Every year the Director of the Seattle Polish Film Festival travels to Poland to attend the premier Polish cinema event, the Gdynia Film Festival. At the festival, the SPFF Director honors the best independent film the Excellence in Independent Film award. This year, the film Diabel by director Tomasz Szafranski received the award. Diabel will be shown at the SPFF in 2006

About the Film: An aging butcher, Franciszek, finds out from a doctor that his mother is on the verge of death. Unable to watch over her, he hires a village wise-woman, Palchowa, to tend to his mother in her last moments. But the job turns out to be harder than they could ever suspect...

Cast: Andrzej Grabowski, Beata Rybotycka, Ryszard Zaorski

Film Awards: 2006 -Special Jury Recognition for Narrative Short in the Slamdance Film Festival - 2005 – awarded the Scholarship in Culure in the Silesian Province - 2005 – Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, Excellence in Independent Film Award - 2005 – Torun Film Festival „Toffi" - FLISAK Award for the Best Film Created by Filmmaker from The Kujawy-Pomorze Province - 2005 – Torun Film Festival „Toffi" - the Golden Mannequin Award for the Film With The Best Artistic Taste

About the Director: Tomasz Szafranski is a director and screenwriter. Before making films he put on amateur plays, wrote stories and screenplays. He also was one of the organisers of the CAMERIMAGE Film Festival for Cinematographers in Torun. Now, he is preparing to making of his first feature – a drama-comedy "A Story About Thieves" - while working on screenplays of several other projects.