Warsaw Film Festival joined the Academy Award® film festival list. This means that the winner of the Grand Prix in the WFF's Short Films Competition will have the right to compete for the Oscar® for best short film. The organizers of the Warsaw Film Festival have received a memo to this effect signed by Jon Bloom, chair of the Academy's Short Films and Feature Animation Branch Executive Committee. "We have been consistently developing the Warsaw Film Festival for years", says Stefan Laudyn, director of the Warsaw Film Festival. "In this, we also want to be useful to the Polish and international film industry. We have been promoting debuting filmmakers for many years and the Shorts Competition, held since 2008, is the latest step in this direction. This year's workshop for Polish makers of short films, Shorts Warszawa, organized by the WFF and the CentEast Market, showed just how much filmmakers stand to gain from meeting experienced professionals. I think having a project make it to the Oscar list will further increase young Polish and international filmmakers' interest in the WFF". "This excellent news is sure to trigger even greater interest in the Warsaw Film Festival among shorts filmmakers all over the world, and will have a positive impact on the standard of our Shorts Competition", adds Bartek Pulcyn, curator of the Shorts Competition at the Warsaw Film Festival. "I trust it will also serve as a strong incentive for Polish film directors and producers to have the world premieres of their projects at the WFF".