Open Door
Tramway Film Festival
In the non-competitive section Open Door, we present selected films from another film festival. In the first edition of Tramway Film Festival, the curator of the Open Door section is Manuel Polls Pelaz, festival director of Cinemística Film Festival.
I know Bartosz Reetz through his short films "The Stop" and "Tramway", which were awarded at our Cinemística Film Festival (Granada, Spain) in 2019 and 2021. We have never met in person, nor have we spoken on the phone, but we have exchanged a lot of emails, especially after he announced to me a year ago his intention to create a new film festival in the vicinity of Warsaw.
I was initially surprised by the news, as there are few active film directors who take on the additional role of promoting the art cinema. But I think it is important for us filmmakers (this is also my case) to take the reins of certain film events, because the experience of filming and knowing the real difficulties of our work, should give the film festival a character, an aura different from others (run by cultural managers), a genuine style based on understanding, respect, pioneering feeling and sincerity of the film device.
Bartosz's film works are among the best that have passed through our festival. There is no doubt that we are in front of a young film director of the highest level, with his own look that takes us back to the best arcana of art cinema. Let's hope that these same characteristics, transferred to his new festival Tramway Film Festival, will make this event a small light, a beacon of attention to the authentic cinematography in Poland, which will radiate to other places.
From this point of view, TFF is a necessary festival as a nucleus of resistance, especially since cultural and economic globalisation (including European globalisation) has taken its toll even on a film industry with such high moral and aesthetic values as the Polish cinematography was, until the end of the 20th century.
For the same reasons mentioned above, Festival Cinemística was born in Granada 10 years ago. This year, 2023, it is moving towards its ninth edition, trying always to be a little light - humble but tenacious - of hope and resistance for cinema-art in the extreme south of Europe.
Beyond borders, we know that TFF and Cinemística are festivals twinned by the companionship inherent in the craft of filmmaking, and perhaps also by that of survival.
Manuel Polls Pelaz, Granada 29 October 2023
- List of films selected for the non-competitive section Open Door:
- 1:1 | Telemach Wiesinger | Germany | 2021 | 30’ | Polish premiere
- All Eyez On Me! | Robert Weijs | Netherlands | 2021 | 33’ | Polish premiere
- El Último De Arganeo | David Vázquez | Spain | 2022 | 29’ | Polish premiere
- The Stop | Bartosz Reetz | Poland | 2018 | 15’
- Tramway | Bartosz Reetz | Poland | 2021 | 22’
