Łukasz Żal has won the Golden Frog, the top prize of the 34th ToruńCAMERIMAGE festival of cinematography, for his black-and-white images in Paweł Pawlikowski’s Fatherland. The festival announced the winners at its closing gala in Toruń, Poland, on Saturday 14 November and published the full list on its website.
The Silver Frog went to Jasper J. Spanning for May el-Toukhy’s Woman Unknown (Kvinde ukendt), the Golden Lion winner at Venice, and the Bronze Frog to Mikhail Krichman for Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Minotaur. All three films had been nominated for the European Film Awards earlier the same day, and the main-competition jury, chaired by the editor Joe Walker, gave nothing to the five US productions in its line-up. The audience prize went to Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine, shot by Ben Davis, The Hollywood Reporter said.
Key facts
- Event: 34th ToruńCAMERIMAGE International Film Festival, Toruń, Poland, 7–14 November 2026; 15 films in the main competition
- Golden Frog: Łukasz Żal, Fatherland; Silver Frog: Jasper J. Spanning, Woman Unknown; Bronze Frog: Mikhail Krichman, Minotaur
- Four of the 15 main-competition films hold European Film Award nominations, and the jury gave its three Frogs to three of them, by FilmBunch’s count of the Academy’s list
- The four Frog-winning features, including the documentary winner To Hold a Mountain, hold 18 European Film Award nominations between them
- Audience Award: Wild Horse Nine (Ben Davis); the festival has not yet published the European Funds in Focus advertising-spot results
The main competition
Walker, who cut Denis Villeneuve’s Dune films and Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, led a jury of the cinematographers Robert Alazraki and Johannes Kirchlechner, the actor Alicja Bachleda-Curuś and the producer Leopold Hughes. Their 15 films included five US productions: Steven Spielberg’s Disclosure Day, shot by Janusz Kamiński; Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s Project Hail Mary, shot by Greig Fraser; Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth!; Peter Berg’s The Mosquito Bowl; and Alejandro Monteverde’s Zero A.D. None of them won a jury prize.
Fatherland follows Thomas Mann and his daughter Erika on a road trip across divided Germany in the summer of 1949, from American-run Frankfurt to Soviet-occupied Weimar, with Hanns Zischler and Sandra Hüller in the roles. A Polish, German, Italian and French co-production by Chapter 2, Extreme Emotions BIS, Nine Hours and Our Film, it reunites Pawlikowski with Żal, who shot his Ida and Cold War. It earned Pawlikowski a share of the best director prize at Cannes in May and is Poland’s submission for the international feature Oscar. The Golden Frog therefore stays at home, with a Polish cinematographer and a Polish director.
Woman Unknown, a Nordisk Film production set in Denmark after the Second World War, has reportedly sold to Cohen Media Group for the US. Minotaur, a French, Latvian and German co-production by MK Productions and CG Cinéma, opened the Thessaloniki festival earlier this month.
Where the winners stand in the European race
Toruń’s verdict lines up closely with the European Film Award nominations announced in Thessaloniki the same Saturday. By FilmBunch’s count, four of the 15 films in the Camerimage main competition hold European nominations: Fatherland with 11, Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi’s La bola negra with 10, Woman Unknown with three and Minotaur with two. The jury handed its three Frogs to three of those four. La bola negra, the second most-nominated film in Europe this year, left Toruń without a prize.
The overlap is sharpest in cinematography. Two of the Academy’s three nominees for European Cinematographer, Żal for Fatherland and Gris Jordana for La bola negra, competed here; the third, Frank van den Eeden for Coward, did not. Outside the main competition, the documentary Golden Frog went to Eva Kraljević for To Hold a Mountain (Planina), directed by Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić, which is nominated for both European Film and European Documentary. Together, the four Frog-winning features hold 18 European nominations.
Full list of winners
The list below follows the festival’s official announcement, which names each film’s director alongside the winning cinematographer. Awards announced or presented earlier in the week are listed separately.
