Fonomo Music & Film Festival 2026 gets underway: “See the Music, Hear the Film”
The presentation of the Marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region’s Film Award to musician and film composer Mikołaj Trzaska will be one of the highlights of the 15th edition of the Fonomo Music & Film Festival in Bydgoszcz.
The festival, supported by the regional self-government of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region, will run from 15 to 18 October. Fonomo brings together two worlds – music and film – and this year’s slogan, “See the Music, Hear the Film”, invites audiences to experience the two art forms in new ways.
The first edition of the Bydgoszcz festival took place in 2012. Every autumn, music and film enthusiasts can enjoy screenings, concerts, workshops, exhibitions and panel discussions. The Municipal Cultural Centre, Mózg club, Młyny Rothera and other cultural venues across Bydgoszcz become stages for moving images and sound.
“We are fascinated by diversity, eclecticism and an interdisciplinary approach to art. Every year, we carefully curate the programme, selecting films and inviting artists whose work offers a unique perspective and encourages a deeper, more personal engagement with each piece,” say the organisers from the Nowa Sztuka Wet Music Foundation.
“This year’s film programme takes audiences across different decades, places and genres. We visit countercultural New York in the late 1970s, return to the golden age of MTV, discover the story of a pioneer of phone phreaking, and explore how music can tell stories of loneliness, memory and the need to belong. The programme includes documentaries, animation, comedy, auteur cinema and stories that defy easy categorisation.”
Among the films on the festival programme is Beavis and Butt-Head Do America (1996), directed by Mike Judge. The title characters are iconic animated figures from MTV’s 1990s music television era.
“It’s an absurd road movie and a time capsule from the MTV era, with a soundtrack bringing together AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne, White Zombie, No Doubt and Butthole Surfers,” the organisers say.
The programme also features Three Songs, a film by Bydgoszcz-based director Krzysztof Nowicki, made in collaboration with our Kujawy Pomorze Film Fund. It tells the story of members of the Black Dwarf Choir (Chór Czarny Karzeł) in Bydgoszcz, who face various life experiences and personal crises but find support, renewed energy and a sense of community through singing.
Three Songs premiered in June 2026 and received an award at the 45th “Młodzi i Film” Festival of Film Debuts in Koszalin. Following Sunday’s screening at Fonomo, audiences will have the opportunity to meet the director and the people featured in the film.
Krzysztof Nowicki is a director, screenwriter and producer. He founded the Stealtheapple film collective and launched the Bydgoszcz-based Koloroffon initiative in 2007. His work includes short documentaries screened and recognised at festivals in Poland and abroad, among them The Oldest Man in the World, Swimming Pool, There Used to Be a Cinema, 21, Homestay and Leocadia’s Dream. Three Songs is his feature-length debut.
Earlier that day, Mikołaj Trzaska – a multi-instrumentalist and film composer – will receive the Marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region’s Pola Negri Film Award. Following the ceremony at the Municipal Cultural Centre on Sunday, 18 October, at 4:30 p.m., the laureate will meet the audience for a discussion moderated by Marcin Szymczak. The event will conclude with a screening of The End of the World, a documentary directed by Monika Pawluczuk with a score by Trzaska. Admission is free.
Mikołaj Trzaska has been composing film scores for years and regularly collaborates with acclaimed director Wojciech Smarzowski, who also received the Marshal’s Film Award in 2025. Trzaska composed the scores for several of Smarzowski’s high-profile films, including The Dark House, Rose, Traffic Department, The Mighty Angel, Volhynia, Clergy, The Wedding Day and The Good House. He has won the prestigious Polish Film Award, known as the Eagle, for Best Music three times: in 2017 for Volhynia, in 2019 for Clergy and in 2026 for The Good House.
Trzaska has also worked with Borys Lankosz on Alien VI, among others, and with Szymon Uliasz and Magdalena Gubała on Offcuts. Uliasz and Gubała co-directed The Inner Ear (2016), a biographical documentary about the award-winning composer. Trzaska also composed the music for Paweł Maślona’s award-winning film Scarborn (2024), which was partly shot in our region, near Włocławek.
Full programme of the 15th Fonomo Music & Film Festival
Dariusz Czołgowski
Promotion Department
13 October 2026