Film Fund. Candidates of Death Now in Cinemas – with an Online Surprise

The documentary Candidates of Death, produced in partnership with the Kujawy Pomorze Film Fund, premiered in cinemas over the weekend. At the same time, all episodes of the amateur horror films that inspired the documentary have been made available online.

Filmed over the course of 17 years, the feature-length documentary Candidates of Death has been screening in cinemas across Poland since 7 August. Bydgoszcz-based director Maciej Cuske documented summer trips he took with his son Staś and his friends Rafał and Adrian. Every year, they worked together to make amateur horror films in different parts of Poland. What initially began as a summer activity intended to draw the boys away from their computer screens gradually evolved into an intimate, long-term story about growing up, male friendship, parenthood and the passage of time. Today, the protagonists are nearly 30 years old.

Candidates of Death premiered in March at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival, one of Europe’s leading 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 festival, where it won the Polish Competition as well as two Audience Awards. The festival jury praised it as an exhilarating cinematic roller coaster – a tender yet tremendously funny portrait of growing up, friendship and closeness, in which carefree moments mingle with anxieties that can be just as terrifying as horror-movie zombies.

Alongside the theatrical release of Candidates of Death, all episodes of the amateur horror films that provided the basis for the feature-length documentary have been made available on the film’s official website. There are 13 episodes in total, and they can be watched free of charge.

The filmmakers have also announced a competition for viewers. Participants are invited to make their own amateur horror film. The main prize will be an opportunity to spend an evening with the protagonists of Maciej Cuske’s documentary.

Candidates of Death was produced by the Bydgoszcz Film Chronicle Foundation in cooperation with the Kujawy Pomorze Film Fund.

Maciej Cuske is a graduate of the documentary filmmaking course 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 group, which in 2006 received the City of Toruń’s Grzegorz Ciechowski Artistic Award. His documentary The Whale from Lorino, filmed in Chukotka, received the Polish Film Award – Eagle for Best Documentary Film in 2021 and 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 within our region, but nationwide.

Dariusz Czołgowski
Promotion Department

10 August 2026