POLISH FILM MAGAZINE2 (5)|2017

Roman Polański and his true stories

Poland in Cannes 2017: fireworks and Frost bites

Monika Lenczewska: the woman, who shot Johnny Depp

During this year’s 70th International Cannes Film Festival, there will be a special screening of Man of Iron, directed by the great Andrzej Wajda, who died last year. The film, which won the Palme d’Or in Cannes in 1981, will be shown in a digitally restored version. The PFI has been co-financing the digital restoration of many Polish films for over 7 years now, lending a new quality to the masterpieces of

Agnieszka Holland’s Silver Bear is confirmation that Polish cinematog-raphy is one of the most compelling and thought-provoking in Europe. The country’s film production indus-try is constantly expanding, and its cinema attendance growing. The 2016 domestic box office of 52.1 million admissions was a demonstration of Poland’s distribution potential and proof positive that the demand for

such masters as Wojciech Jerzy Has, Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi, and Jerzy Skolimowski. Poland has developed very high digital restoration standards. The appropriate quality is assured by the amount of time devoted to the process and by the thoroughness of the consultations with the original filmmakers. The results of the digitization performed by Polish post-production studios are truly impressive. I am convinced that the Cannes screening of Man of Iron will leave a tremendous impression on you.

The PFI has consistently supported international film projects, and is only too happy to participate in minority co-productions. The PFI focuses on intelligent, committed and, above all, open cinema with no borders. In this year’s first support session, as many as eight such projects received the support of the PFI, including Roman Polański’s Based on a True Story presented in Cannes’ Offical Selection. Two other co-productions supported by the PFI will screen during the festival. Šarūnas Bartas Frost has qualified for the Director’s Fortnight and Matan Yair’s Scaffolding will be presented in the ACID section. These are touching and intelligent stories. Moreover – and this is especially valuable nowadays – they were developed jointly as a result of an abun-dance of cultural capital. I heartily encourage you to work with Polish producers and film professionals. Their achievements, experience and professionalism are appreciated international-ly, which, by the way, is a huge source of pride for us. I firmly believe that the strength of cinema lies in its diversity, creativity and courage - attributes we should make use of when we come to create wonderful cinema together.

Magdalena SrokaGeneral Director of the Polish Film Institute

good films is on the increase. This hasn’t gone unnoticed. Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has placed Poland in their annual Top 20 International Box Office Markets.

Poland is planning to introduce its financial incentive program over the next few months. We are deeply convinced that with its long and extensive filmmaking experience, and its strong reputa-tion for creative and accomplished film professionals, Poland has what it takes to prosper as an international film and TV produc-tion center.

We heartily encourage you to meet Polish producers attending the festival to pitch their upcoming projects and present their new films. You can read about one of them, Maria Blicharska on page 16. Blicharska has been selected to participate in the Producers on the Move program. Poland has a great many talents, including Aleksandra Terpińska and Grzegorz Mołda, two young directors who will be presenting their shorts in Critics’ Week and Cannes Shorts respectively (p. 10, 12). DoP Monika Lenczewska will not be easy to catch up with. That’s because, as you can read on page 22, she is constantly travelling the globe to work with the world’s most promising filmmakers. Don’t miss the sneak-peek of Paweł Borowski’s upcoming film I Am Lying Now (p.32) a Polish-Dutch co-production that uses a Polish location as a thriller-noir backdrop.

With so many tremendous talents, beautiful locations, and fi-nancial incentives Poland will be as always ready to take on more.

