Poland to Build $200 Million Cinema Institution in Toruń

By Leo Barraclough

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Poland is setting up a new national cinema institution, named the European Film Center Camerimage, to be housed in a new building in Toruń at a cost of almost $200 million, which is scheduled to be completed in 2025. The director of the new body is Kazik Suwala, former office director of the Camerimage Film Festival.

Among the activities to be hosted at the new building will be Camerimage, which focuses on cinematography. Guests at last year’s edition included directors Quentin Tarantino, Darren Aronofsky and Edward Norton, and cinematographers Phedon Papamichael (“Ford v Ferrari”), Rodrigo Prieto (“The Irishman”), Lawrence Sher (“Joker”), and Robert Richardson (“Once Upon a Time in Hollywood”).

The center will also house exhibitions, and other cultural, scientific and educational activities centering on the motion picture arts.

The venue will have to complement the historic character of Toruń’s Old Town, listed as a Unesco World Heritage site, with its distinctive architecture. The contractor for the project will be selected via an international architectural competition. The project will cost almost $200 million, with two-thirds financed by the Polish treasury and one-third by the city of Toruń.

The move follows the signing of a pact by Piotr Gliński, the country’s deputy prime minister and minister of culture and national heritage; Michał Zaleski, the mayor of Toruń; and Marek Żydowicz, the director of Camerimage.

Tumult Foundation, led by Zydowicz, and European Film Center Camerimage, led by Suwala, will work together to organize and develop forthcoming editions of the festival, and will move into the building in five years to program it together, and to run a year-long program, with the inclusion of education initiatives, exhibitions, design projects and film productions.

Variety has been a media partner to Camerimage for several years, and publishes its digital dailies, the E-Show Dailies, at the event in partnership with the festival.