Camerimage 2025 !

🎬 EnergaCAMERIMAGE 2025: Celebrating the Art and Future of Cinematography
The 33rd edition of the EnergaCAMERIMAGE International Film Festival—the world’s foremost celebration of the art of cinematography—concluded its run in Toruń, Poland, from November 15-22, 2025.

From India only  feature film nominated for Golden frog at camerimage was “My Name is khan” cinematography by Ravi K Chandran who recently also served as Jury amongst great cinematographers at Camerimage.

The festival cemented its position as a crucial nexus where artistic vision meets cutting-edge technology, spotlighting the visual storytellers behind the camera.

🏆 Main Competition: The Pursuit of the Golden Frog
The festival’s most prestigious honor, the Golden Frog, is awarded to the cinematographer whose work is judged to have the most profound cinematographic merit.

The main competition lineup was a showcase of global cinema, featuring a blend of auteur-driven drama and high-profile studio projects.

Notable selections from the 13 films in contention included:
* Anemone (Cinematography by Ben Fordesman), which served as the official Opening Film.
* Hamnet (Cinematography by Łukasz Żal), directed by Chloé Zhao. Żal is a Camerimage veteran, having previously won the Golden Frog for Ida.
* F1 (Cinematography by Claudio Miranda), a high-octane spectacle directed by Joseph Kosinski, underscoring the festival’s engagement with large-format and high-frame-rate capture.
* A House of Dynamite (Cinematography by Barry Ackroyd), directed by Kathryn Bigelow.
The Golden Frog competition often serves as a key indicator for the coming awards season, with past winners frequently earning Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography.

🌟 Key Figures and Festival Identity

The 2025 edition was steered by a focus on craft and peer-to-peer exchange. Acclaimed cinematographer Bradford Young, ASC, known for his work on Arrival and Selma, served as the Jury President for the Main Competition. Director Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Decision to Leave) was the Guest of Honour, providing a high-level perspective on the crucial director-cinematographer collaboration.

EnergaCAMERIMAGE distinctly emphasizes the Director of Photography (DOP)-led vision over traditional red-carpet celebrity. The symbol of the festival, the Golden Frog, reflects the magical and transformative nature of light and image-making.

💡 Technological and Artistic Focus
A defining feature of the 33rd edition was its commitment to the future of cinematic image-making. The festival hosted an expanded programme of over 30 workshops and masterclasses, with a strong emphasis on emerging topics:

* High-End Capture: Hands-on sessions were offered with cutting-edge gear like the ARRI ALEXA 35 Xtreme, focusing on high-speed and large-sensor cinematography.

* AI in Cinematography: Discussions and panels explored the evolving role of AI and compute-driven workflows in image creation, signaling a pivotal industry trend.

* Color Grading: The festival hosted the FilmLight Colour Awards, celebrating the artistry of colorists, a post-production craft increasingly vital to the final look of a film.
This technical programming solidifies Camerimage’s role as an essential event for industry professionals seeking to stay abreast of the technological evolution shaping the art form.

🌍 Diverse Competitions and Global Reach
Beyond the Main Competition, the festival highlighted talent across various formats:

* Cinematographers’ Debuts Competition: This section provided a crucial international platform for emerging DOPs showcasing their first or second feature films, an indispensable launching pad for new talent.

* Documentary Shorts Competition: Notably, this category is an Oscar®-qualifying festival for the Documentary Short Subject award, drawing high-quality non-fiction work like Lanawaru and The Believers.

* The global spread of the Main Competition, including the five-country co-production Mother (Belgium/Macedonia/Sweden/Denmark/India), underscored the festival’s commitment to celebrating international diversity in visual storytelling.

EnergaCAMERIMAGE 2025 successfully bridged the worlds of cinematic art and technology, offering a robust week of competition, education, and industry dialogue centered solely on the visual power of film.

Here are the cinematographers (DOPs) for the full main competition line-up at EnergaCAMERIMAGE 2025 (Golden Frog category):

Film Cinematographer(s)

12 Paintings of Enslavement-  Lech Majewski, Paweł Ty­bora

Anemone Ben – Fordesman

Chopin, a Sonata in Paris – Michał Sobociński

A Complete Unknown-  Phedon Papamichael

F1: The Movie-  Claudio Miranda

Franz – Tomasz Naumiuk

Hamnet – Łukasz Żal

A House of Dynamite – Barry Ackroyd

Late Shift – Judith Kaufmann

Mother – Virginie Saint-Martin

Nuremberg – Dariusz Wolski

Sinners – Autumn Durald Arkapaw

Sound of Falling-  Fabian Gamper

Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere-  Masanobu Takayanagi

Article by

CJ Rajkumar

Author/ Cinematographer