Tomasz DąbrowskiHead of Film Commission Poland

CONTENTSEditorial 1Production news 2

CANNES 2017Roman Polański 6Frost 8Best Fireworks Ever 10Time to Go, Ela - Sketches

on a Departure 12Scaffolding 13Poland at Marché du Film 14Man of Iron 15Maria Blicharska 16

TALENTS70 Years of Polish Animation 18Monika Lenczewska 22Jan Naszewski 24Balcanic 1: Dog 26 MONEY BANKGet financed in Poland 28Polish Film Commissions 30Box Office in Poland 31

LOCATE&SHOOTI Am Lying Now 32Bridges in Poland 36

REMAINS OF THE DAYPolish Masters Give

A Wake Up Call 38A Polish Odyssey 40

Publisher: Film Commission Poland (Tomasz Dąbrowski, Anna E. Dziedzic, Dana Pohl). Contact details: ul. Chełmska 21 bud. 4/56, 00-724 Warsaw, Poland. email: office@filmcommissionpoland.pl Editor in chief: Ola Salwa. Writers: Piers Handling, Darek Kuźma, Zofia Jaroszuk, Sebastian Smoliński, Irena Strzałkowska, Artur Zaborski. Graphic Designer: Anna Myśluk. Layout Designer: Marcin Kiedio. Photo Editor: Marcin Kapica. English Editor: Steve Canty.

Special thanks: Robert Baliński, Marzena Cieślik, Olga Domżała, Rafał Jankowski from the Polish Film Institute, Anna Kot, Małgosia Abramowska.

This magazine is supported by the Polish Film Institute and regional film commissions.

PFM 2|2017 3EDITORIAL

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HARVEY KEITEL TO STAR IN THE PAINTED BIRD Keitel will be appearing alongside Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgård, and the Czech child actor, Petr Kotlar, in an adaptation of the contentious 1965 novel by Jerzy Kosiński. The Painted Bird is a Czech-Slovak-Polish-Ukrainian co-pro-duction with a budget of approx 5.8 mln EUR. The story revolves around a Jewish boy who wanders through Eastern Europe during WWII. He witnesses extreme violence during his quest for survival. The book was adapted by Václav Marhoul (the screenplay received a Special Men-tion from the ScripTeast program in Cannes in 2013), who will also direct and produce the film through his company Silver Screen. “Just like

millions of readers worldwide, I was captivated by The Painted Bird when it came out, and when I finished the feature film Tobruk in mid-2008, I decided to invest all my effort and skills into acquiring the film rights to this work. Eventual-ly, I succeeded,” says Marhoul. The co-producers are Pub Res (Czech Republic), Radio and Televi-sion Slovakia, Directory Films (Ukraine) and Film Produkcja (Poland). The filming is divided into seven parts and will be shot between March 2017 and June 2018 (with approx. 14 shooting days in Polish town of Świebodzin). The Painted Bird is set for its international premiere in May 2019.

The Raging Bull director is a well-known film buff and has often discussed Polish cinema with awe and respect. So it came as no surprise when Scorsese helped organising the retrospective of 24 digitally re-stored Polish classics in the US, UK, China, Australia and Spain. All those films, including works by Wajda, Skolimows-ki, Has and Kawalerowicz are available in a 3-Blu-ray boxed set (each containing 8 films). “With the Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema project we went on an amazing adven-ture with our partners,” says Jędrzej Sabliński, the CEO of DI Factory, which published the box sets and main organizer of the Polish cinema review.

“We added English and French subtitles, so that Polish films can be watched by film over all over the globe.” he adds. The boxed set is available from the special on-line storewww.store.mspresents.com

Martin Scorsese presents and recommends

When Pedro and his cousin land a temporary job they end up at remote pig farmhouse, that serves as a hiding place for a gang that kidnaps emigrants. Story is based on real-life massacre that took place in San Fernando in 2010. Farm will be directed by the Mexico-based, Uruguayan director Diana Car-dozo, and lensed by Polish DoP Wojciech Staroń. The project has received support form the Mexican Film Institute. The Polish co-producer is Staron-Film, and a French company is attached to the project. Shoot-ing is planned for 2017. World sales is open.