Main Competition – Golden Frog: Łukasz Żal, Fatherland (dir. Paweł Pawlikowski) – Silver Frog: Jasper J. Spanning, Woman Unknown (dir. May el-Toukhy) – Bronze Frog: Mikhail Krichman, Minotaur (dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev)
Audience Award (reported by The Hollywood Reporter; not on the festival’s list) – Wild Horse Nine, dir. Martin McDonagh, cinematography Ben Davis
Polish Feature Films Competition – Golden Frog: Alan Ruczyński, A Free Woman (Kobieta stanu wolnego) (dir. Eliza Godlewska and Alan Ruczyński)
Directors’ Debuts Competition – Golden Frog: Kaifeng Zhong, Atlantic Rhapsody
Cinematographers’ Debuts Competition – Golden Frog: Eira Wyn Jones, Effi O Blaenau (dir. Marc Evans)
Documentary Features Competition – Golden Frog: Eva Kraljević, To Hold a Mountain (dir. Petar Glomazić and Biljana Tutorov)
Documentary Shorts Competition – Golden Frog: Maxim Arbugaev and Vladimir Egorov, Chuuraa (dir. Evgenia Arbugaeva)
TV Series Competition – Golden Frog: Maciej Sobieraj, Silent Night (Wśród nocnej ciszy) (dir. Jan Holoubek)
Music Videos Competition (jury president Ed Lachman) – Golden Frog: Jeff Bierman (cinematographer) and (LA)HORDE (director), “What You Want” by Angèle featuring Justice – Special mention for best concept: Romain Gavras (director), “Storm” by GENER8ION
Film and Art School Etudes Competition – Laszlo Kovacs Student Award, Golden Tadpole: Francesca Avanzini, Revolver (dir. Paoli de Luca) – Silver Tadpole: Paul Ader, Nika’s Room (dir. Konstantin Münzel) – Bronze Tadpole: Enrico Barbaro Jr., Until We Bury Them! (dir. Marco Araujo)
European Funds in Focus Competition (advertising spots; jury president Janek Majle) – Results not yet published by the festival
FilmLight Colour Awards (announced on 11 November; jury president Sean Price Williams) – Theatrical feature: Greg Fisher (Company 3), Bugonia – TV series or episodic: Aidan Farrell (The Farm Post Production), Lord of the Flies – Spotlight and documentary: Andu Radu (Abator), The President’s Cake – Commercial: Nadia Khairat Gómez, The North Face, “Defy Easy” – Emerging talent: Imri Agmon (S EC Studio), KidSuper SS26, “The Boy Who Jumped the Moon”
Honorary awards (announced by the festival or presented at the opening ceremony on 7 November) – Award for Director: Darren Aronofsky – THR Visionary in Cinematography Award: Janusz Kamiński – Award for Film Editor: Joe Walker, as announced by the festival; the American Society of Cinematographers reported that the Polish editor Milenia Fiedler also received the festival’s award for film editing at the opening ceremony – Award for Achievements in Music Video: Hype Williams – European Film Industry Preservation Award: Thomas Riedel, founder and chief executive of the Riedel Group, which recently bought Arri – Marshal of the Kujawy-Pomorze Region Film Award: Karolina Gruszka
The main competition (15 films) – Behemoth!, dir. Tony Gilroy, cinematography Damián García (US) – Disclosure Day, dir. Steven Spielberg, cinematography Janusz Kamiński (US) – Fatherland, dir. Paweł Pawlikowski, cinematography Łukasz Żal (Poland, Germany, Italy, France) – Growth of the Soil, dir. Hans Petter Moland, cinematography Oskar Dahlsbakken (Norway) – La bola negra, dir. Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi, cinematography Gris Jordana (Spain) – Minotaur, dir. Andrey Zvyagintsev, cinematography Mikhail Krichman (France, Latvia, Germany) – Project Hail Mary, dir. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, cinematography Greig Fraser (US) – The Mosquito Bowl, dir. Peter Berg, cinematography Jacques Jouffret (US) – Through the Wall (Przez ścianę), dir. Maciej Sobieszczański, cinematography Jolanta Dylewska (Poland) – Ulya (Uļa), dir. Viesturs Kairišs, cinematography Wojciech Staroń (Latvia, Poland, Estonia, Lithuania) – Visitation (Heimsuchung), dir. Volker Schlöndorff, cinematography Axel Schneppat (Germany) – Wicker, dir. Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson, cinematography Lol Crawley (UK, US, Australia, Hungary) – Wild Horse Nine, dir. Martin McDonagh, cinematography Ben Davis (UK, US, Chile) – Woman Unknown (Kvinde ukendt), dir. May el-Toukhy, cinematography Jasper J. Spanning (Denmark) – Zero A.D., dir. Alejandro Monteverde, cinematography Gorka Gómez Andreu (US)
The festival, which opened on 7 November with Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, has not said whether the Frogs carry cash.
Our reading
A Camerimage prize is a craft credential, and for the sellers of Fatherland, Woman Unknown and Minotaur it arrives at the right moment, two months before the European Film Awards in Athens on 16 January. The jury rewarded the films that had already won Europe’s big festival prizes and left the five US productions, including Spielberg’s and Lord and Miller’s, empty-handed. The audience, for its part, voted for Wild Horse Nine, a UK-led co-production. Fatherland moves straight on to open the International Film Festival of India in Goa on 20 November.
Sources
- ToruńCAMERIMAGE, ToruńCAMERIMAGE 2026 Awards (official list of winners), 14 November 2026
- ToruńCAMERIMAGE, Znamy laureatów tegorocznej edycji Festiwalu ToruńCAMERIMAGE (Polish), 14 November 2026
- The Hollywood Reporter, Camerimage awards: Fatherland, Wild Horse Nine, 14 November 2026
- IndieWire, Fatherland wins Golden Frog at ToruńCAMERIMAGE 2026: full winners list, 14 November 2026
- ToruńCAMERIMAGE, Skład Konkursu Głównego ToruńCAMERIMAGE 2026 (main competition line-up)
- ToruńCAMERIMAGE, We present the jury of the ToruńCAMERIMAGE 2026 Main Competition
- ToruńCAMERIMAGE, ToruńCAMERIMAGE 2026 juries
- ToruńCAMERIMAGE, Darren Aronofsky to receive Award for Director
- ToruńCAMERIMAGE, Janusz Kamiński to receive the THR Visionary in Cinematography Award
- ToruńCAMERIMAGE, Joe Walker to receive Award for Film Editor
- ToruńCAMERIMAGE, Hype Williams to receive the Award for Achievements in Music Video
- ToruńCAMERIMAGE, 2026 Music Videos Competition line-up announced
- ToruńCAMERIMAGE, Film and Art School Etudes Competition 2026
- American Society of Cinematographers, Camerimage 2026 opens with tributes and AI address, 11 November 2026
- The Hollywood Reporter, Bugonia, Lord of the Flies among 2026 FilmLight Colour Awards winners, 11 November 2026
- Filmweb, ToruńCAMERIMAGE 2026 competition entries by section
- European Film Academy, 39th European Film Awards nominations (official site)