14th Warsaw Film Festival
May 15, 2008
1-12.10.1998
cinemas: Skarpa, Bajka, Kultura
number of admissions: 45,000
Audience Award Winner: "La vita e bella" (Life Is Beautiful) by Roberto Benigni, Italy
Czech-Polish-Slovak co-production "Je treba zabit Seklala" (Sekal Had To Die) for the opening. Large crowd on stage, with director Vladimir Michalek, producers Jaroslav Boucek, Daniel Zavorka and Darek Jabłoński, and actors: Agnieszka Sitek, Jiri Bartoska (big Czech star and President of the Karlovy Vary Festival), Bogusław Linda, and Olaf Lubaszenko, in a double role of actor and interpreter from the Czech language.
Films from the Nordic Countries were presented in a section named “Films from the North”, organized with support of the Nordic Council of Ministers. The artwork was made by famous Polish graphic artist Andrzej Mleczko. The guests from the North were Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, Bent Hamer, Mika Kaurismaki, Julius Kemp, Pia Tikka, and actress Maria Jarvenhelmi, for whom this was the first film festival; shortly afterwards she will play several big roles in Finnish films. The screenings of “Films from the North” were repeated later in Kraków at "Kino pod Baranami".
We didn’t show "Witajcie w życiu" (Welcome To Life) by Henryk Dederko, a documentary about AmWay corporation, which sued the filmmakers and prevented the film from being showed to the public. The same occured in the next two years.
Yvan Le Moine and Oskar Reif were among festival guests.
Twins computer company joined the sponsors.
We open the Festival Website www.wff.org.pl (currently www.wff.pl).
"Historia kina w Popielawach" (The History of Cinema in Popielawy) by Jan Jakub Kolski for the closing. A week later the film will get the main award (Golden Lions) at the Polish Feature Films Festival in Gdynia, while Krzysztof Majchrzak, who played the main role, will get the Best Actor award.
