Candidates for Death in Cinemas from 7 August
Candidates for Death, a documentary by Bydgoszcz-based director Maciej Cuske, filmed over a period of 17 years, will be released in cinemas on 7 August. The production was supported by our Kujawy Pomorze Film Fund.
Candidates for Death premiered in March at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, one of Europe’s most important documentary film festivals. The film was selected for the main competition, which presents artistically distinctive documentaries from around the world. Polish audiences saw it for the first time in May at the 23rd Millennium Docs Against Gravity Film Festival, where it won the Polish Competition and received two audience awards.
“For a daring cinematic roller coaster; a tender yet wickedly funny portrait of growing up, friendship and closeness, in which carefree moments mingle with fears that can be every bit as terrifying as horror-movie zombies,” the festival jury wrote in its statement.
Candidates for Death is a long-term project on which the director worked for 17 years. It began during a summer holiday when Cuske took his son Staś and two of his friends, Rafał and Adrian, away together. Hoping to draw them away from their computer screens, he suggested making an amateur horror film. Over time, the summer pastime developed into an annual creative ritual, while the documentary became a record of the protagonists’ coming of age, relationships and personal transformations. Today, the boys are almost 30 years old.
Following its screening at the Thessaloniki festival, Candidates for Death was reviewed by the Cineuropa portal.
“The more the boys realise that their shared summer trips to various parts of Poland are a way of preserving their friendship, a space for reflection and a step towards maturity, the more their father and mentor, Maciej, understands that they are also his direct connection to youth, as well as a form of armour that helps him prepare for gradually approaching old age. He also understands that making the final episode, which has imperceptibly become a metaphor for the passing of life, is in no one’s interest,” the review reads.
The author also praises the work of cinematographer Tomasz Pawlik:
“He captured the moods of the protagonists and the natural surroundings, creating an aesthetic harmony in which every frame breathes in unison with the emotional tone. In this sense, once we are drawn into the interplay between the characters – and between the film itself and the audience – Candidates for Death unfolds in a single breath, ultimately leaving us with a stronger emotional response than philosophical reflection.”
Candidates for Death was produced by the Bydgoszcz Film Chronicle Foundation in cooperation with the Kujawy Pomorze Film Fund. The documentary will be released in cinemas throughout Poland on Friday, 7 August, and distributed by Against Gravity.
Maciej Cuske is a graduate of the documentary programme at the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing in Warsaw. Together with fellow Wajda School graduates Marcin Sauter, Piotr Stasik and Thierry Paladino, he founded the Paladino film group, which received the City of Toruń’s Grzegorz Ciechowski Artistic Award in 2006.
His documentary The Whale from Lorino, filmed in Chukotka, received the Polish Film Award – Eagle for Best Documentary in 2021, as well as the Golden Frog at the 2020 Camerimage Festival for cinematography in the same category. Together with Marcin Sauter, he runs the Bydgoszcz Film Chronicle, a unique project not only in our region, but also on a national scale.
Dariusz Czołgowski
Department of Promotion
4 August 2026