What Belongs to Others takes top prize at Warsaw Film Festival
Grzegorz Dębowski's What Belongs to Others has won the Warsaw Grand Prix, the top prize in the international competition at the 42nd Warsaw Film Festival.
The winners were announced on 18 October, according to The Hollywood Reporter. That is the festival's highest honour. The international competition is the main contest section, where established directors compete side by side.
Best director went to Cai Chengjie for Suzhou Quartet. The film hails from China, according to Cineuropa. China had a second title in the festival mix, Her First Taste, directed by Yiwen Gong and also from China.
The Competition 1-2, the section reserved for directors' first and second fiction features, gave its main award to Agia by Lorin Terezi. A special mention in the same programme went to Urša Menart's Everything That's Wrong With You. It is the festival's dedicated launchpad for new feature directors.
Acting honours stayed close to home. A special jury award went to Maria Dębska for her performance in Through the Wall, directed by Maciej Sobieszczański. A separate special jury mention went to Bloody Men, directed by Jens Sjögren.
Documentaries and shorts closed out the list. The documentary competition award went to Jonas Spriestersbach's Meanwhile in Namibia, with a special mention for María Molina Peiró's Like Any Other Mortal. The Short Grand Prix went to Meteorit, directed by Elisabeth Werchosin.
What makes this year easy to navigate is scale. The current edition presents 190 films over 10 days across Kinoteka, MSN, Atlantic, Luna and Iluzjon, according to the Warsaw Film Festival. Its official site also offers a discovery tool called Kompas to help audiences find screenings.
For fans following from afar, this means a clear starting point. Start with the Grand Prix winner. Then follow the 1-2 and documentary titles. Those are often the names that return to screens two years on.
