English Section

Poland’s Young and Film festival to screen 100+ debut titles as 44th edition opens June 9 in Koszalin

09.06.2025 12:00
The 44th Koszalin Festival of Film Debuts “Young and Film” will open on Monday with 14 first-feature dramas and 12 debut documentaries vying for the top Grand Amber (Wielki Jantar) prize, organizers said.
Poster:
Poster:Press kit

The week-long event, Poland’s oldest showcase restricted to domestic debuts, begins with an evening ceremony and jazz set by the Grzech Piotrowski Quartet at the Kryterium cinema in the CK 105 cultural center. Day-time competition screenings will run there and at the city’s public-library theatre.

Feature-film lineup

Contenders for the feature award include:

  • Innego końca nie będzie (No Other Ending, dir. Monika Majorek)
  • Lany poniedziałek (Wet Monday, Justyna Mytnik)
  • Smok Diplodok (Diplodocus the Dragon, Wojtek Wawszczyk)
  • Życie dla początkujących (Life for Beginners, Paweł Podolski)

Stage and screen director Olga Chajdas heads the five-member jury.

Documentary race

Two premieres – The Boy Who Runs by Natalia Siwicka and *Krzysztof Kudelski’s Second Man – top a 12-film documentary slate judged by filmmaker Agnieszka Zwiefka.

Shorts, talks and open-air shows

A further 73 shorts (33 fiction, 23 documentary, 17 animation) and six “Teatroteka” TV play adaptations will compete for Amber statuettes, while Oscar-nominated international shorts screen out-of-competition. Post-screening Q&A sessions, industry panels and nightly concerts in a lakeside festival village round out the program.

Free entry passes are required for all events. The festival, founded in 1973 and co-financed by Poland’s culture ministry and the Polish Film Institute, closes on June 14 with an awards gala at the Koszalin Philharmonic; winning titles will encore on June 15.

(jh)

Source: PAP, Młodzi i Film