Camerimage 2016 Program

Greetings from Bydgoszcz, Poland, where the Camerimage International Film Festival just started. Camerimage is the biggest and best cinematography festival in the world and attracts famous masters, emerging cinematographers, film students and other filmmakers from across the world.

Camerimage is a heady mixture of screenings, seminars, workshops and parties.

This post gives you a preview of some the events that will take place over the next nine days.

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Main Competition

Films from the Main Competition are shown in the large Opera Nova screening room. A jury headed by director Alan Parker will award the Gold, Silver and Bronze frogs for cinematography. This year's Main Competition has 13 films:

This year's line-up features work by four ASC members: Greig Fraser, Anthony Dod Mantle, Paul Sarossy and Bradford Young. The Main Competition films are mostly European and North American, but the list features half a dozen Australians, including Simon Duggan, ACS and Greig Fraser, ASC, and a few Columbian and Israeli filmmakers. The Competition includes the late Andrzej Wajda's last film, shot with leading Polish cinematographer Pawel Edelman. I am also delighted to see a French AFC member, Michel Abramowicz, in the competition.

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Sidebars and Jurors

Camerimage also includes many sidebar competitions: Polish Films, Music Videos, Documentary Features, Documentary Shorts, VR projects, Cinematographer Debuts, Director Debut, TV Pilots, and Student Études (whose winner gets a Golden Tadpole). This year there is also a retrospective of films by the great Polish director Kristoff Kieslowski, as well as day-long Focus on Female Cinematography on Friday.

ASC members are among the jurors for these numerous awards. This year's ASC jury contingent: Michael Barrett, Anthony Dod Mantle, Jacek Laskus, Suki Medenčević, Roberto Schaefer, Dante Spinotti, John Toll, Checco Varese and Robert Yeoman.

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Michael Chapman

Michael Chapman, ASC will receive the festival's Lifetime Achievement Award. As he does every year, Marek Zebrowski has edited a beautiful book about the award winner. As mentioned below, I have the privilege of organizing a Seminar with Michael, reviewing his outstanding work.

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SEMINARS AND WORKSHOPS

Camerimage is known for its seminars and workshops, which I have been closely involved with for the past 20 years. This year I am moderating two Panavision events, as well as seminars for the AFC and the ASC. The details are below, along with highlights of other events that caught my eye:

SUNDAY

Lemonade Q & A

12:15-14:15 — Multikino 6

Upcoming DPs Chayse Irvin and Malik Sayeed will present their work on Beyonce's Lemonade, with a Q & A session afterwards.

Digital Sputnik Hands On Workshop

10:00-18:00 — Jedynak Department store, 15 Gdanska Street

Markus Forderer and Sam McCurdy will lead a workshop on this LED source. In addition, Greig Fraser told me he would drop by in the morning.

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MONDAY

The Technicolor Seminar

12:00-13:00 — 1st Floor Seminar Room in Opera Nova

ASC members Ed Lachman, Roberto Schaeffer, Vittorio Storaro and Robert Yeoman, will discuss trends in cinematography. This panel will be moderated by my colleague Iain Marcks.

Steve Yedlin Seminar

12:45-14:15 — MCK Orzel Cinema

ASC member Steve Yedlin will discuss "Image acquisition and pipeline for high resolution exhibition". This should be interesting indeed.

Panasonic Invites

17:15-18:45 - MCK Orzel Cinema

French AFC DPs Philip Ros and Antoine Héberlé will present their experiences with the Varicam.

Vittorio Storaro Digital Cinematography Seminar on Café Society

16:30-18:30 — 1st Floor Seminar Room in Opera Nova

ASC member and cinematography legend Vittorio Storaro will discuss his first foray into digital cinematography on Woody Allen's film.

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TUESDAY

Panavision Seminar with Michael Chapman, ASC

11:00-13:00 — MCK ORZEL Cinema

We will project film clips from Michael's work -- including The Last Detail, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and The Fugitive -- and discuss them, with questions and comments from the audience.

The Anatomy of a Motion Picture Lens by Dan Sasaki

14:00-16:00 — MCK ORZEL

Panavision vice president of optical engineering and ASC Associate Dan Sasaki will offer a follow-up to his popular optical seminar last year.

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WEDNESDAY

AFC Master Class

12:45-14:15 — MCK Orzel Cinema

I will be moderating this presentation with French cinematographers Michel Abramowicz, Nathalie Durand and Romain Lacourbas. We will screen and discuss scenes from Taken, a powerful thriller, Sky, an indie road movie and Marco Polo, a popular Neflix series, with questions and comments from the audience.

ASC & Imago Conference

15:30-17:00 — 1st Floor Seminar Room in Opera Nova

Cinematographers from both sides of the Atlantic will discuss "the importance of international collaboration".

Tribute to Vilmos Zsigmond, ASC

18:00-19:30 — Multikino 10

We will screen film clips shot my late friend Vilmos Zsigmond, including McCabe and Mrs Miller, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Deer Hunter, Heaven's Gate and Black Dahlia. I prepared this seminar with my friend Stephen Pizzello, who is the publisher and executive editor of American Cinematographer. I will moderate the discussion with Stephen and leading cinematographers (to be announced).

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THURSDAY

Arri Academy Master Class

11:30-16:00 — Workshop Center, University of Economy

ASC member Paul Cameron will lead this Master Class sub-titled "Fearless Cinematography in a Sublime Age". Enticing indeed.

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FRIDAY

Imago and Illuminatrix Master Class

12:00-13:30 — MCK Orzel Cinema

This year's Focus on Female Cinematographers will start with a Master Class by Natasha Braier on Nicholas Refn's Neon Demon, moderated by DP Claire Pijman.

Getting Older & Being Younger

14:30-17:30 — MCK Orzel Cinema

This panel discussion with Chris Doyle and ASC members Ed Lachman and Anthony Dod Mantle should be fun!

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My thanks to the Festival for its images and support

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LINKS

Camerimage website

Camerimage 2016 pdf schedule

money-changing at 24-hour post office

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