This year’s edition of the Festival will for the first time present the Emigration Museum in Gdynia Award for the best documentary about emigration. The laureate will be selected by the jury consisting of: Andrzej Kołodyński, film critic, Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz, director, and Karolina Grabowicz-Matyjas, Director of the Emigration Museum in Gdynia. It amounts to 2000 euros.

The modern world belongs to the people on the road. They have always been migrating and on the move changing and expanding the borders of their territories. Sometimes it is a matter of choice, sometimes it requires them to overcome administrative obstacles, sometimes to show a certain level of determination and persistency – always a great degree of strength and hope. How to express this experience? How to see an emigrant as a person with the same kind of dreams and needs? The Emigration Museum Award was established in order to single out the films that open a discussion on the meaning of emigration in the modern world, and yet, in this widely commented economic, social, and cultural phenomenon, they are able to maintain their focus on a personal story of a single man.

The Emigration Museum in Gdynia is an institution in development. The most important scope of its activity will focus on the popularization of the history of emigration from the Polish lands. Its mission and activities will be undertaken from the perspective of a universal experience and with full awareness of the fundamental importance of present day global migration movement. The Emigration Museum in Gdynia Award will not only give credit to the filmmakers and recognize their documentaries, but it will also draw more attention to the question of emigration and help to expand the horizons of our mutual sensitivity.

The jury

Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz

Born in 1954 in Cieplice Śląskie. Polish director and screenwriter. Graduate of the University of Silesia’s Department of Painting in 1978. In 1982 she graduated from the Department of Radio and Television at the University of Silesia in Katowice. She created dozens of documentary films and TV theatre spectacles that earned her domestic and international awards, as well as a social comedy “End of the World”. In 2003, she became the laureate of the Polish-German Journalistic Award in the Television category. In 2008, she obtained the doctorate degree of Film Arts. She currently works as a lecturer with the Film School in Łódź.

Andrzej Kołodyński

Film critic, Doctor of Film Studies specializing in the theory of documentary films and in popular cinema. Chief Editor of the monthly “Kino” from 1994, but also publishes in other magazines. Author of several books (“On the Trail of Film Truth”, “Session with a Vampire”, “Heritage of the Imagination”, and more) and encyclopedia entries (“Speelfilm Encyklopedie”, “Encyclopedia of the Cinema”, “World Encyclopedia of Religious Film”), translator of film books and fiction, editor of collective publications. From 1989 to 1991 worked as the Program Director of the Cracow Short Film Festival. Vice-rector of the Warsaw Film School. Juror of various film festivals, lecturer.

Karolina Grabowicz-Matyjas

Director of the Emigration Museum in Gdynia; art historian by profession. From 2003 to 2007 worked as a curator at the Łaźnia Center for Contemporary Art in Gdańsk, where she was responsible for the organization and the promotion of exhibitions on the national and international level. Author of the “Inkubator” exhibition series promoting young Polish artists. Co-ordinator EU projects (Cities on the Edge, Re:Location), co-ordinator of the long-term international project entitled “Outdoor Gallery: Art and Public Space”. Author of many exhibitions. From 2007 to 2012 she was responsible for the coordination and the promotion of cultural events and mass events in Gdynia. Participated in the organization of two subsequent editions of the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. Representative of the President of the City of Gdynia at the Emigration Museum project. Director of the institution since its establishment in March of 2012.