A Polish TV series entitled "Proud" has won the Grand Prix in the official International Competition of the Séries Mania Festival in Lille, France.
Written and directed by Karol Klementewicz, the series was produced for HBO Max - and their screening in Lille was its world premiere. A streaming date is yet to be announced.
The main protagonist of "Proud" is Filip - a young, reckless gay man who finds that an unexpected family tragedy shatters his reality. According to the producer’s note: “As he takes care of his infant niece, Filip wants to remain free, yet he rebels at the thought of giving his niece over to strangers due to his own childhood trauma. To care for her, he must face his weaknesses, failures, and societal prejudice”.
In addition to the Grand Prix, "Proud" also won Ignacy Liss Best Actor Award for his portrayal of Filip.
At 28, Liss is one of the rising stars of Polish cinema. A 2022 graduate of the Warsaw Drama School, he is a member of the capital’s Polski Theatre company.
The other Polish entry at the Séries Mania Festival - "Variola Vera" (Polish title: "Czarna Śmierć") has received the Student Award.
The seven-installment series, directed by Kuba Czekaj, with a script by Piotr Derewenda and Wojciech Lepianka, focuses on an outbreak of smallpox in the Polish city of Wrocław in 1963. The disease was brought to Poland by an intelligence officer returning from a top-secret mission in India. A total of 99 people contracted the disease, of whom seven died, including four doctors and nurses.
The main characters in the film are a young doctor at the helm of a medical team fighting the epidemic and a journalist searching for the truth behind the outbreak.
Last year Variola Vera attracted an audience of 1.5 million on Polish public television.
(mk/mm)