Polish-Mexican Farm

My Name is Sara is based on the true story of Sara Gu-ralnick, a 13-year old Polish Jew, whose entire family has been killed by Nazi death squads. After an exhausting escape, she reaches a small Ukrainian village, where she has to conceal her identity and religion to stay alive. Sara is hired by an Ukrainian couple and gets entangled in their marital conflicts, ultimately burdening her with even more

secrets on top of her greatest one she struggles to protect: her own true identity. The script was written by David Himmelstein. Steven Oritt will direct and produce the film with Justyna Pawlak from the Polish company Watchout Pro-ductions (Gods, The Art of Lov-ing). “The action takes place over a two-year period with many seasonal changes, so we will be filming 3 separate segments over 6 months. We

American WWII drama to be shot in Poland

plan to start filming by August 1, 2017 and complete the prin-cipal photography by March 1, 2018,” Oritt tells PFM. The film stars Polish actors Eryk Lubos (My Flesh, My Blood) and Michalina Olszańska (The Lure, I, Olga Hepnarova). All the post production work is being done in Poland. The festival premiere of My Name is Sara is set for fall of 2018. World sales is open.

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was written and directed by Robert Schwentke, who after a successful Hollywood career (Red, The Divergent Series: Insurgent, The Divergent Series: Allegiant), has come back to work in Europe. The film is produced by Filmgalerie 451 (Germany) in conjunction with Opus Film (Poland), Tempus Film (Poland), and Alfama Films (France). It was shot on location in Lower Silesia,

The Captain is based on events that actually took place in Germany during the final days of WWII. Nineteen-year-old Willi Herold, dressed in a sto-len captain’s uniform, gathers a group of German deserters. Together they travel through a disintegrating Nazi Germany, pillaging whatever they can find. They finally reach a POW camp that has been bombard-ed by the British. The Captain

German-Polish-French The Captain filmed in Lower Silesia

Poland, over 23 days. The project was supported by the German film funds: Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA), Bundesbeauftragter für Kultur und Medien (BKM), Mitteldeutsche Medien-förderung (MDM), Medien-board Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB), and MFG Baden-Würt-temberg, and the Polish Film Institute. The shooting wrapped on April 7th.

Adventures of a Mathematician, written and directed by Thor Klein, has received a grant from the TFI Sloan Filmmaker Fund. These annual grants have been awarded to the best film projects that deal with scientific, mathematical or technological themes since 2003. Adventures of a Mathema-tician tells the story of Polish immigrant Stanisław “Stan” Ulam, who moved to the USA in the 1930s and helped to build the first computer and the hydrogen bomb. Ulam will be played by Polish actor and Jakub Gierszał. The film is being produced by Shipsboy (Poland) and Dragonfly Films (Germany) and has received financial support from the Pol-ish-German Film Fund. Film Commission Poland helped in location scouting. Shooting is scheduled for spring 2018.

Tribeca Film Institute supports Polish-German project

Writer-director Hagar Ben-Asher introduces her upcoming film, a Polish-German-Israeli co-production, The World Has Ended

PFM: How did this story come about? Hagar Ben-Asher: The story of Lili, a girl who has no one and nowhere, and who is saved by a magical, godlike puppeteer, has been haunting my dreams for quite a while. Being the granddaughter of Poles - on both sides - and having been brought up with the narrative

of WWII – like all Israelis – studying this era is almost a genetic force. The combina-tion of the two became clear to me once I realized that the world today, and the children trying to survive in it (myself included), are suffering from the same chaotic atmosphere as those in the post war times. What do you mean by that?HBA: The wheel of history is an enigmatic concept for me. I feel that the world is now experiencing a turbulence of languages, identities, and belief systems. For me, children are a compass. They indicate the severity of the situation. There

are millions of children today who have nothing to eat or wear, refugees of war and pov-erty. I find this to be the worst indication of society’s percep-tion of reality, its ignorance, and its acceptance of horror. Therefore, for me, The World Has Ended is a film that says that children have the ability to expose darkness to light. On the one hand, they need to be rescued, but on the other, they are the ones holding the torch. I believe that naivety is a ne-cessity for regaining faith. You’re working with an inter-national crew, including Polish producers, Klaudia Śmieja and

Beata Rzeźniczek. What’s it like? At this point, as it’s the very beginning of the process, all I can say is that if working with Klaudia and Beata con-tinues as it is now, I might end up being extremely happy with my producers, which is some-thing I seldom say. But I want them to be working harder and harder, so it’s too soon to be showering them with compli-ments. Casting has also just begun. I can see that the cast-ing team has good intuitions, and the will to search far and wide. However that may be, they’ve managed to teach me to count one to nine (ten is impossible to learn) in Polish, so by the time we shoot, my Polish will be pretty good.

