10 October 2007

Stefan Laudyn, director of the Warsaw International Film Festival (WIFF), talks to Dominik Skurzak.

Festival entries are being screened with English subtitles, which is good news for our English-speaking readers. Any exceptions?
There are a few. Usually, very few copies of a film come with English subtitles. Sometimes we only get a single copy and then we'll sit around agonizing over whether to show the film at all. Armin by Ognjen Svilicic, who won the Grand Prix at the WIFF two years ago, is one film that won't have English subtitles. Kinoteka cinemas 2 and 3 will be screening English language films and films with English subtitles.

What are the must-sees for English speakers?
There's no shortage of must-see films for anybody! What Would Jesus Buy, John Waters: This Filthy World and Red Hot Chili Peppers: Untitled Documentary haven't been translated into Polish. We have some excellent independent American documentaries too, including The Old, Weird America: Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music directed by Rani Singh, Strange Culture by Lynn Hershman-Leeson, Skills Like This by Monty Miranda, Screamers by Carla Garapedian, Phantom Love by Nina Menkes, New Year Baby by Socheata Poeuv, My Kid Could Paint That by Amir Bar-Lev, Murch by Edie and David Ichioka, Cocalero by Alejandro Landes, Beyond the Call by Adrian Belic and Brando by Mimi Freedman and Leslie Greif.

The Free Spirit competition for independent filmmakers is a new attraction at this year's festival. Can you tell us about the films, their makers and the guidelines for eligibility?
Free Spirit has been running for a couple of years now and has proven to be enormously popular which is only to be expected given the nature of the festival. All the films we show are independent, they're all the work of independent filmmakers and they all bear the stamp of artistic freedom-whether they were produced on a budget of $5 million or knocked up for a thousand bucks. But some are a little more wayward and rebellious than others... they drift just that little bit further from the mainstream. These are the ones that make it to Free Spirit.

How many viewers are you expecting this year? Are tickets still available for the more popular entries?
We had over 92,000 viewers last year and I'm hoping to get as least as many this year. Tickets are still available for everything but I strongly recommend that you book now as tickets may be hard to get during the festival.

What are your five best picks?
My top five all hail from Estonia! The Singing Revolution, The Autumn Ball, The Class, Magnus and 186 Kilometers. We're witnessing what I call the "Estonian Explosion" this year. This small country, which only makes a few films a year, has already taken Cannes, Venice and Karlovy Vary by storm.

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