The shows are divided into sections: “Documents & Hybrids”, “Political Fiction”, “Sensual Histories”, “Period Drama”, “Police Section”, “Teens”, “Warsaw Dream”. During the Opening Gala, the Cutting Edge Award will be received by Michelle Fairley, and during the Closing Gala we will learn the winner in the Best Polish Series of 2025 category. The nominees include “Przesmyk”, “Bay of Spies”, “Breslau” and “Black Death”, “The Office 5 PL”, “A Decent Man”, “Minute of Silence 2”, “Aniela” and “Heweliusz”.
Szymon Miszczak – Festival Director, Małgorzata Wasiuk – Director of the Department of Brand Strategy and Activation of BNP Paribas Bank, Aldona Machnowska-Góra – Deputy Mayor of the Capital City of Warsaw, spoke about the second edition of the event at the press conference preceding the start of the festival. Warsaw, director Łukasz Palkowski – Chairman of the Jury, Magdalena Sroka – Program Director of the Festival and Marcin Radomski – Spokesman.
“This festival was born out of the fact that we felt that there was a lack of a place in Poland that would respond to the needs of viewers, creators, and streaming platforms. A place that shows and focuses only on TV series. It is the first full-fledged TV series festival in Poland. That is why today we are meeting at the second edition of the festival. There is a need for a real conversation about TV series, showing new products and, at the same time, the creative process that we see and observe on a market that is developing very dynamically (…) TV series often have larger budgets than films. full-length films and this year we have prepared a very diverse program, focusing on the classics of the genre: ‘The Decalogue’, ‘The Changelings’, ‘The Puppet’, and at the same time showing the variety of pre-premiere shows: ‘Heaven. A Year in Hell’, ‘Klangor 2’, ‘Kill the Miss’. We also have meetings with foreign guests and creators who contribute to the global TV series landscape on a daily basis The star of the festival will be Michelle Fairlley, known very well from ‘Game of Thrones’, ‘Gangs of London’ and ‘Queen Charlotte’. She will receive the Cutting Edge award,” said Szymon Miszczak, director of the festival.
See also: See also: They will compete for the title of Best Polish Series of the Year! We know the nominations
During the Opening Gala, the Cutting Edge Award will be received by Michelle Fairley, who played Catelyn Stark in the cult “Game of Thrones”.
“The role of Catelyn Stark in ‘Game of Thrones’ made a huge impression on all viewers and was an element that redefined female characters in the series, but also in cinematography. Michelle phenomenally combines determination, strength, sometimes ruthlessness in her characters, fully maintaining fragility and feminine delicacy. Her heroines are driven by the strength of character, not muscle strength, and at the same time they are able to overcome any obstacles – both in ‘Game of Thrones’ and in “Gangs of London” this character development, growing determination, taking on a new leadership role, competing on an equal footing with the male characters and defeating them with willpower and intelligence (…) This redefinition of the female character in film and in the series is extremely important and I think that Michelle Fairley is absolutely the face of this revolution. We are very proud and happy that he will receive an award at our festival, which is an award for breaking stereotypes,” said Magdalena Sroka, Program Director of the Festival.
Director Łukasz Palkowski chairs the international jury that will select the Best Polish Series of 2025. At the conference, he talked about the power of TV series and their importance in the film landscape.
It seems to me that the line between television and series, and cinema and film is blurring for good at this point. Series are no longer what they used to be – episodic stories told briefly. They become valuable stories that are, in fact, long films, which makes me extremely happy, because a feature film has certain limitations. It forces us to synthesize the story we tell; The series allows us to develop if we do it in a way that is interesting for the viewer, not boring (…) These changes seem unusual to me and I think they are desired primarily by the audience.
In an interview with Interia, Magdalena Sroka talked about what fascinates her about the series format.
“For me, a series is primarily something that interests me, that is, getting to know another person, which causes him to change, to be confronted with a difficult situation or to go towards evil. Very often, our main character undergoes some kind of transformation and this is something that is extremely interesting to me, because none of us knows how he will behave in such a crisis situation. What really fascinates me are great, epic stories that have a huge production value, i.e. simply they delight me; they have great scope, spectacular costumes, phenomenal photos that show an important part of history.
“What is fantastic about this festival is certainly the whole competition – seeing the series that we have watched with such attention over the last year on the big screen, especially in cases such as “Breslau”, “Heweliusz”, “Aniel” – it is impressive and it will certainly be a treat for all fans. We are showing the entire “Decalogue” by Kieślowski, so if someone has not had a chance to see it in the cinema, they should do everything to watch all these episodes in Kinoteka. This is an absolute rarity,” she continued.
This year, new sections appeared in the SerialCon program.
“This year we decided to have a section for children, for teenagers. We are showing two series – “Absolute debutants” and the third season of “Belfra”. These are series that we make in cooperation with the Razem Foundation, where we have a conversation with a psychologist and an introduction. In the case of “Absolute debutants” we have entry into adulthood, final exams, finding our path. It is also about how we have to find our way in a very complicated world today,” said the program director.
And what series is Magdalena Sroka returning to?
“The above-mentioned ‘Dekalog’, no doubt, but I also think that ‘Glina’ is such a phenomenon. In a sense, we see these first two seasons as the first Polish premium series, which showed us that we can tell stories in a different way and was a phenomenon. I have great sentiment for this title. I am very happy that we can show this series at the festival,” she says.
See also: See also: Interia is the media patron of BNP Paribas Warsaw SerialCon. You can read about the details of the event HERE