WHO IS MAKING WHAT?

Agnieszka Holland - Gareth Jones;

Paweł Pawlikowski - Cold War;Małgorzata Szumowska - Face;

Tomasz Wasilewski - Fools;Michał Marczak - Kosmos;

Agnieszka Smoczyńska - The Fugue.

Bartosz M. Kowalski - The In-Between

PFM 2|20176 PFM 2|2017 7

I’m talking to Roman Polański a couple of days after the announcement that his film Based on a True Story (D’après d’une histoire vraie) is to be included in La Sélec-tion Officielle at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. Polański seems fairly upbeat, but he claims that this is a very trying time, as he is “working like an udarnik” to put the finishing touches on the film.

Your new film Based on a True Story is an adaptation of the Delphine de Vigan novel of the same name. It revolves around a writer, Delphine, and L, her admir-er-turned-pursuer. What made you choose this partic-ular novel?Roman Polański: Reading Based on a True Story, I thought it’d be excellent material for a thriller. But what really attracted me to it was the encounter between the two women.

I realized that I’d never made a film where two female characters clashed. If you look at my previous work, starting with Knife in the Water, you can see that these films are either about a man and a woman, or more often, about a woman caught between two men.

One of the themes of Based on a True Story is an identity crisis. This is a recurring motif in your work. It is also quite topical in this day and age of social media, where people can constantly reinvent themselves.RP: We’re living in an age of social media tyranny. It’s definitely an interesting undercurrent, but I wouldn’t say it inspired me to film Based on a True Story.

I take it we won’t find you on Facebook then?RP: No.

You worked with French writer-director Olivier As-sayas, whose previous films, Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper, explore the female psyche.RP: Those films were the main reason I invited him to work with me. I wanted to work with a French screen-writer, as I hadn’t done so for a while. I was reasonably familiar with Olivier’s work, as he was primarily

a screenwriter before he became director. He also used to be a critic for Les Cahiers du cinema.

What was it like to work on a script with another director?

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Maestro Roman Polański returns to Cannes with a thriller, Based on a True Story. The film was co-produced with Poland

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RP: Olivier was well aware that I was going to direct, and he emphasized that he wanted to help me as a co-writer, not as a co-director.

Delphine, the protagonist of the film, suffers from writer’s block. Do you have any coping mechanisms up your sleeve in case that ever happens to you?RP: I wish I had!

You’ve made films in several countries, and quite a few of them are international co-productions. What do you think about that style of producing?RP: It opens up more opportunities in budget terms. The films I make are independent productions, which are difficult to finance, so they’re all co-productions with

other countries. But it’s not just that; I like sharing the creative part of the work with my colleagues from other countries.

The main problem has to do with interna-tional cast members speaking with different accents. As long as the film is dubbed or subtitled, and then shown in a country where the audience can’t detect these differences in pronunciation, there’s no problem. But it can sometimes be really off-putting, when you’re watching a film where some characters speak with a British accent and others with an American one. It’s a real problem. But if you overcome this issue in a creative way, it can be bearable. Take The Pianist - we had Polish characters speaking English with a Polish accent and Germans speaking German.

