29/08/2017

The A to Z of the 42nd Polish Film Festival

On 18-23 September, the 42^nd edition of the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia will take place. This year’s Main Competition features seventeen entries, eight of which are debut efforts. Here’s the rundown:

Amok

Directed by: Kasia Adamik | Poland, Sweden, Germany 2017

The film was inspired by real events. On 13 November 2000, the body of a man was discovered in the Odra river near Wrocław. Seven years later, Krystian Bala (played in the film by Mateusz Kościukiewicz) was found guilty of his murder. The verdict was passed down based on circumstantial evidence, including the novel which Bala had published several years before. It was called “Amok”, and described a murder that bore a striking resemblance to the one from 2000 of which – even though he never confessed – he was eventually found guilty. Bala’s trial became so publicized that “New Yorker” and “Guardian” wrote about it, and the proceedings were covered live by CNN and BBC. In Kasia Adamik’s film, the investigation into the murder is conducted by Jacek Sokolski (Łukasz Simlat), and the plot focuses on the psychological duel between Sokolski and Bala.

read our review of “Amok”

Panic Attack

Directed by: Paweł Maślona | Poland 2017

The directorial debut of Paweł Maślona, who wrote Marcin Wrona’s “Demon”. “Panic Attack” shows the lives of seven unrelated people – an immature radio host (Daniel Guzdek), an ambitious waiter (Bartłomiej Kotschedoff), the perfect bride (Julia Wyszyńska), a popular crime novel author (Magdalena Popławska), a married couple on the voyage of their lives (Dorota Segda and Artur Żmijewski) and an animal behavior specialist (Adam Nawojczyk) whose lives spin out of control due to circumstances not exactly beyond said control. They will all experience the titular panic attack on a plane.

Catalina

Directed by: Denijal Hasanović | Poland, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia 2017

Catalina is from Columbia and studies law in France. When her request for an extension of her residence permit is denied, Cataline moves to Sarajevo. She hopes that if she can gain access to the files of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and use them to write a compelling paper, she will be able to stay at the French university. She doesn’t end up getting to those files, but meets an interpreter for a Sarajevo-based humanitarian mission and decides to stay in a while longer. The feature-length debut of Bosnian director Denijal Hasanović.

Cicha noc 

Directed by: Piotr Domalewski | Poland 2017

A village in Eastern Poland. Adam finds out that he’s going to be a father. He decides to go abroad with his girlfriend and start a new life. On Christmas Eve, he visits his family to try and convince them to sell their land – so that he can use the money to start his own business and take care of them financially. But he quickly realizes that the price for achieving that dream is much higher than he anticipated. The feature-length debut of Cracow Theatre Academy alum and Silesian University in Katowice directing student Piotr Domalewski.

The Man with the Magic Box

Directed by: Bodo Kox | Poland 2017

The year is 2030. Adam (Piotr Polak) suddenly appears in Warsaw. He doesn’t remember who he is or where he came from. Mysterious people place him in an abandoned tenement house and get him a job as an office cleaner. In an overhead cupboard in his apartment, Adam finds a 1950s radio that… plays the past. At work, he meets Goria (Olga Bołądź). He’s a guarded introvert, she’s a real go-getter, but neither of them can quite find their place in the dehumanized world. He falls in love with her at first sight, she keeps him at an arm’s length. One day, Adam discovers that he can use the radio to travel into the past. During one such voyage he gets “stuck” in 1952. Goria, realizing that she has lost the love of her life, decides to go find him.

read our interview with Bodo Kox

Czuwaj

Directed by: Robert Gliński | Poland 2017

The film takes place at a scout camp to which boys from a young offenders’ home get invited as part of an integration program. The experiment seems to be a failure right from the start. The two groups clash repeatedly, until finally one of the scouts dies under mysterious circumstances. The scouts’ guardian doesn’t believe that it was just an unfortunate accident, and embarks on his own private investigation. In order to learn the truth and find the culprit, he introduces a strict regime at the camp. But then, while searching for evidence, he inadvertently causes the death of his prime suspect.

Double Ironman

Directed by: Łukasz Palkowski | Poland 2017

The film was inspired by Jerzy Górski, a sportsman who has wowed the world, but remains virtually unknown in Poland. Górski (Jakub Gierszał) ended up in rehab at 29. He was addicted to heavy drugs, but managed to ditch the habit and focus all his energy on sports. He completed the “Death Race” and set the world record at the triathlon championships, triumphing in the Double Ironman category. However, that feat would not have been possible if it weren’t for two women. One of them he lost, the other one motivated him to regain control of his life.

Spoor

Directed by: Agnieszka Holland | Poland 2017

An ecological thriller based on the novel “Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead” by Olga Tokarczuk. The film focuses on Janina Duszejko (Agnieszka Mandat), a retired woman who and lives alone in the country in the Kłodzko Valley, supplementing her income by teaching English at an elementary school. She is a vegetarian, animal lover, and an avid astrologer. Duszejko also fights the poachers and hunters who kill animals in the nearby woods. One winter night, she and her friend “Matoga” (Wiktor Zborowski) find the body of their neighbor, a known local poacher. The man seems to have died under mysterious circumstances, and the police find deer tracks around his house.

read our review of Spoor

Beyond Words

Directed by: Urszula Antoniak | Poland, The Netherlands 2017

Michael (Jakub Gierszał) is a young, energetic and intelligent lawyer from Berlin. His life is suddenly thrown into disarray when he is visited by Stanisław (Andrzej Chyra), a Pole who informs him that he is his father. Michael suddenly becomes Michałek, even though Stanisław is literally his last link with Poland – a country with which he had deliberately severed all ties.

