This year, the festival was a great success, celebrating the vision and creativity of female directors shaping contemporary Polish cinema.
Over three inspiring days, audiences experienced six powerful films by women filmmakers — each telling bold, unique, and unforgettable stories. Visitors had the opportunity to meet the directors and join conversations, gaining insight into their creativity, courage, and distinctive voices.
It was a vibrant celebration of talent, diversity, and the power of female storytelling in Polish cinema.
Programme
Friday, October 31, 2025
Rules & Identity
17.00 – 19.15
Nina (2018, 130 min.)
Olga Chajdas
20.15 – 21.00
Conversation: Breaking boundaries: love, freedom and identity
Guests: Olga Chajdas & Urszula Antoniak
Moderator: Stefan Malešević
21.00 – 22.45
Fugue (2018, 102 min.)
Agnieszka Smoczyńska
Saturday, November 1, 2025
Psychology & the Uncanny
17.00 – 18.55
Tower. A Bright Day (2017, 106 min.)
Jagoda Szelc
20.15 – 21.00
Conversation: Between flesh and spirit: the hidden side of womanhood
Guests: Jagoda Szelc & Laura van Zuylen
Moderator: Ianthe Mosselman
21.00 – 22.30
Body (2015, 90 min.)
Małgorzata Szumowska
Sunday, November 2, 2025
Society & Struggles
15.30 – 17.10
Woman on the Roof (2022, 95 min)
Anna Jadowska
17.10 – 17.55
Conversation: Unseen, unheard: the quite power of women’s resistance
Guests: Anna Jadowska & Lena Bril
Moderator: Katz Laszlo
19.00 – 20.40
Fucking Bornholm (2022, 99 min.)
Anna Kazejak
Day 1: Rules & Identity
Film: Nina
Nina’s life seems perfect on the surface – a stable marriage, a fulfilling job, and an elegant apartment – yet something is missing. Struggling with her inability to conceive, she and her husband Wojtek hire a surrogate mother in hopes of saving their faltering relationship. When they meet Magda, a vibrant and enigmatic young woman, an unexpected connection forms. What begins as a secret plan to involve Magda as a surrogate evolves into a journey of self-discovery, desire, and love. Nina finds herself drawn into Magda’s world, confronting her deepest desires and questioning everything she thought she knew about herself, her marriage, and the boundaries of love. Nina is a story of unexpected passion, complicated choices, and impulsive love that defies traditional labels – where winners and losers often stand on the same side, and life’s truths are far from simple.
Director: Olga Chajdas
Olga Chajdas was born in 1983 in Poznań, Poland. She graduated in Film Production from the Łódź Film School and, in 2009, completed courses at Andrzej Wajda’s School of Film Directing. Olga began her career as a director’s assistant and later worked as 2nd and 1st assistant director on numerous feature films and TV series, including the Oscar-nominated In Darkness by Agnieszka Holland.
She has directed for theatre, including Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia and Tuvia Tenenbom’s The Last Jew in Europe, as well as award-winning television series such as The Deep End. More recently, she has focused on short films: 3xLOVE won the Grand Prix at the Distances Short Film Festival in Dublin, and Morning Has Broken premiered at the Raindance Festival in 2017.
Nina is Olga’s debut full-length feature film.
Conversation: Breaking boundaries: love, freedom and identity
Female directors offer unique perspectives on identity, memory, and relationships. This conversation explores how they approach themes like motherhood, sexuality, and suppressing one’s identity, challenging traditional societal roles and giving voice to personal and social barriers. Would Fugue or Nina feel different if made by men? How do female directors use cinema to explore what is often left unspoken?
Guests: Olga Chajdas & Urszula Antoniak
Urszula Antoniak is a Polish-Dutch screenwriter and film director. Her debut feature, ‘Nothing Personal’ (2009), won six awards at the Locarno Film Festival, including Best First Feature and Best Actress for Lotte Verbeek. Her second film, ‘Code Blue’ (2011), was selected for Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. She followed with the experimental feature ‘Nude Area’ (2015), and ‘Beyond Words’ (2017), which premiered at both the Toronto International Film Festival and the San Sebastián International Film Festival.
In addition to her own films, Urszula wrote the screenplay for ‘Life According to Nino’, a Dutch family film directed by Simone Dusseldorp, and co-wrote ‘Planet Single’ (2016), a Polish romantic comedy directed by Mitja Okorn that became a major box-office success.Her work spans both arthouse cinema and genre filmmaking: from poetic ’Splendid Isolation’ (2022), made during the lockdown, to the psychological thriller ‘Magic Mountains’ (2020), shot in the Tatra Mountains of Slovakia. Her latest project, ‘Self Tape’, has been selected for financing by the Dutch Film Fund and is currently in development.