In the case of Paweł Edelman, the Polish cinematographer who lensed Based on a True Story, and five* of your other films, the accent is irrelevant and the language barrier non-existent, because you both speak Polish. But somehow, I don’t think the secret of your wonderful and lasting collaboration lies in having a common language. What is it, then?RP: There isn’t any. Paweł is simply a great artist, and one of the best DoP’s around, so there’s no reason for me to try and find someone else. Paweł also has a personality which contrasts well with mine. He’s a quiet guy who keeps his cool in any situation. I can lean on him, because I get frantic whenever things start to go haywire on set. Actual-ly, the whole camera crew is Polish – not just Paweł. These are a director’s closest collaborators on a set, so it feels good to be surrounded by my countrymen speaking my language.

It’s been almost sixty years since you made your first short films in the Łódź Film School. If you could go back in time and speak to the young Roman Polański, what would you tell him?RP: Well done!

That’s it?RP: What else could I tell him? The fact that I’m giving an interview about my new film sixty years later says it all.

CLASH OF THE TITANESSES

Reading Based on a True Story, I thought it’d be excellent ma-terial for a thriller * Venus in Fur, The Ghost Writer, Carnage, Oliver Twist, The Pianist

BASED ON A TRUE STORYDirector: Roman Polański. Screenplay: Roman Polański, Olivier Assayas. Cinematography: Paweł Edelman. Cast: Emmanuelle Seigner, Eva Green, Vincent Perez. Producer: Wassim Béji.

PFM 2|20178 CANNES 2017 PFM 2|2017 9

Two young Lithuanian volunteers, eager to learn more about a conflict raging not all that far from where they live, decide to travel to Ukraine with a cargo van of hu-manitarian aid. During the trip, they meet international correspondents, regular soldiers and everyday people, become exposed to the reality of living in a war zone, and get a better understanding of themselves in the process. If the plot seems a little underwhelming, that’s

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Šarūnas Bartas’s Frost, co-produced with Poland and presented in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes is a uniquely crafted road movie that takes the audience to the heart of Ukraine’s war zone

the real film emerged while the crew went shooting. It was shaped by encounters with real people from the war zone; we didn’t have only actors playing soldiers, those are real soldiers. The dialogues you hear were often not scripted, but captured in an almost-documentary style. The emotions you see on screen are real, tangible, and sometimes very raw.”

Living through the story“With this film, I wanted to tell about the current world’s story of never-ending war,” reminisces Bartas, a promi-nent Lithuanian director ranked among the greatest Eu-ropean auteurs. “Every film has its own moment, its own time, its particular visual base – the nature, the people, the story. I was open to discovering what it would be like. I don’t like to confine myself to something that has already been conceived.” Frost, an approx. 1.5 mil EUR co-production between Lithuania, France, Ukraine and Poland, tells a story that many people and governments would rather not see or hear. Needless to say, it was not an easy film to make. The shoot lasted several months, mainly due to the special permits for the crew to work on the dangerous Ukraine-Crimea border, but also because of the direc-tor’s very special modus operandi. “The plot is fictional but the film is not. Šarūnas wanted to somehow live

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because it is. The whole idea of the film, and its screen-play, was to use the plot as a starting point for some-thing much more complex and elusive. “Šarūnas Bartas is always in search of the truth, no matter how sad or difficult it might be. He might have been working on a larger scale than usual in Frost, but his instincts were the same,” explains Polish producer Maria Blicharska from Donten & Lacroix Films. “The script was just a pretext,

through this and present it truthfully on the screen,” says Blicharska, adding that there are scenes and dialogues that will remain embedded into the viewers’ minds. “The

film is supposed to be a cinematic experience, but the audience will also get a lot of information about the real situation in Ukraine.”

