The Angels of Torun have gone into space. When they are up there, Tofifest is rolling. Fasten your seatbelts!
The 16th edition of the Tofifest International Film Festival has started. The following artists received special Golden Angel Awards, during the Opening Ceremony: Marian Dziedziel, Arkadiusz Jakubik, Wojciech Waglewski, and Jafar Panahi. The ceremony was accompanied by a concert performed by Steve Nash & Film Orchestra , during which we watched a performance of musicians from Torun, and songs performed by our special guests: Wojciech Waglewski, Ania Rusowicz, and folk-inspired band Tulia.
During the Opening Ceremony, we gave the Golden Angels for Artistic Insolence – the most important awards of the festival, just as it happens every year. The most important Golden Angel went to Jafar Panahi, a film director from Iran and a very important figure for the New Wave of Iranian cinema. In his films, he takes sides with discriminated minorities, and touches upon issues related to women’s rights, which are commonly violated in Iran. The price for discussing inconvenient political issues and his uncompromising nature was his artistic freedom. Since 2010, by force of a court sentence, the director has remained on house arrest in Tehran, and the majority of his films have been banned in his home country. For that reason, his daughter, Solmaz Panahi, came to Torun to receive the award.
Regardless of any orders the government may impose on my father, he will continue doing his work and never stop, his daughter assured the audience.
The Angel also flew to actor Arkadiusz Jakubik. I think it was probably my humbleness that has earned me this award. One needs to be humble to their work, but first and foremost to people. And this is something I intend to nurture in myself, he said touched.
The last Golden Angel for Artistic Insolence of the day went to Marian Dziedziel, an outstanding actor famous for many characteristic film and theatre roles. He came on stage full of good humour and distance to himself, told jokes and anecdotes, for which the amused audience repaid him with long applause. I truly envy you Torun. It is beautiful, he emphasised.
However, Tofifest is not all about films, because it also about music. For that reason, the golden statuette also went to an uncompromising composer, guitarist, founder, and leader of Voo Voo – Wojciech Waglewski. The artist did not expect to be leaving Torun with a Golden Angel, and he was genuinely taken by surprise with that award. He could not hide his emotions, when accepting the award from Katarzyna Jaworska, director of the Tofifest Festival.
The culmination of the Opening Ceremony was a concert performed by the one and only Steve Nash & Film Orchestra. Musicians from Torun shared the stage with our special guests, i.e. Ania Rusowicz, Wojciech Waglewski, and Tulia, the latter of which is a band famous for their folk music adaptations of modern songs. During the concert, we could hear songs taken from Polish films, for example from “Cold War” or “The Skylights”, reinterpreted in most unexpected ways, but also film classics, such as the main theme from “Star Wars”. Steve Nash, a three-time DJ world champion, conducted the film orchestra.
That powerful dose of music energy signalled the things to come over the course of the festival – a lot of films to see, meetings with artists, and accompanying events, all of which in the spirit of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”, which has inspired and become the leading theme of the festival this year.
The film feast will end on 28th October.
Angelika Jasiulewicz
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