On March 26th 2018 the 20th anniversary gala of the Polish Film Award ORŁY took place. Among the winners of this year's "Polish Oscars" are also some titles and names that should be well known to the audience of the FilmFestival Cottbus.
The winner of the evening was SILENT NIGHT. Piotr Domalewski's film won a total of ten awards, most notably in the categories "Best Film", "Best Director" and "Best Screenplay". The actors Dawid Ogrodnik and Arkadiusz Jakubik were honoured as "Best male leading actor" or "Best male supporting actor". Ogrodnik convinced in 2016 in Cottbus with the role of Tomasz Beksiński in THE LAST FAMILY and received the "Prize for an Outstanding Actor". Jakubik appeared at FFC 2017 in the award-winning films I'M A KILLER (Special Award for Best Director) and BREAKING THE LIMITS (Award for Best Youth Film).
The prize in the category "Best leading female role" went to Magdalena Boczarska for her role of Michalina Wisłocka in the film OPERA ABOUT POLAND by Maria Sadowska. In addition, the composer Radzimir Dębski was honoured with the ORŁY for the best film music. The 27th FFC showed THE ART OF LOVING in the section National Hits.
The winner of the "Best Documentary" award is Piotr Stasik for his documentary 21 x NEW YORK, and Stasik is not unknown in Cottbus. In 2017 his film OPERA ABOUT POLAND was shown in the Polskie Horyzonty section.
The young director Jan P. Matuszyński also received an award at ORŁY. Together with his director colleague Kasia Adamik he convinced with WATAHY in the category "Best Feature Film Series". In 2016 Matuszyński won the award for best debut film for THE LAST FAMILY in Cottbus.
The Polish Film Prize has been awarded since 1999. 700 members of the Polish Film Academy took part in the selection of the winners in a total of 17 categories.
The complete list of prize winners and further information on Orły 2018 can be found on the Polish Film Prize website (in Polish): Polskie Nagrody Filmowe Orły