Our Skrzyżowanie Reaches the Final of the Audio Description of the Year Competition
Dominika Montean-Pańków’s film has been shortlisted among the seven finalists of the 2025 Audio Description of the Year competition. Skrzyżowanie was made in cooperation with our Kujawy Pomorze Film Fund.
This is the first edition of the competition, organised by the De Facto Association and the Accessible Cinema Foundation in partnership with the Pomeranian Film Foundation in Gdynia, producer of the Polish Film Festival.
“We want audio description to be seen not only as an accessibility tool, but also as an important element of film art. Behind every audio description are creators facing the difficult task of translating images into words. Good audio description is a form of translation that requires exceptional sensitivity, an understanding of the language of cinema, a feel for rhythm and words, and responsibility towards the audience. The competition aims to draw attention to an area of cinema that remains invisible to most viewers – audio description – and to recognise the people who create it,” the organisers explain.
The competition honours the authors of audio description scripts as well as their consultants.
Thirty-seven audio descriptions qualified for the first stage of the competition. In the second stage, the jury selected seven finalists. The winner will now be chosen by the audience. Until 10 September, blind and visually impaired users registered on the “Pociąg” film portal can vote for what they consider the best audio description of 2025.
Among the seven finalists is Skrzyżowanie, directed by Dominika Montean-Pańków and produced in cooperation with our Kujawy Pomorze Film Fund. The audio description script was written by Alicja Maciejewska, with Magdalena Dudowicz serving as consultant.
Skrzyżowanie is Montean-Pańków’s feature-film directorial debut. It tells the story of 80-year-old Tadeusz, a former head of a hospital department. His peaceful retirement is turned upside down by a tragic car accident. The doctor is suddenly forced to take on one more, perhaps final, struggle: for himself, for his dignity and for the “peaceful death” he had previously imagined very differently.
Tadeusz is played superbly by Jan Englert, who made an impressive return to the big screen after several years. For this role, he received the Best Actor Award at the Off Camera International Festival of Independent Cinema in Kraków in 2025. The same year, at Tofifest in Toruń, he received the Marshal of the Kujawsko-Pomorskie Region Film Award named after Pola Negri.
“Skrzyżowanie is a film for people who like to listen and immerse themselves in another person,” Englert says.
The cast also includes Anna Romantowska, Michał Czernecki, Aleksandra Popławska, Martyna Byczkowska and Daniel Namiotko. The screenplay for Skrzyżowanie, written by Montean-Pańków, received the ZAiKS Authors’ Association Award in the Script Pro competition for its “modern take on the tradition of the cinema of moral anxiety”.
Finalists of the 2025 Audio Description of the Year Competition
- 13 dni do wakacji – script: Bartosz Wokan; consultant: Magdalena Dudowicz
- Franz Kafka – script: Izabela Künstler-Zawisza
- Innego końca nie będzie – script: Alicja Maciejewska
- Pod szarym niebem – script: Anita Fidyka
- Próba łuku – script: Remigiusz Koziński
- Skrzyżowanie – script: Alicja Maciejewska; consultant: Magdalena Dudowicz
- Szkoda, że nareszcie – script: Julia Chętkowska, Ewa Ćwiek
The results of the competition will be announced on 25 September during the Young Gala of the 51st Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. Two prizes will be awarded: the Audience Grand Prize of PLN 5,000 and the Jury Distinction of PLN 2,500.
Dariusz Czołgowski
Promotion Department
11 August 2026