The Polish Film Festival in Gdynia is regarded as the country's premier film festival. The Polish Association of Filmmakers and Directors is now strongly criticizing the festival and demanding complete artistic freedom, and that the festival will be independent of the country's cultural ministry, writes the news agency AP.
Some of those who joined the protest are directors such as Oscar-winning Paweł Pawlikowski, Agnieszka Holland and Malgorzata Szumowska, and they demand, among other things, that the festival should have an independent artistic leader and that the selection of films should be made by an independent group.
The protest is a reaction to the fact that the film Solid Gold's participation was stopped from the festival. The film is about the Amber Gold deal - an intricate pyramid scheme that subsequently resulted in Poland's biggest financial scandals after it was discovered in 2012. The film was taken out of competition by its producers, including the government-controlled TV channel TVP, after the director, Jacek Bromski, refused changes to the movie after it was completed.