Polish Film Festival in Los Angeles under way

13th Polish Film Festival in LA

The event, which comes under the honorary patronage of First Lady Anna Komorowska, provides a wide-ranging review of recent Polish films, as well as the opportunity to meet luminaries in the Polish film industry.

Festival organizers the Polish American Film Society will also be handing out a number of awards.

Among the winners this year is hotshot young director Jan Komasa, who will receive the Hollywood Eagle award for best film for his haunting 2011 work Suicide Room (Sala Samobojcow).

The film, which explores a teenage boy's dependence on a destructive internet chat room, was a box office sensation in Poland.

On the back of his debut success, Komasa is now preparing big-budget movie about the 1944 Warsaw Rising, the doomed insurgency against the Nazi occupiers that left the Polish capital in ruins.

Meanwhile a special Pola Negri Award – named after the Polish actress who took Hollywood by storm in the 1920s – will be given to British actor Michael York.

The prize, which is traditionally given to foreign actors who have played in Polish or Poland-related productions, has been awarded to York for his role in Lech Majewski's The Mill and the Cross (Mlyn I Krzyz).

Previous recipients of the award have included Hugh Grant (for his role as Chopin in the movie Impromptu) and Jon Voight for playing the late Polish pontiff in Pope John Paul II.

Besides the latest celluloid creations of Poland's leading directors, festival-goers will also be able to catch some classics that are rarely shown on the big screen.

Andrzej Wajda's Korczak (1990) will be shown to tie in with Poland's official Year of Janusz Korczak.

Polish-Jewish paediatrician and children's author Janusz Korczak died 70 years ago at the hands of the Nazi occupiers, while his famed orphanage – which inspired many of his best-loved works - was founded 100 years ago.

The Polish Film Festival runs until 18 October. (nh)