New Horizons Film Festival

New Horizons Film Festival (pl: Nowe Horyzonty) is an international film festival held annually in July in Wrocław, Poland. It has been organised since 2001. It is one of the biggest and most popular film festivals in Poland. Since 2008 it is accredited by FIAPF with an "avant-garde" specialised competitive status.

The event is organized by Stowarzyszenie Nowe Horyzonty (New Horizons Association). The founder and moving spirit of the festival is Roman Gutek. The current director, Marcin Pieńkowski, took over the position in 2021. mBank is the nominal sponsor of the event since 2023.

Festival presents mainly arthouse cinema. The most important from the several competitions held at the festival (including new Polish films, films-on-art and short films contests) is the "New horizons international competition". It aims to present bold, unconventional and uncompromising films that are searching for the new forms of expression – "the new horizons of cinema". Prizes in the competition are: the Grand Prix, special mentions, and Audience Award. Between 2010 and 2017 also a FIPRESCI Award was awarded.

Another important sections of the event are: retrospectives of the greatest film authors, experimental filmmakers and national cinemas, panorama of the most important auteur films of the season, "Midnight madness", and thematic sections.

Festival history
After the first edition, organized in Sanok, the Festival was moved to Cieszyn, where it was held four times between 2002 and 2005. From 2006 the event takes place in Wrocław. Since then, it has apparently spread and now it is frequented by number of cinephiles and hosts many important guests every year, including Lisandro Alonso, Theo Angelopoulos, Šarūnas Bartas, Leos Carax, Nick Cave, Dardenne brothers, Lav Diaz, Bruno Dumont, Asghar Farhadi, Terry Gilliam, Amos Gitai, Peter Greenaway, Hal Hartley, Agnieszka Holland, Naomi Kawase, Abdellatif Kechiche, Kim Ki-duk, Andrey Konchalovskiy, Sebastián Lelio, Lou Ye, Dušan Makavejev, Tsai Ming-liang, Nanni Moretti, Cristian Mungiu, Gaspar Noé, Ulrike Ottinger, Carlos Saura, Béla Tarr, Peter Tscherkassky, Agnès Varda, Andrzej Wajda, Vincent Ward, and Andrzej Żuławski.

In 2016, when Wrocław was holding the title of European Capital of Culture, festival included events related to this occasion (i.e. a special section called Masters of European Cinema).

Grand Prix
At the beginning the festival's Grand Prix was an audience award, but since 2009 it is given by the International Jury. The first main prize selected that way was awarded to Steve McQueen's Hunger.

Audience award
Since the main prize became jury-selected in 2009, the Audience Award became a separate recognition, the second in importance. Three films managed to win both Grand Prix and Audience award: White Shadow in 2014, Bait in 2019 and The Metamorphosis of Birds in 2020.

Festival programme 2009

 * Opening gala – Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon
 * Closing – Martin Provost's Séraphine
 * New horizons international competition
 * Films on art international competition
 * New Polish films competition
 * Polish short films competition
 * European short films competition
 * Panorama
 * Special screenings
 * Documentaries / Essays
 * Third eye
 * Midnight madness: ozploitation
 * Cinema of Canada
 * Cinema of Sweden
 * Golden era of Hungarian cinema
 * Retrospective: Tsai Ming-liang
 * Retrospective: Jennifer Reeves
 * Retrospective: Krzysztof Zanussi
 * Retrospective: Piotr Dumała
 * 60 years of WFDiF
 * From Polański to...
 * New horizons of film language: editing
 * Season 2008/2009
 * Films for children
 * Silent films with live music
 * Screenings at the market square
 * Concerts
 * Exhibitions

Festival programme 2010

 * Opening gala – Xavier Beauvois' Of Gods and Men
 * Closing – Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro
 * New horizons international competition
 * Films on art international competition
 * New Polish films competition
 * Polish short films competition
 * European short debuts competition
 * Panorama
 * Special screenings
 * Documentaries / Essays
 * Third eye
 * Midnight madness: Philippe Mora; samurai cinema
 * Cinema of Turkey
 * Retrospective: Jean-Luc Godard
 * Retrospective: Brothers Quay
 * Retrospective: Klaus Maria Brandauer
 * Retrospective: Laura Mulvey
 * Retrospective: Wojciech Jerzy Has
 * Retrospective: Daniel Szczechura
 * New horizons of film language
 * Season 2009/2010
 * Screenings at the market square
 * Concerts
 * Exhibitions

Festival programme 2011

 * Opening gala – Asghar Farhadi's A Separation
 * Closing – Pedro Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In
 * New horizons international competition
 * Films on art international competition
 * New Polish films competition
 * Polish short films competition
 * European short debuts competition
 * Panorama
 * Documentaries / Essays
 * Third eye
 * Special screenings
 * 'Round midnight
 * Behind the pink curtain
 * Red westerns
 * Norway expanded
 * New horizons of film language: production design
 * Hommage: Anja Breien
 * Retrospective: Bruno Dumont
 * Retrospective: Werner Nekes
 * Retrospective: Jack Smith
 * Retrospective: Terry Gilliam
 * Retrospective: Andrzej Munk
 * Retrospective: Mariusz Wilczyński
 * Season 2010/2011
 * Films for children
 * Screenings at the market square
 * Concerts
 * Discussion panels, workshops
 * Exhibitions

Festival programme 2012

 * Opening gala – Michael Haneke's Amour
 * Closing – Walter Salles' On the Road
 * New horizons international competition
 * Films on art international competition
 * Polish short films competition
 * European short films competition
 * Panorama
 * Special screenings
 * Gdynia in Wrocław
 * Documentaries / Essays
 * Third eye: The Happy End. Images for the end of the world
 * Midnight madness: From stage to screen
 * Mockumentaries
 * New horizons of film language: sound
 * The Karol Irzykowski Film Studio
 * Films for children
 * The Cinema of Mexico
 * Retrospective: Carlos Reygadas
 * Retrospective: Ulrich Seidl
 * Retrospective: Dušan Makavejev
 * Retrospective: Peter Tscherkassky and Eve Heller
 * Retrospective: Witold Giersz
 * Season 2011/2012
 * Screenings at the market square
 * Concerts
 * Discussion panels, workshops
 * Exhibitions

Festival programme 2023
23rd mBank New Horizons International Film Festival was held in Wrocław from 20 July to 30 2023. 251 films including 196 features and 55 shorts were screened.


 * Grand Prix award: 2023 heist comedy-drama The Delinquents by Rodrigo Moreno.
 * Special Mention: After (France) by Anthony Lapia
 * Audience Award:
 * Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry (Switzerland, Georgia) by Elene
 * Naveriani Produced by Alva Film