Conveying a strong messageThese tidbits of information, which give the film’s Lithuanian protagonists a deeper understanding of the complexities involved in this particular conflict, are mostly conveyed by the carefully selected cast of actors, including Vanessa Paradis’s international correspondent and Andrzej Chyra’s* world-weary journalist. “My char-acter’s job is to report on what happens in the Ukraine. He has been to other war zones, and worked in Bos-nia,” says the Polish actor, who took the role because of Bartas’s reputation and unconventional approach to filmmaking. “My guy ultimately becomes one of the main characters’ guides through Ukraine,” says Chyra, one of several Polish elements in Frost, that was partly shot in northeastern Poland, near the city of Białystok, and the Polish-Ukrainian border crossing in Dorohusk.Patrycja Lewandowska was the second camera opera-tor, and Paweł Mykietyn (Skolimowski’s 11 Minutes and

Real, tangible, and sometimes very raw

A STRAIGHT STORY

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Essential Killing, Wajda’s Wałęsa. Man of Hope) composed the music. “This is a very important artistic project that will also confront the viewer with the issue of safety on the border of Eastern Europe. I’m very glad to have been able to participate in it,” says Blicharska.

“I wouldn’t call Frost a political film, although it con-veys a strong message,” explains Blicharska. “This is a road movie that is meant to make the viewer reflect on a few things, but above all, it’s auteur cinema at its best.” What Frost promises to be, then, is a story borne out of a clash of different thoughts and ideas, a work of fiction inspired by life that can change the perception of the audience. “I believe that cinema is a small part of the world, as is everything that we people, do here on Earth. We need to share and engage with others,” says Bartas.

“It’s very difficult and the influence is limited, but yes, I do believe that cinema can change the world,” states Chyra. “The more people relate to what’s happening on the screen, the more they’ll be influenced by it.” There are still many questions waiting to be answered, but it seems quite reasonable to predict that Frost will not have any problem with provoking a fair share of healthy discussion.

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POLISH BLAST

Today’s reality could be tomorrow’s science-fiction. At least that’s what happens in Aleksandra Terpińska’s short The Best Fireworks Ever. Produced by Munk Studio – which specializes in helping young filmmakers make their first movies – and co-financed by the Polish Film Institute, Terpińska’s delirious story about a group of friends caught up in a fictitious civil war somewhere in Europe is a surprising gem. The film itself is like a fire-work, launched by one of the greatest talents of the new generation of Polish directors.

Aleksandra Terpińska’s spectacular short, influenced by Kieślowski’s Blind Chance, sees its international premiere during International Critics’ Week

Sebastian Smoliński

Although she initially studied psy-chology at the University of Wrocław, Terpińska has always been fascinated by the creative process. In her first short films, both documentary and fictional, she combined her profound interest in human nature with her passion for theatre, photography and the visual arts. She had her first international successes while still studying at the Katowice Film School. Her bachelor diploma short All Souls’ Day (2012), with a fantastic cast of both emerging and experienced actors, did the rounds of many film festivals, including San Sebastian, Cottbus, Clermont-Ferrand and Palm Springs, picking up numerous awards along the way.

In 2013, she received Best Pitch Award at Cannes for her documentary project The Czech Swan (completed two years later).

The Best Fireworks Ever, Terpińska’s Cannes comeback after a four-year

SHOOTING OFF FIREWORKS Aleksandra Terpińska, director

“The biggest challenge on set was to complete production and post-production within 4 months. We were on a small budget, but we put a lot of effort into making every-thing look realistic. It wasn’t easy to transform modern Warsaw into a post-apocalyptic city torn apart by riots. We had to think outside the box, and be inventive and cre-ative when planning scenes. At the same time, we had to strictly ad-here to our limited budget. Part of the shooting took place in condi-tions that were almost documen-tary – we simply filmed recent street protests in Poland. The rest was shot in a professionally prepared set - with closed streets, pyrotechnics, and choreographed stunts. We had to deal with ob-stacles and scarcity in a creative way, so as not to lose anything important for the movie. I had a great, professional team that did a wonderful job. This movie could not have been made without their commitment.”

He is one of most popular Polish actors. His career soared after his spectacular and gripping perfomance in Krzysztof Krauze’s The Debt (1999). His many credits include Andrzej Wajda’s Katyń, Małgorzata Szumowska Elles, In The Name of..., Jacek Borcuch’s All That I Love and Tomasz Wasilewski’s United States of Love. Chyra also works abroad, he starred in Julia Kow-

alski’s Polish-French Crache Coeur, Michale Boganim’s Terre Out-ragee.

