Crowds of people with festival badges, a beach in Plac Solny and a large screen in Rynek. The New Horizons Festival has just begun. This my first time to engage so much with the festival. Previously, I once joined an outdoor screening in Rynek. Truth be told, I mainly saw people who would sip their coffee or Yerba Mate drinks and never parted with their badges, not even at the cinema. Frankly, I found this a little funny at first, and it was not until I attended the opening gala that I realised it was not just a fad but a sensible and necessary solution.
Cutting the ribbon, words of thanks and jokes
Just as last year, the festival's opening was hosted by jouralist Maciej Chmiel. The festival turning fifteen this year, he compared the event to a middle school student. He hit the nail on the head, as both the festival and middle school students were those kinds of entities I knew they existed but never wanted to rub shoulders with. While still a little sceptical about the students, I am now gradually taking to the festival.
15. T-Mobile New Horizons Festival started with a few opening remarks from people who are absolutely instrumental in the festival's success. The event started with speeches from the festival's founder and director Roman Gutek, who revealed the secret behind his wrinkle-free photo session for one of the glossy magazines by recommending cosmetic products from one of the festival's leading sponsors; Mayor of Wroclaw Rafał Dutkiewicz, who made a tongue-in-cheek remark that the festival turned out to be a little more expensive than Roman Gutek had promised ten years before; new T-mobile President Adam Sawicki, who said that the company had every intention to continue endorsing the festival; and Artistic Director Joanna Łapińska, who told a surprising story about her little son who crossed the border with a festival badge instead of his passport, which helped me understand better why festival-goers would never ever part with their badges.
It's because I chose the right film
I just have to devour loads of popcorn as I go through a film, I just like good cinema, compelling, funny, moving and intriguing. I like emotions in their immediacy, and I am not going to bother with sophisticated similes or references to the history of the cinema.
The festival kicked off with three films: Amy by Asif Kapadia, The Assassin by Hao Hsiao-hsien and The Brand New Testament by Jaco Van Dormael. I was lucky to see the latter, and the two hours spent in the cinema gave a new meaning to the whole New Horizons affair. This is one of the best films I have ever seen! I am speaking as an complete lay person who goes to the cinema only rarely and has several favourite films such as Forrest Gump, Big Fish or Fight Club. The Brand New Testament tells a story about a despicable, mean and antisocial God who sends only misery to his people and teases them with new and complicated rules such as "the other queue is always faster" and "the toast always falls to the butter side". The story also features God's terrorised wife who misses her beloved Jesus Christ, and his daughter Ea, Jesus' sister, who decides to put a stop to her father's tyranny and sets off for the world to write her Brand New Testament in the company of six new apostles. The rendition of the story is as absurd as the story itself, in the positive sense of the word, that is. The audience in the cinema would burst with laughter every now and then, and the film won a massive round of applause after the screening. And for a reason!
The film has made me to see another and another and another, which is why I'm now part of the New Horizons. And I like it.
Photographs: press release
