Cinematographers’ Debuts Competition was initiated in 2010 due to the Festival’s increasing openness to the noteworthy artists and the new film phenomena they create. The selection committee nominates first or second non-documentary feature films made by young directors and cinematographers. The idea of creating additional competition sections was a natural consequence of our previous activities. For years we have been promoting innovative projects that combine intellectual freedom, remarkable insight into world affairs and a desire to inspire other artists of the screen.
Cinematographers’ Debuts Competition brings new discoveries: great movies of high artistic value and great filmmakers whose new ventures surprise not only the Jury members but all audiences around the world as well.
Competition is under the patronage of Polish Filmmakers Association.
3 DAYS IN SEPTEMBER
ORIGINAL TITLE: 3 zile în septembrie
DIRECTOR: Tudor Giurgiu
CINEMATOGRAPHERS: Alexandru Dorobanțu
PRODUCTION: Point Films
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Romania, 2026
Bianca’s world shatters when her fiancé’s mistress crashes their wedding. Reeling from shock, she flees on a tourist train, launching a real-time odyssey of chaotic escape and surreal encounters through the off-season seaside resort. Rejecting her old life, she transforms her humiliation into a liberating night of rebellion, ultimately finding a new purpose as the sun rises.
THE BLIND GIRL AND AN ELEPHANT
ORIGINAL TITLE: সাঁকোটা দুলছে
DIRECTOR: Ishtiyak Ahmad Zihad
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Samiul Karim Shuptak
PRODUCTION: Manpachitra
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Bangladesh, Germany, 2026
In a pandemic-stricken village, three young girls dream of escaping the fate imposed upon them. Amid violence, forced marriage and public humiliation, their paths gradually diverge. Only Momi, a blind girl, embarks on an inner journey guided by the vision of a mysterious elephant, which becomes a symbol of hope and the possibility of freedom. A contemporary fable about oppression, resilience and the irrepressible desire for liberation.
EFFI O BLAENAU
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DIRECTOR: Marc Evans
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Eira Wyn Jones
PRODUCTION: Tarian Films
COUNTRY AND YEAR: UK, 2026
Effi is a young woman from Blaenau Ffestiniog, a town where the pubs are closed, the jobs have vanished and the only family income comes from her grandmother’s part-time shifts at the chip shop. A chance encounter in a Llandudno nightclub gives Effi a glimpse of a life she has never imagined, but the reality that follows brings her back down to earth with a bump. With a blistering central performance from Leisa Gwenllian, this is a cinematic interpretation of Gary Owen’s play Iphigenia in Splott, which premiered at the Sherman Theatre in 2015 before being performed around the world.
A GIRL UNKNOWN
ORIGINAL TITLE: Wu ming nü hai
DIRECTOR: Jing Zou
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Zhongqiang Liang
PRODUCTION: Eagle Media, Emei Film Group, Memoria Films, Maneki Films, Pure Light Films,
COUNTRY AND YEAR: China, France, 2026
A Chinese girl is passed between three families from the age of 6 to 18, receiving each time a new name and identity. As she searches for belonging and the possibility of love, she has to navigate between the weight of her past and the uncertainty of her future, until she finds her own way.
HIDEAWAY: THE DOSSIERS
ORIGINAL TITLE: 密档
DIRECTOR: Dasheng Zheng
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Daiyao Yan
PRODUCTION: Shanghai Film Studio
COUNTRY AND YEAR: China, 2026
In 1942, during the darkest days of the occupation of Shanghai, several boxes of top-secret Chinese documents lie hidden deep inside an old stone-gate house at No. 52 Ferry Road. Surrounded by Japanese and collaborationist forces, with friend and foe almost indistinguishable, the cramped space seethes with undercurrents of danger. Ordinary people struggle to survive. Xu Shuting and his wife Shen Yulin, both secret agents, receive a new mission: to become ‘two drops of water in the vast ocean’ and safeguard a spark of hope with their very lives, torn between going with the tide and remaining true to their beliefs.
I'LL BE GONE IN JUNE
DIRECTOR: Katharina Rivilis
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Giulia Schelhas
PRODUCTION: Road Movies
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Germany, Switzerland, USA, 2026
In 2001, Franny, a 16-year-old exchange student from Germany, arrives in the sleepy desert town of Las Cruces, New Mexico. Far from home, Franny struggles through awkward school days, stifling heat and restless nights until she meets Elliott, a boy whose quiet sadness mirrors her own. As America reels from 9/11, something resonates within Franny, and an unexpected tenderness begins to bloom.
THE LION AT MY BACK
DIRECTOR: Tonia Mishiali
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Manu Tilinski
PRODUCTION: Bark like a cat films
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Cyprus, Luxembourg, Greece, 2026
Mariama, a teenage Senegalese asylum seeker, and Stella, a Cypriot recovering drug addict, are striving to rebuild their lives. When their paths first cross, they use each other, but their shared struggle for survival in a world that has failed them both sparks an unexpected mother-daughter bond. Together, they redefine the true meaning of love and family in a heartwarming tale of sacrifice, female solidarity and empowerment.
MANHUNT
DIRECTOR: Wayne Wapeemukwa
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jon Glendon
PRODUCTION: Wayne Wapeemukwa
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Canada, 2026
Inspired by true events, two young men go on a road trip to escape their dead-end lives. They drive through empty towns and vast forests as their lives dissolve between digital fantasy and offline reality. Reframing true crime as a parable, Manhunt probes loneliness, masculinity and the colonial dream of beginning anew, until the search for meaning turns into violence. Chasing salvation in the vast northern frontier, two boys discover they can’t outrun what they’ve become.
MOTHERWITCH
ORIGINAL TITLE: Δωδεκάμερον
DIRECTOR: Minos Papas
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jack McDonald
PRODUCTION: Caretta Films, Cyprian Films New York
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Cyprus, Macedonia, USA, 2026
Eleni, a scorned painter in Cyprus in 1882, attempts to resurrect her dead children, but instead awakens the Kalikantzari, creatures from Cypriot folklore. Now she must find a way to overcome her grief and anger and dispel the curse that has befallen her village.
RED ROCKS
ORIGINAL TITLE: Les Roches Rouges
DIRECTOR: Bruno Dumont
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Carlos Alfonso Corral
PRODUCTION: Rosa Filmes
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Portugal, 2026
On the French Riviera, two gangs of kids compete in the perilous game of cliff jumping. Geo, barely five years old, discovers over the course of a summer a world where friendship blends with rivalry and where the first stirrings of the heart emerge against the dazzling Mediterranean landscape.
RELIVE
DIRECTOR: Steve Taylor
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Michael P. Tedford
PRODUCTION: Illuminfilm, Xeno Films
COUNTRY AND YEAR: USA, 2026
After a freak temporal anomaly erases her son from existence, a grieving mother is recruited for an impossible mission: to travel back twenty years along her own timeline to a college hiking trip and kill the inventor of time travel in order to save her son.
SAD GIRLZ
ORIGINAL TITLE: Chicas Tristes
DIRECTOR: Fernanda Tovar
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Rosa Hadit Hernández
PRODUCTION: Colectivo Colmena
COUNTRY AND YEAR: Mexico, Spain, France, 2026
La Maestra and Paula are inseparable friends and the strongest swimmers on their team, until an incident at a party forces them to choose between silence and speaking out, testing the limits of their friendship.