographer Ed Lachman will get a lifetime achievement prize. The fest also will generate a widely watched industry moment by playing host to the world premiere of Rust, the Alec Baldwin-starring indie Western that resulted in the accidental on-set shooting death of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.
Camerimage is also coming under intensified scrutiny in 2024. In August, the industry group Women in Cinematography launched a petition urging the festival to do more to support the work of women cinematographers, who remain drastically under-represented in the trade. Camerimage’s founder and CEO Marek Zydowicz responded last week with in editorial in Cinematography World magazine. But rather than committing to improving representation at his event — as the leaders of the Cannes, Berlin and Tokyo film festivals have done in recent years — Żydowicz’s somewhat muddled column seemed to argue that pushing for greater female representation could result in diminished artistic quality of the festival’s programming. The reaction from the international film community was swift, with several leading cinematography guilds publicly condemning the remarks and Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen, who was scheduled to attend Camerimage’s opening-night screening of his latest feature, Blitz, canceling his appearance. Filmmaker Coralie Fargeat followed suit on Friday, pulling her film The Substance, starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, from the festival lineup.
Żydowicz issued a formal apology, saying he “would like to take this opportunity to sit down in an open forum and talk about how to move forward together in a more open and inclusive manner.” Blanchett, for her part, has stuck with the festival, putting out a statement with her fellow members of the competition jury saying, “We welcome debate regarding gender representation” and “look forward to being part of meaningful discussions with our peers at the festival.”
This year’s Camerimage festival runs Nov. 16-23 in the medieval Polish city of Toruń, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Ahead of the fest, THR connected with Suwała — Żydowicz’s second in command — to discuss the vision behind this year’s edition and the steps the festival plans to take to address the issues raised by the recent controversy.
At least two of the acclaimed films in Camerimage’s competition this year — Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist and Sean Baker’s Anora — were shot on film. There’s a growing trend of younger filmmakers embracing classic formats. What do you make of that?
Well, it’s exciting to see more filmmakers coming back to classical formats — that they still have such legacy — because they are as good as anything else available to us today. What we always emphasize here at the festival is that all forms of cinematographic technology are simply tools, or colors available to the painter — whether it’s 35mm or generative AI. Of course, there is a lot of anxiety around AI — some are worried that it will eventually enable us to replace everything in the filmmaking process, including DPs, actors, set designers, etc. — so we are planning to hold a discussion at the festival about whether this technology is the beginning of the end or simply the latest tool that will empower filmmakers. These kinds of conversations have always been an important part of our event.
Can you tell us about the decision to premiere Rust? It has generated a mixed response among international cinematographers.
Yes, I know it has become divisive. Some felt we were doing it for promotional reasons and that it was inappropriate to screen a film that resulted in a death. But for us, the motivation was very simple. Halyna had a strong connection to this festival. She attended several times. And we were contacted by her friends, who told us that before shooting even began on Rust, she told them that the film was very important to her and it was her dream to screen it at Camerimage. So the screening is only about that: fulfilling her wish of showing her film at the festival. Halyna’s mother, who is Ukrainian, is going to attend the screening if she’s able to leave her country, but it’s not easy right now because of the war. Some have suggested we are holding this screening simply to generate attention for the festival, but we don’t need that kind of attention. We didn’t invite Alec Baldwin, and we never considered doing so. That would be too distracting. What this is about is honoring Halyna’s dreams for her work.
Regarding the controversy that emerged in recent days in response to your founder’s editorial, it seems fair to say that the festival was slow in recognizing how much those words disappointed and offended many in the industry. What happens now? What steps will the festival take?
Well, of course, we have to change. To move forward, the next step is to meet during the festival and explore ways to address the changes that are necessary at our festival and in the film business overall. Festivals have an important role to play, but we are the last step — inclusivity needs to begin during project development and carry through the entire journey of the filmmaking process. The festival is coming up very soon, and we are still trying to put something together, but my hope is that we can hold an open seminar near the end of the week about the future of film festivals — and that inclusivity and diversity will be a central topic of discussion. In the statements that have been put out by Women in Cinematography and other filmmakers, there have been suggestions of very detailed steps we could take to improve inclusivity at Camerimage. We want to make this work, but we also have to make sure that everything is achievable before we make promises as an organization. So, there is work to do.
What advice do you normally give to first-time attendees for getting the most out of Camerimage and the city of Toruń?
Absorb the festival and its atmosphere. See as many movies as you can and discuss them with passion with the many people you will meet here. This is the easiest festival in the world for meeting and talking to filmmakers. You will encounter filmmakers everywhere, around the screenings or at the bars afterward. Seize that opportunity to make connections, and share ideas about this art form that we all love.
This story appeared in the Nov. 13 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Click here to subscribe.
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