Idea

Szczecin European Film Festival (SEFF) - more than a film festival for documentaries.

Szczecin European Film Festival is a particularly European film event, a forum for transborder meetings and cooperation with partners working in the field of film, culture, and education on the Polish-German borderland. Szczecin is the centre of this endeavour, however, there are events which will also take place in different towns in the region (Rostock, Greifswald, Prenzlau, Anklam, Stargard, Kołbacz, and Świnoujście).

This year the Szczecin film festival changed its name. In 2006-2013, together with Latücht Film und Medien e.V. Association, we had been making the transfrontier film project  dokumentART. In 2013 its EU financing ended.

Currently the festival is also organised by a Polish-German team, lead by directors from both countries.

The profile of Szczecin European Film Festival refers to the newest tendencies of the development in the field of artistic editing of picture and sound. The centre of our interest is the formal crossing of boundaries, relating to the perception of reality – especially one which enables the existence of new perspectives.

We present 44 films in two documentary film competitions – the Polish and the European one. They enable multidimensional reflecting upon current European, national, and regional topics.

This spectrum is enhanced by a vast accompanying program. You can choose from the classics of documentary cinema to contemporary experiments with picture and sound. Top League brings us retrospectives of two great masters of film art – Andrzej Munk and Walter Ruttmann. Top League also includes productions which spark heated discussions, and ones which have been awarded recently.
The Boundaries of Cinema block explores the borderland between animation, fiction film, and documentary film, in the context of the latest tendencies in the field of audio and video.

Szczecin Film Festiwal's accompanying program gives special attention to the cinema of the region, which you can find in West Pomerania Cinema, as well as to Polish-German topics, found in Common Borders. The Fourth Dimension of Europe presents a choice of European landscapes.

All this is supplemented by a series of fiction films based on real events, as well as a tribute to Robin Williams. 

As is tradition, we shall welcome our guests at the opening in the Polish Television studio, with this year's première of  Mladen Kovacevic's film “Anplagd.” The ceremony will be moderated by well known film critic Tomasz Raczek.

And on the 5th of October 2004 in the new Philharmonic of Szczecin we will give around 10 prizes worth 15,000 € altogether.

We wish our guests and audience a creative film celebration in Szczecin!

Bartosz Wójcik – Polish director of the festival
Claudia Dietrich – German director of the festival