“Death Candidates” Premieres at a Prestigious Festival. Our Film Fund Is a Partner of the Documentary
The new documentary by Bydgoszcz-based director Maciej Cuske had its world premiere at an international festival in Thessaloniki. The film was created in cooperation with the Kujawy Pomorze Film Fund.
The long-awaited film “Death Candidates” by Maciej Cuske premiered in March at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, one of Europe’s most important documentary film festivals. It was included in the main competition, which features artistically distinctive documentaries from around the world. Polish audiences will be able to see it in May at the 23rd Millennium Docs Against Gravity festival.
“Death Candidates” is a long-term documentary project that the director worked on for nearly two decades. It began with a story from years ago – a summer trip during which Cuske took his son Staś and two of his friends on holiday. Wanting to pull them away from computer screens, he suggested making an amateur horror film. Over time, this summer pastime evolved into a 17-year creative ritual, and the documentary became a record of growing up, relationships, and personal transformations. Today, the boys are nearly 30 years old.
After its screening in Thessaloniki, the film received a review on the industry portal Cineuropa:
“The more the boys realize that their shared summer escapades across different parts of Poland are a way to preserve their friendship, a space for reflection, and a step toward maturity, the more the father and mentor, Maciej, understands that they are also his direct connection to youth and a kind of armor that helps him face the gradual approach of old age. He also realizes that filming the final episode – one that has quietly become a metaphor for the passage of life – is in no one’s interest.”
The reviewer also praised the cinematography by Tomasz Pawlik:
“He captures the moods of the protagonists and the surrounding nature, creating visual harmony so that each frame breathes in sync with the emotional tone. In this sense, once we are drawn into the interplay between the characters – and between the film and the audience – ‘Death Candidates’ unfolds in a single breath, ultimately leaving us with a stronger emotional resonance than philosophical reflection.”
“Death Candidates” was produced by the Bydgoszcz Film Chronicle Foundation. The production partner is the Kujawy Pomorze Film Fund. The documentary received funding from the project “Kujawy + Pomorze: Promotion of the Region’s Economic Potential.”
Maciej Cuske is a graduate of the documentary course at the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing in Warsaw. Together with colleagues Marcin Sauter, Piotr Stasik, and Thierry Paladino, he co-founded the “Paladino” group, which received the Grzegorz Ciechowski Artistic Award of the City of Toruń in 2006. His documentary “The Whale from Lorino,” filmed in Chukotka, won the Polish Film Award Eagle for Best Documentary in 2021 and the Golden Frog at Camerimage 2020 for cinematography in the same category.
Together with Marcin Sauter, he runs the Bydgoszcz Film Chronicle – a unique project not only in the region but across Poland. It combines elements of a film school and a film club, where cinema enthusiasts develop their ideas and learn filmmaking. The initiative has produced over 100 short films by young creators, including “Under Sail” by Stanisław Cuske, “Black Sunday” by Jarosław Piskozub and Maciej Jasiński, and “Unexpected” by Mateusz Buława.
Department of Promotion
April 1, 2026