The 2025 edition of Poland’s Camerimage Film Festival opened Saturday evening with a surprise tribute to the late master David Lynch and his longtime collaborator Peter Deming. 

The festival awarded Lynch and Deming the Duo Award, an honor handed to cinematographer-director partnerships. Deming was present at the festival opening in Torun, Poland, to accept the award. Previous recipients of Camerimage’s Duo Award include Werner Herzog and Peter Zeitlinger, who took the gong in 2023. Quentin Tarantino and Robert Richardson shared the award in 2019, and Todd Haynes and Ed Lachman were handed the award in 2011. 

Lynch and Deming’s creative partnership began with the short-lived TV project On the Air (1992). The duo continued to collaborate over the decades. Some of their other credits include Lost Highway (1997), Mulholland Drive (2001), and Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), as well as earlier television projects such as Hotel Room (1993) and the short film Premonitions Following an Evil Deed (1995). Deming also worked on Lynch’s concert film Duran Duran: Unstaged (2011) and Inland Empire (2006).

Lynch’s diverse artistic practice, from cinema to music videos, is the subject of a broad retrospective this year at Camerimage titled The World of David Lynch. The festival will screen the late filmmaker’s short works, including music videos, alongside his feature films and TV projects. Introductions and Q&As will accompany the screenings.  

Lynch died in January at the age of 78. Deming has led the public tributes to Lynch alongside many of the late filmmaker’s former collaborators. In an Instagram post following news of the filmmaker’s death, Deming wrote that he was “blessed to call him a mentor, a collaborator (still insane to comprehend for me), and a friend for thirty-three years.”

“Such a unique vision, David had the truly singular ability to combine images and sound to foster emotions and realities far beyond the reach of any language,” Deming wrote. 

“To take audiences to strange and dark places only he could bring to life. To be tasked to create imagery worthy of David’s imagination was the absolute best job in cinema. Ever. And one I will forever be grateful to have been fortunate to be a part of. Creativity. Inspiration. Imagination. Emotion. Pushing boundaries every opportunity he had and including us on that journey. The greatest ever to do it. I’ll so miss the infinity of your positive spirit, David, and sharing a cup o’ joe.” 

The opening film this evening at Camerimage was Anemone, directed by Ronan Day-Lewis, who was present for the screening and held a Q&A. Other titles set to screen at the festival include Ryan Coogler’s Sinners, shot by cinematographer Autumn Durald Arkapaw; Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet, shot by Polish cinematographer Łukasz Żal; and Mascha Schilinski’s Sound of Falling. Elsewhere, Cate Blanchett will travel to the festival to receive the event’s Icon Award. Blanchett will be handed the award at the festival’s closing ceremony.

Camerimage ends on Nov 22.