Moderator: Stefan Malešević
Stefan Malešević is a filmmaker and film curator from Serbia, currently living in the Netherlands. He studied filmmaking at the film.factory academy in Sarajevo, Bosnia, under the mentorship of Béla Tarr. His documentary film Gora (2016) was awarded at Beldocs and DokuFest and screened at Visions du Réel. His first fiction feature film Mamonga (2019) premiered in Karlovy Vary, screened at New Horizons in Wrocław, Marrakech International Film Festival and several other festivals. He is a member of the European Film Academy since 2019 and works as the Head of Cinema in the cultural centre De Balie, Amsterdam.
Film: Fugue
Alicja has no memory and doesn’t know how she lost it. After two years of living with amnesia, she builds a new, independent life and avoids remembering her past. When her family finally finds her, she is forced to take on the roles of mother, daughter, and wife, confronting people who are now strangers. Her husband, too, has rebuilt his life, as the former Alicja was “dead” to him and their son. Fugue asks: What if it were me? Could I reinvent myself? Is love for a child unconditional if memory—and attachment—is lost? Can lost feelings ever be regained? The film also explores cultural taboos around maternity, questioning whether biological ability alone should dictate a woman’s desire or obligation to be a mother.
Director: Agnieszka Smoczyńska
Agnieszka Smoczyńska is a graduate of the Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School in Katowice, Poland, and attended master classes at the Wajda Film School. She has received numerous honors, including a scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, the “My Talent for Poland” prize, and the Golden Pen awarded by the President of Poland. Her debut feature, The Lure (2015), blending musical and horror genres, won Best Debut at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia and earned her the title “Discovery of the Year” at the Polish Film Awards. The film received awards at festivals worldwide, including Fantasporto, Sofia, Montreal, Vilnius, and Sundance, where she won the Special Jury Prize for “a unique vision and design.
In 2017, she was named one of “Ten European Women Filmmakers to Watch” by the Sydney Film Festival, Variety, and European Film Promotion, and she received the Global Filmmaking Award at Sundance.
Day 2: Psychology & the Uncanny
Film: Tower. A bright day
Mula lives with her husband, her sick mother, and her daughter Nina in a rural house. The weekend before Nina’s First Holy Communion, Mula’s brother arrives with his family, along with Kaja – her younger sister, who mysteriously disappeared six years ago. Kaja is Nina’s biological mother. Mula fears that her unstable sister intends to take her child. The rest of the family, initially distant toward Kaja, begins to believe in a new beginning and reconciliation between the sisters, which only increases Mula’s frustration. Mula decides to drive her sister out of the house. On Nina’s Communion day, however, the sisters reconcile. Yet there is another, more important reason why Kaja has returned…
From the Director: The need for control is a sickness that no one in our society seems to fight, and in a way, it is even affirmed. This film awakens something different in each of us. We see what we carry inside.
Director: Jagoda Szelc
Jagoda Szelc – director and screenwriter. She is a fifth-year directing student at the Łódź Film School and a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław. She has received scholarships from Aristotle University in Thessaloniki and from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
Her films have been screened at festivals such as the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Hot Docs – Canadian International Documentary Festival, Short Film Corner at Cannes, T-Mobile Nowe Horyzonty, and the Brooklyn Film Festival.
Her short fiction film Taki pejzaż, produced at the Łódź Film School, won the Golden Tadpole – the main award for a student film at the Camerimage Festival (2013).
Conversation: Between flesh and spirit: the hidden side of womanhood
Female directors uniquely explore the body, emotion, and the unseen, blurring the boundaries between inner and outer worlds. Their films give voice to what is often left unspoken, revealing trauma, intuition, and the mysterious in ways that feel both intimate and profoundly human. The conversation will also examine how women’s bodies and emotional experiences are represented on screen, and how perceptions of grief, loss, and resilience are shaped differently across cultures.
Guest: Jagoda Szelc & Laura van Zuylen
Laura van Zuylen is a programme maker, film critic, moderator and podcast creator.
She writes a.o. for the Dutch magazine de Filmkrant about a wide range of topics, often with a feminist undertone.
She is specialised in Italian cinema, classical Hollywood and a fan of horror of all sorts.
