30/08/2019 - Fugue director Agnieszka Smoczyńska and Imagine helmer Andrzej Jakimowski are among the subsidy recipients

The Polish Film Institute, the main funding body in Poland, has supported ten features and three so-called innovative films, with the money coming from two separate budgets. The biggest subsidy of PLN 6 million (€1.395 million) was given to Kinga Dębska, whose previous dramedies These Daughters of Mine [+see also:
film review
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film profile] and Playing Hard [+see also:
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film review
interview: Agnieszka Smoczynska
film profile], with Madants as her producer; she has secured a PLN 2.1 million (€488,000) PFI grant for it. The same amount of support was given to Sebastian Buttny and his second film, Saint, with IKH Pictures Promotion on board as the lead producer, as well as to Katarzyna Rosłaniec (awarded the Crystal Bear at the Berlinale for Baby Blues [+see also:
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Jan Holoubek was given PLN 2 million (€465,000) for his debut feature, Komenda (produced by Polish private television channel TVN). Władysław Pasikowski, who is currently working on Canis Majoris. Pigs III, the follow-up to his cult 1990s films Pig and Pigs, will be supported with the same amount of money. Another PLN 2 million went to auteur Andrzej Jakimowski (Imagine [+see also:
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interview: Andrzej Jakimowski
film profile]) for the upcoming Kozia Góra, which he will also produce.

Klaudia Śmieja’s Madants (High Life [+see also:
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interview: Claire Denis
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interview: Babis Makridis
film profile]) received another PLN 6 million (€1.395 million) grant for the production of Ochotnik, the director of which has not yet been announced. Two other filmmakers also received support: Mariusz Palej, whose previous film for young audiences Behind the Blue Door [+see also:
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The PFI, which already had a separate category for micro-budget films, has also earmarked a new budget for innovative films. Three movies have been supported with an overall sum of PLN 1 million (€232,000): Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal (Rotterdam’s The Sun, the Sun Blinded Me [+see also:
film review
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interview: Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal
film profile]) got PLN 700,000 (€162,000) for their upcoming project, Podróż, which Warsaw-based Balapolis will produce; Jana Shostak and Jakub Jasiukiewicz received PLN 200,000 (€46,000) for Miss Polonii, produced by Documentary and Feature Film Studios; while the grant for Wioletta Sowa’s Dwie Marie amounts to PLN 100,000 (€23,255).

There is one grant session left for 2019, and this will encompass minority co-productions. The deadline for applications is 9 September.