Birds Are Singing in Kigali

Directed by: Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauze | Poland 2017

The film begins in 1994 in Rwanda. Ethnic cleansing is underway. Over the course of three months, a million Tutsi – two thirds of the entire Rwandan Tutsi population – will have died as the world watches in silence. Claudine’s family is murdered during the first days of the genocide. She somehow manages to escape. Anna, an ornithologist from Poland, her father’s friend, risks her life to help the girl escape Rwanda. Both women are emotionally scarred and can’t seem to go back to living a normal life. Anna quits her job and holes up in the country. Claudine ends up at a refugee center, where she tries to commit suicide. Their paths cross again when Claudine is forced to leave the refugee center. She moves in with Anna, learns Polish, and starts helping her around the house. Years pass. The lives of both women seem to tick away at a leisurely pace, but they both know that the only way to heal the Rwandan wounds is to go back to Kigali. The last joint film by Joanna Kos-Krauze and Krzysztof Krauze.

read our interview with Joanna Kos-Krauze

Reakcja łańcuchowa

Directed by: Jakub Pączek | Poland 2017

Marta (Małgorzata Mikołajczak) and her fiancé Adam (Tomasz Włosok) are planning their wedding. Their friend Paweł (Bartosz Gelner) has just graduated from film school. All three of them were born in 1986, shortly after the Chernobyl atomic plant disaster, which will turn out to have had quite an impact on their lives. But the story revolves around their toxic, complex, pathological relationships with their parents. The feature-length debut of Silesian University’s Department of Radio and Television alum Jakub Pączek.

The Art of Loving. Story of Michalina Wisłocka

Directed by: Maria Sadowska | Poland 2017

The film biography of Michalina Wisłocka (Magdalena Boczarska), the author of “The Art of Loving”, Poland’s most popular sex guidebook. The film shows her life decade after decade – during the wartime 1940s, Stalinist 1950s, and the 1970s when – with the aid of her editor and former patients – she finally manages to publish her magnum opus.

Your Vincent

Directed by: Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman | Poland, United Kingdom 2017

The first feature-length painted animation, which was 9 years in the making. Each of the 65 thousand hand-painted frames was created by 125 painters from around the world. The directors, while searching for the truth about Vincent van Gogh’s mysterious death, tell a story about his life and work, while at the same time showing – as film frames – over 600 of his paintings.

Volta

Directed by: Juliusz Machulski | Poland 2017

During the renovation of an old tenement house in Lublin, Wiki (Olga Bołądź) finds the crown of King Casimir III the Great of Poland, hidden there by one of her ancestors. Her friend Aga’s (Aleksandra Domańska) boyfriend Bruno Volta (Andrzej Zieliński), a spin doctor, learns about her discovery. He could really use the crown, as he’s currently trying to fix the image of a dumb politician, Kazimierz Dolny (Jacek Braciak), the leader of a national socialist party. Dolny intends to win the presidential election and reinstate monarchy in Poland.

Wieża. Jasny dzień

Directed by: Jagoda Szelc | Poland 2017

Mula lives in the country with her husband, her sick mother, and her daughter Nina. Just before Nina’s First Communion, they are visited by Mula’s brother and his family, and Kaja, her younger sister, who had suddenly disappeared six years before. Kaja is Nina’s biological mother. Mula is afraid that she has come back to take her child away. But it turns out that Kaja had an even more important reason to return. The feature-length debut of Wrocław Art Academy alum Jagoda Szelc.

Wyklęty

Directed by: Konrad Łęcki | Poland 2017

Poland, the 1940s. The communist secret police decides to start removing Polish resistance fighters using any means necessary. The main protagonist, Lolo, who is being tortured by secret police operatives, is rescued by his friends. At a country wedding, he meets Bronka. The two fall in love. The character of Lolo was inspired by Józef Franczak, codename “Lalek”. The feature-length debut of the L’Art acting studio in Cracow and Academy of Film and Television in Warsaw alum Konrad Łęcki.

Zgoda

Directed by: Maciej Sobieszczański | Poland 2017

Silesia, 1945. Communist operatives create the “Zgoda” labor camp for Germans and Silesians on the site of a former Auschwitz Birkenau auxiliary camp. The secret police uses it to execute people under the guise of punishing traitors. Franek (Julian Świeżewski) starts work at the camp to rescue Anna (Zofia Wichłacz), whom he loves. He doesn’t know that one of the other detainees is Erwin (Jakub Gierszał), his German friend from childhood, who also loves Anna, and whose feelings she reciprocates.

—Magdalena Żakowska (translated by Wojciech Góralczyk)

Gdynia Film Festival official website