The New Horizons International Competition is the Wrocław festival’s showcase section. It presents the latest uncompromising works from artists seeking original forms of expression.
The twelve competition titles include productions from Lithuania, Canada, Dominican Republic, Greece and Brazil, among others. The festival's Grand Prix will be awarded by a jury consisting of: Rodrigo Moreno, Anthony Lapia, Jan P. Matuszyński, Kasia Smutniak, and Ann Oren. You'll find the profiles of this year's jury members below.
Rodrigo Moreno
An argentine filmmaker based in Buenos Aires. He is considered as one of the most important filmmakers of the so called New Argentine Cinema. His film El Custodio won the Alfred Bauer Preis in Berlinale and best latinamerican script in Sundance. His following film A mysterious world was also invited to the official competition in Berlinale. Reimon and Provincial Citywere filmed in 2014 and 2017 respectively and both had their international premiere at Rotterdam Film Festival. In 2023 he released a three hours film titled The Delinquents selected in the official competition of Cannes and considered by most relevant film magazings from all over the world as one of the best films of the year. The film was released in theatres in more tan thirty countries. It won Grand Prix at the 23. IFF mBank New Horizons.
Anthony Lapia
He studied Fine Arts in Paris and Madrid, then cinema at Paris 8 University, where he produced and directed two short (including Soliloquies, jury prize at Arte Court-Circuit 2010 competition). In 2011, he integrates La fémis school and shot Panda with Solène Rigot and Finnegan Oldfield (Clermont-Ferrand Intl. Film Festival, Côté Court Festival 2014). Since then, he produced fifteen films with Société Acéphale while working on his own projects. After, his first feature, premiered at Berlinale last year in Panorama section and received Special Mention at the 23. IFF mBank New Horizons. The film will be released in French cinemas next September.
Jan P. Matuszyński
He graduated from film directing at the Krzysztof Kieślowski Radio and Television Department of the University of Silesia and the documeentary course at the Wajda School. His documentary Deep Love has received numerous awards, among which the Silver Lajkonik at the Krakow Film Festival for the best documentary. His feature films The Last Family (Ostatnia rodzina) and Leave No Traces (Żeby nie było śladów) have become widely discussed phenomena, honoured with numerous awards both in Poland and abroad. Leave No Traces was selected for the 78th Venice International Film Festival, and in 2021 awarded the Silver Lions at the 46th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. Five years earlier, at the same festival, The Last Family received the Golden Lions. He is director of such series as The Border (Wataha) and The King (Król), based on the novel by Szczepan Twardoch. His latest film Minghun is going to be premiered at this year's New Horizons. Currently, Matuszyński is working on the series Przesmyk.
Kasia Smutniak
Polish born Italian actress. She has worked with many Italian and international directors and starred in numerous films including Caos Calmo by Antonello Grimaldi with Nanni Moretti, La Passione by Carlo Mazzacurati, From Paris with Love by Pierre Morel, Meraviglioso Boccaccio by Paolo and Vittorio and Sweet End of Day by Jacek Borcuch, amond others. Kasia was also among the leads in the award-winning film Perfetti Sconosciuti, which holds the record as the film with the most remakes in the history of cinema. She stars in Nick Hurran's Sky series Devils with Patrick Dempsey and Alessandro Borghiand plays the lead role of Livia Drusilla in the Sky series Domina directed by Claire McCarthy. In 2014 she won the Nastro d'Argento as best leading actress thanks to her performance in Ferzan Özpetek's Allacciate le Cinture and in 2018 won the Nastro d'Argento as best supporting actress for Loro 1 and Loro 2by Oscar-winning director Paolo Sorrentino. Walls, presented at this year's New Horizons, is her directorial debut.
Ann Oren
A Berlin based visual artist and filmmaker. By dissolving distinctions between machine, plant, animal and human, she asks what it is to be human in an ecosystem immersed in digital culture. Questions about intimacy and identity keep emerging through various audio-visual approaches, while exploring gender, fictosexuality, animality, interspecies and other hybrid conditions. Employing a visceral language, she leads the spectator with their own body towards critical thinking.
She directed Passage E in 2020, which premiered in Oberhausen Short Film Festival, and won many awards including Best Experimental Short at Slamdance. Her first narrative feature film Piaffe premiered in the Locarno Film Festival’s International Competition and was presented in dozens of festivals including San Sebastián and BFI London. It won numerous awards including the Junior Jury Awards at the Locarno Film Festival, the Silver Hugo Award at the Chicago International Film Festival and Best Debut from The German Film Critics' Association. It was also presented at the 23. IFF mBank New Horizons.