Spring Film Festival 2015 Preview: ScreenAnarchy's Top Picks

Contributing Writer; Tokyo, Japan (@patrykczekaj)
Now in its 21st edition, Spring Film Festival (Wiosna Filmów), traditionally known as Summer Film Festival, marks the beginning of the festival season in Poland.

One of the country's oldest and most celebrated events dedicated to promoting awareness of international film culture, Spring Film Festival originally took place in August in the lovely city of Kazimierz Dolny, but in recent years both the date and the location have been changed. The annual festival moved up north in 2013 to Warsaw to allow more people to attend. Obviously the name also had to be changed to as to fit the festival's date (early Spring) better.

Showcasing the best in contemporary world cinema, Spring Film Festival offers Poland-based cinephiles an extraordinary chance to catch some of the most outstanding local and international films. It will take place in Kino Praha and Kino Apolonia, two beautiful and modern art house cinemas, between 10-19 April.

The diverse line-up, divided into eleven sections, features award-winning pictures that cover a myriad of genres, themes and topics. The festival will open with Roy Andersson's Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014 Venice Golden Lion Winner) and close with Alberto Rodríguez's Marshland (Winner of 10 Goya Awards in 2014). Both films will have their Polish premiers. 

This year the festival will put a a special focus on Hungarian cinema with eight films taking center stage, including Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky's The Turin Horse and Kornél Mundruczó's White God. It will also pay tribute to Romanian director Radu Jude in its special retrospective section by screening four of his features, including Aferim!, for which he won the Silver Bear at this year's Berlinale.

Scroll through the gallery below to find out our top picks of the festival.

Spring Film Festival's website: www.wiosnafilmow.pl

The Tribe

Filmed primarily in long takes with no score and no verbal dialogue, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy's stunning and bizarre boarding school-set drama packs an uncompromising and thrilling punch. The Tribe is not only the most decorated film by a Ukrainian director ever, but also the most talked-about Ukrainian film since the country's independence.

Check out Ben Croll's review.

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2015PolandSpring Film FestivalWarsawWiosna Filmów

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