Moderator: Ianthe Mosselman
Ianthe Mosselman is the Senior editor and Program Maker Art, Literature, at De Balie. She studied Comparative Dutch Studies in Amsterdam and Berlin. She creates programs about art, literature, and culture, and over the past few years, she has interviewed various national and international writers on the stage of De Balie. She has also worked for the European Press Prize. She believes that art doesn’t need to serve a purpose, that conversations should be challenging, and that there should be more space for women in public debate. Additionally, she thinks that we should cherish beautiful things, which is why she has been organizing the Conversation Before the Dam and programs about forgotten literary works for years.
Film: Body
Poland, nowadays.
The intertwined stories of a criminal prosecutor, his anorexic daughter and her therapist who claims she can communicate with the dead loved ones.
Three radically different approaches to the body and soul.
Director: Małgorzata Szumowska
Małgorzata Szumowska belongs to the most prominent Polish filmmakers and covers a broad spectrum working as screenwriter and producer as well as documentary and feature film director.
She has been honoured with several international awards, including the Teddy Award for In The Name Of at the Berlin Film Festival and the Silver Leopard Award at the Locarno Film festival for 33 Scenes From Life. Małgorzata Szumowska was twice nominated for the European Film Awards for Happy Man and Stranger.
She is a winner of many prestigious prizes in Poland. Her movie Elles, featuring Juliette Binoche and Anaïs Demoustier, was sold to over 40 countries.
In 2015, her film Body was released.
Day 3: Society & Struggles
Film: Woman on the Roof
Mirka, a 60-year old woman, appears to have a normal life. One morning she starts her day like any other, wakes up early, puts her family’s clothes out to dry and purchases food for her fish and commits a bank robbery with a kitchen knife. She discovers her need for money is surpassed only by her need for love.
Director: Anna Jadowska
Anna Jadowska graduated from Łódź Film School and Wajda Masterschool of Directing, her feature Touch Me (Berlinale 2003 Forum section) wins the Grand Independent Cinema Prize in Poland in 2004. The same year, her short film Corridor is selected to the Cannes International Critics’ Week.
In 2005, she wins the Best Polish Debut Award for her film Now, Me.
Her film Wild Roses (2017) won numerous awards, including the Impact Award at the Stockholm IFF and five awards at the Cottbus IFF.
Conversation: Unseen, unheard: the quite power of women’s resistance
Female directors often focus on what is invisible in daily life: quiet resistance, emotional labour, aging, and unspoken struggles. This conversation explores how they capture everyday strength, shine a light on silenced experiences, and question whether these stories would be told—or even noticed—by male filmmakers.
Guest: Anna Jadowska & Lena Bril
Lena Bril is a journalist and philosopher. She is fascinated by the struggles of modern humanity and specializes in mental health.
She writes essays for the Volkskrant and the Groene Amsterdammer about, among other things, new masculinity, therapy language and modern etiquette. Every two weeks she gives readers in Trouw advice on modern life problems.
Her first book, In Therapy, was published in September, about the question: why do so many people seek help from a coach or therapist?
Moderator: Katz Laszlo
Katz Laszlo is a reporter and producer at The Europeans Podcast, where she focuses on crafting narrative episodes. She’s a roaming European who calls Avoncliff, Barcelona, and Amsterdam home. She spent three years in New York City, teaching science at the New School, and learning to make radio that connects the personal with the political. She came back to Europe keen to make radio that asks what this place we call Europe is. She now works out of Amsterdam, hosting live events and making narrative radio about climate change and how politics affects people’s intimate lives.
Film: Fucking Bornholm
The portrait of the generation of today’s 40-year-olds from the perspective of a woman who is in need of profound changes in her life. „Fucking Bornholm” is an intimate comedy-drama set in the Scandinavian landscape of the island of Bornholm.
Two couples with kids going away for a short holiday, where their relationships will be tested. Each one of them hasa different goal and expectations, and each one of them has a problem to be revealed.
Director: Anna Kazejak
Anna Kazejak is an internationally awarded director and screenwriter.
After studying film theory, she joined the National Film School in Łódź in 2001. Her breakthrough came in 2005 with Ode to Joy, co-directed with classmates, which won major awards (Special Jury Prize – Gdynia, Platinum Award – WorldFest Houston) and became the first Polish film in competition at Rotterdam IFF. Her first solo feature, Flying Pigs, was a domestic box office success, while The Word premiered at the 64th Berlinale and screened at over 40 international festivals, winning multiple prizes.
Kazejak has also directed acclaimed television, including HBO Poland’s In Treatment.
She is a member of the European Film Academy and serves on the board of the Polish Directors Guild.
Festival Partners and Sponsors
Amsterdam Polish Film Festival is organized by Polish Culture NL in cooperation with De Balie and co-sponsored by AFK.
Under the media patronage of OldCamera.pl
