Several special awards were presented during the event. Alex Thompson was congratulated for Hamlet by Tadeusz Scibor-Rylski, the President of the State Committee of Polish Cinematography; Fortunato's Nil By Mouth was selected by the students as their favorite film; and Filac was the audience's favorite for Chinese Box. Honorary Golden Frog awards were presented to Prof. Jerzy Mierzejewski, dean of the cinematography department at the state film school in Lodz, and Bobby Arnold, president of Arriflex Corporation, for his immense contribution to the development of film technique. In addition, a gold medal was awarded to Friend for his contributions to the success of the festival, and special prizes were presented to Vittorio Storaro and director Bernardo Bertolucci for their longtime collaboration.
To further honor the latter duo, the festival presented a special screening of Strageglia del Ragna (The Spider's Stratagem), the 1968 film which first paired these two cinematic titans. Storaro introduced the film and answered questions. He also explained Univision, a system he used during the production of Last Tango in Paris to compose images for both cinema and television release in a uniform 2:1 aspect ratio. The goal, he said, is to ensure the integrity of the cinematographer's original composition when movies are seen on widescreen television.
Bertolucci's scheduled appearance was canceled because of an illness, but he spoke live via satellite and was obviously moved by the audience's warm reception.
More than 300 students attended the festival and participated in workshops and seminars conducted by a world-class faculty of cinematographers. "I loved the student participation," says Jack Green. "There was a lot of interaction. They asked lots of questions about lighting techniques and style. I told them my intent is to have no recognizable style and that cinematography should blend with the story. Their knowledge of films from around the world was phenomenal."
Jerzy Zielinski's appearance was inspirational for the students from Lodz. "The student competition was great," he submits. "It was a terrific opportunity for young filmmakers to show their work to audiences and to have it judged by working cinematographers from around the world. I only hope they can get more participation from other countries. The students were mainly from Europe, with some from Australia."
Zydowicz said that about 100 students came from outside of Poland, and most of them were housed with local families. Some 70 films schools submitted short films for the student competition. In all, 34 films from 15 schools were selected for the competition. Judging was done by the festival's all-star jury. "I met film students from Finland, Holland and Australia," says Kemper. "The films from Lodz were consistently good. Overall, I think that some 70 of the student films were better than what you would expect in this type of competition."
The student Golden Tadpole award winner was Marek Wieser from Lodz for Liver and Potatoes. Marek Gajczak from Lodz won the Silver Tadpole award for A Way for Moravia. Manuel Mack from Deutsche Film and Fernsehen Akademie Berlin won the Bronze Tadpole award for A Summer's Day.
An added special feature at CamerImage '97 was the daily International Photographers Guild screenings of films shot by ASCmembers Robert Primes, Donald M. Morgan and George Spiro Dibie and Constantine Makris, as well as James Chressanthis, Stephen Lighthill and Brian Reynolds. "This was an outreach program, a gift from the Guild to the film students in Eastern Europe," notes Dibie, national president of the Local 600 union chapter. "We hope this will inspire them to use television as a platform for creative expression."
Zsigmond attended every screening of his retrospective, telling stories about what happened behind the scenes and answering questions. "They asked the same questions that students ask [in the U.S.]," he said. "How did I get started? How do I work with directors?"
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