Camerimage Opens With Optimism

The 33rd EnergaCAMERIMAGE cinematography festival kicked off on Saturday before a sold-out audience at the CKK Jordanki Centre in Toruń, Poland. Founder and director Marek Żydowicz began the ceremonies with the hope that cinema could help the world cope with a troubled economy.

Kazimierz Suwała, director of the European Film Center, invoked the spirit of David Lynch, a longtime friend of the festival. The proceedings were enlivened with filmed interviews with Lynch. “I started making films because I wanted to see paintings move,” the director said in one clip.

The festival will be screening features, shorts, experimental pieces, and music videos by Lynch, who bequeathed sets and artifacts from his television series Twin Peaks to what will become a museum housed at the European Film Center.

Lynch collaborators like Naomi Watts sent video messages. Watts talked about donning a bunny suit for the short Rabbits. “I was walking into walls because I couldn't see an inch in front of me” she said, laughing.

Building on a clip from that film, Żydowicz brought bunny actors onstage for a magic trick with Piotr Całbeckim, marshal of the Kujawy Pomorze Region, and Paweł Gulewski, mayor of City of Toruń. Całbeckim promised that despite economic troubles, Camerimage will remain in Toruń.

After a montage of clips from her extraordinary career, Polish actor Grażyna Szapołowska accepted the Marshal of the Kujawy Pomorze Region Film Award. She spoke about spending her early life in Toruń, about meeting Żydowicz decades earlier, and cited a possibly apocryphal Churchill quote: “Art and culture are sometimes stronger than cannonballs.” She also repeated actor Pola Negri's opinion that "in cinema, like life, you have to find a comfortable seat.”

ASC member Bradford Young took the stage to speak about the fifth anniversary of the FilmLight Colour Awards, singling out the “unsung heroes and ‘sheroes’ who are foundational to the life of a moving image.”

Also Read: FilmLight Presents 5th Annual Colour Awards at Camerimage

In addition, the festival awarded a Duo Award: Cinematographer — Director to Peter Deming, ASC and Lynch for a 33-year collaboration that included the features Lost Highway and Mulholland Drive and the streaming series Twin Peaks: The Return. Fighting back tears, Deming said, “It was the honor of my career to work with David. The real prize was knowing him and laughing with him, sometimes arguing with him. The work will endure.”

The ceremony continued with clips of films from the festival's competitive categories, including Polish Feature Films, Cinematographers' Debuts, Directors' Debuts, TV Series, Documentary Features, Documentary Shorts, Music Videos, Film and Art School Etudes, and the Main Competition.

Scott Roxborough, European Bureau Chief at The Hollywood Reporter, announced Robbie Ryan, BSC, ISC — whose recent features with director Yorgos Lanthimos include Bugonia, which is screening at the festival, Poor Things and The Favourite — as the winner of the THR Visionary Award, in part for “his ability to create evocative, emotionally charged imagery that combines naturalism with striking visual artistry.”

In accepting the award, Ryan thanked Lanthimos as well as directors Andrea Arnold and Ken Loach. “It's a joy to work in cinema,” Ryan said, “and this kind of event celebrates it in the best possible way.”