Film by Our Award-Winning Director to Open Gdynia Film Festival

Jan Holoubek’s Dziki, dziki wschód will open the 51st Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. The director is a recipient of the Pola Negri Film Award of the Marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region.

The 51st Polish Film Festival will begin on Monday, 21 September, at the Musical Theatre in Gdynia. Following the first competition screening, a meeting with the creators of Dziki, dziki wschód is planned.

– It is wonderful news that Dziki, dziki wschód will be the opening film of the 51st Polish Film Festival. This is always a special moment for any festival, and for us it is a great honour. Dziki, dziki wschód is the result of an enormous effort, first by the production team and then by the entire crew. The fact that it has been chosen as the opening film symbolically crowns our many years of joint work – comments director Jan Holoubek.

His latest film will have its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, which begins on 10 September. It has been selected for the prestigious Platform competition, which showcases films by filmmakers with a distinctive artistic vision and an original cinematic language. The winning title automatically qualifies for consideration for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. The film’s theatrical release in Poland is scheduled for early 2027.

Dziki, dziki wschód is a dark thriller set during the Second World War. It tells the story of people faced with dramatic choices in which lives are at stake and every decision has consequences.

The film features a star-studded international cast including Itay Tiran, Robert Więckiewicz, Joanna Kulig, Piotr Trojan, Janusz Chabior, Jan Bülow, Jacek Beler, Oleksandr Yatsentyuk, Jacek Koman and Magdalena Różczka.

The distributor has released the film’s first trailer.

“Winter 1943 is bitterly cold. Wolff, a mysterious official from Berlin, arrives in a sleepy town in eastern Poland. He carefully conceals the reasons for his visit, but his mere presence quickly disturbs the peace in Małe Zalesie. An atmosphere of distrust and danger grows. Everyone has their secrets, while rumours of missing gold begin to blur the line between truth and lies,” reads the official synopsis.

Jan Holoubek received the Pola Negri Film Award of the Marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region in 2023. He is a director, screenwriter and cinematographer, and the son of actors Gustaw Holoubek and Magdalena Zawadzka. He lectures at the Łódź Film School. His acclaimed feature debut, 25 Years of Innocence. The Case of Tomek Komenda (2020), based on the true story of a man wrongfully convicted of murder, was both an artistic and commercial success. The film won, among other distinctions, the Polish Film Award – Eagle for Discovery of the Year, while Holoubek received the award for Best Directorial Debut. He later received further awards for the series The Mire, High Water and Heweliusz.

Dariusz Czołgowski
Promotion Department

1 September 2026