November 8, 2019

Preview of EnergaCAMERIMAGE 2019

The biggest and best cinematography festival in the world begins Saturday, Nov. 9 in Torun, Poland.

Benjamin B

EnergaCAMERIMAGE, the biggest and best cinematography festival in the world begins Saturday here in Torun. This post offers a glimpse of some of the films, seminars,
workshops and other events during the festival.

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Back to Torun

This year the festival is returning to the historic city of Torun, its 1993 birthplace.
Camerimage (as it's known for short) spent the first 6 years in Torun, then moved to Lodz for a decade,
then to Bydgoszcz for 9 years. During last year's closing ceremony, festival
founder Marek Zydowicz took everyone by surprise when he announced that Camerimage
was seeking a new home, because the local Bydgoszcz government reportedly reneged
on an important partnership commitment.

It's been wonderful to see Camerimage grow over the years,
and also to see it manage its growth, with a formidable organization headed
by Kazik Suwala. Camerimage has strived to stay true to its spirit
of egalitarian openness, while also attracting Hollywood celebrities -- this year they include Richard Gere, Edward Norton, Danny De Vito and Quentin Tarantino. Still the festival has maintained
its mix of seminars and workshops open to every student and nightly invitation-only
parties. Camerimage is still a festival where a student can go up to a world-famous
cinematographer and ask a question about lighting.

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The Main Competition

There are 13 features competing for the Gold, Silver and Bronze Frogs awarded
for best cinematography. This year's selection includes 5 ASC cinematographers:
Caleb Deschanel, Phedon Papamichael, Rodrigo
Prieto, Lawrence Sher and recently
admited member Xiaoding Zhao.

There are 6 American films, and one each from France, China, Czech
Republic, Germany, Norway, Poland and the UK (looking at the key country involved
in production). Put another way, that's 6 from the US, 6 from Europe and 1
from Asia. Latin America is represented by filmmakers Fernando Meirelles
and César Charlone, ABC, working on an English-language film with British actors.

I look forward to seeing as many of these films as I can. I have seen Never
Look Away, a German film loosely based on the artist Gerhard Richter.
It's a great film about art and love, wonderfully lit by Caleb
Deschanel, whose work on this project was also nominated for an Oscar.

There are 3 features I would have liked to have seen in
the Main Competition. Two are screened in other categories: A Hidden Life by
Terrence Malick with stunning images by Jorg Widmer (in Contemporary World
Cinema) and Sunset by
László Nemes with superb 35mm cinematography by Mátyás Erdély, HSC (but listed
in Director's Debut?). The third film, Portrait
of a Lady on Fire by the brilliant Céline Sciamma, with sophisticated cinematography by Claire Mathon, AFC, is absent from the festival, although
there is another film shot by Claire: Atlantics (Director's Debut).

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John Bailey, ASC, Lifetime Achievement Awardee

This year's Camerimage Lifetime Achievement Award goes to my friend John Bailey. I offer my congratulations to him for this award honoring his wide-ranging vibrant body of work including American Gigolo, Cat People, Mishima, Ordinary People, The Big Chill, Silverado and Groundhog Day.

John will give a Cinematic Retrospective in conversation with my friend David Heuring on Tuesday at 3PM in Cinema City 10. The event is sponsored by Panavision.

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Other Screenings

Camerimage is truly an embarassement of riches. There will be screenings in
the CKK Jorkdanki Festival Center, as well as on 5 screens in the nearby Cinema
City multiplex, while documentaries will show in Horzyca Theatre. All the screenings
are listed in the pdf Festival Schedule. For those in Torun, I encourage you
to download the Camerimage app for Apple or Android smartphones and tablets
( see link below). These screenings caught my eye:

Beanpole - Sunday

by Kantemir Balagov, with cinematography by Kseniya Sereda

Chernobyl - Monday

Netflix mini series directed by Johan Renck, with cinematography by Jakob Ihre, FSF.

Border - Tuesday

by Ali Abbasi, cinematography by Nadim Carlsen

The Lighthouse - Wednesday

by Robert Eggers, cinematography by Jarin Blaschke

Les Misérables - Wednesday

by Ladj Ly, cinematography by Julien Poupard, AFC

When They See Us - Thursday -

Netflix series by Ava DuVernay, cinematography
by Bradford Young, ASC

Uncut Gems - Thursday -

by Josh and Benny Safdie, cinematography by Darius Khondji, ASC, AFC

Corpus Christi - Friday

by Jan Komasa, with cinematography by Piotr Sobociński, PSC

And the festival will end with a bang when Robert Richardson,
ASC and Quentin Tarrantino receive the Director/Cinematographer Duo Award honoring the 5 films
they've done together, followed by a screening of their latest collaboration:
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

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AFC and ASC Seminars

I will be moderating 2 seminars, one for the AFC and one for the American Cinematographer:

AFC Master Class (Wednesday 11:15 at Cinema City)

With
cinematographers
Julie Grünebaum, Eric Guichard and Julien Poupard. Julie will showcase 2
low budget films Brother and Winter Song, contrasting working
with a first-time director versus a veteran filmmaker. Eric will discuss his amazing
work shooting animals in the forest and birds in the air in Seasons and
Give Me Wings. Julien will show excerpts of two powerful films set
in the French ghettos: Divines and the upcoming Les Misérables (which
also screens that evening); both films won awards at the Cannes festival.

100 Years of ASC Cinematography (Thursday at 3PM in Cinema City).
To mark the 100th year of the ASC, American Cinematographer Editor-in-Chief and Publisher Stephen Pizzello and I have been selecting scenes that illustrate the evolution of the art of cinematography, ranging from Sunrise in 1927 to Tree of Life in 2013. On Thursday, we invite a panel of distinguished cinematographers (names forthcoming) to view and discuss some twenty clips from the past century of ASC filmmaking.

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