American Cinematographer - December 2012 - 78

Event
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elebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the Plus Camerimage International Festival of the Art of Cinematography in Poland has become one of the world’s most important gatherings of cinematographers and aspiring cinematographers. In fact, it might be easy to forget how humble the event’s beginnings were. In 1993, a small group of cinephiles with very little money but a strong appreciation for the visual arts invited ASC members Sven Nykvist and Vittorio Storaro to attend a festival in Torun, Poland, that was devoted to the art and craft of cinematography. The Torun Foundation, a private organization dedicated to supporting the arts, played a key early role. Festival organizers now say that the idea became reality the moment Nykvist agreed to attend. That year, 42 films were screened, and jurors included Storaro and fellow ASC member Victor J. Kemper, as well as PSC members Witold Sobocinski and Slawomir Idziak, among others. The Gold Frog, wryly named for a local version of the Pied Piper fable in which a boy violinist delivers the town from a plague of frogs, was awarded to future ASC member Stuart Dryburgh for The Piano. Festival co-founders Kazimierz Partuki and Marek Zydowicz likened the festival’s early years to “staging an opera in the middle of a desert.” It is true that Torun, the site of the festival for its first seven years,
December 2012

An A-Plus
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The Polish film festival Plus Camerimage marks 20 years of celebrating cinematography.
By David Heuring

is remote, but attendees liked to say that the long journey meant that those who attended were dedicated lovers of cinematography. Asked in 1994 why he helped to start Camerimage, Zydowicz said, “Cinematography is an important visual art that is ignored at other [film] festivals. This festival is designed to give cinematographers the artistic recognition they deserve, and to restore the creation of moving pictures to its primary place in cinema storytelling. We also want it to become a forum where cinematographers and students from around the world can meet and discuss their art.” The jury for the second Camerimage Festival included ASC members John Bailey, Adam Holender and Vilmos Zsigmond. Storaro and Witold Sobocinski were feted with lifetime-achievement awards. The Gold Frog was a tie, going to Tibor Mathe for Woyzeck and Arthur Reinhart for Crows. (Piotr Sobocinski won the Silver Frog for Three Colors: Red, and Conrad Hall, ASC won the Bronze Frog for Searching for Bobby Fischer.) Arthur Hiller, president of the Directors Guild of America, kicked off the proceedings that year with a screening of a restored print of Robert Flaherty’s White Shadows in the South Seas (1928), for which Clyde DeVinna, ASC won the second Oscar ever given for cinematography. Roughly 60 cinematographers attended, along with more

American Cinematographer

Photos courtesy of Camerimage.

American Cinematographer - December 2012

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