He regularly works with theatre director Krzysztof Warlikowski, both in Poland and France. In his Un Tram-way, staged at parisian L’Odeon, he played opposite Isabelle Hup-pert. Chyra also works as an opera director. In 2015 he staged Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain.

*Eyes on: Andrzej Chyra

They have a drive for film: actors Malwina Buss and Piotr Polak (right).

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Jury Prize for A Short Film About

Killing (dir. Krzysztof Kieślowski)

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The film itself is like a fire-work, launched by one of the greatest talents of the new generation of Polish directors

absence, opens a new chapter in her career. This unique blend of dystopic science-fiction, political thriller, and chamber drama of three friends lost in their adult lives, is a wonderful-ly shot and edited piece of socially engaged and surreal extravaganza. The script, inspired by the recent Ukrainian revolution, and written by Terpińska for a competition looking for contemporary versions of Kieślowski’s Blind Chance (1981), is both specific and universal. These days, the possibility that the martial law depicted in the film will become fixed and permanent cannot be ruled out.

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In Time to Go (Koniec widzenia), Grzegorz Mołda narrates a conventional boy-meets-girl love story that suddenly turns into an unusual emotional triangle when the boy is taken into custody and the girl, on learning of the reasons for his ar-rest, has to choose between him and her father. The film is only fifteen minutes long, but has the potential to stir up lots of emotions and initiate some interesting discussions.“The idea originated

Matan Yair’s Scaffolding, a co-production between Gal Greenspan’s Green Productions and Stanisław Dziedzic’s Film Produkcja, is a coming-of-age drama about Asher, a troubled 17-year-old, who is torn between his family’s

Grzegorz Mołda’s graduation film for the Gdynia Film School is competing for the Palme d’Or for Best Short Film at Cannes

The Israeli-Polish drama Scaffolding has landed a spot on the ACID Program at Cannes

Darek Kuźma

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The eponymous Ela lives in a small town in Poland. Her daily life is stuck in a routine, balancing work and family. But Ela has a dream: like many young Poles,

she wants to move West, into a better life. Kusio directed the film in Polish with a Polish cast: Karolina Romuk-Wodorac-ka, Bartosz Sak and Karolina Porcari. Ela -

Sketches on a Departure (Ela - Szkice Na Pożeg-nanie) is his student etude, produced by the Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf. (sol)

Ela - Sketches on a Departure presented in Critics’ Week is a work of Polish-German director Oliver Adam Kusio

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from my student etude about a couple talking during a prison visit. I decided to elaborate on this story for my graduation film,” says the 24-year-old Mołda. “I see the Cannes nomination as the culmination of my two years of intensively studying the craft at film school,” he explains. Mołda shot Time to Go in five days, an impres-sive achievement that augurs well for the future. “For me, the greatest challenge was to make the whole crew passionate about the story and keep them that way until the end of the shoot. It was an extraordinary time, and everyone gave 100%.” The enthusiastic director seems to have what it takes to be in the running for the Palme d’Or at Cannes one day. “I want to tell stories through all the means of film language. Actors, light, camera movement, dialogues,” says Mołda. “I love it when films make me cry, laugh, get irritated, or become pensive. If someone somewhere gets to experience at least one of those emotional states because of my films, I will

feel that I have achieved something.”The Cannes Film Festival nomination (Short Film

Category) is yet another success for the Gdynia Film School. This institution was only established in 2010, but already boasts the first ever Polish short project to compete at Cannes, viz. Elżbieta Benkowska’s

Olena (2013). Time to Go, one of nine projects selected from 4,843 entries, is the second Polish film to receive this privilege.

Zofia Domalik (Warsaw 44) plays Marta, who is torn between her boyfriend and her father.

scaffolding business and his newly discovered fasci-nation with literature. “I got really interested in this story, which was inspired by real events that director and screenwriter Matan Yair witnessed,” says Dziedzic. “This is an independent, low-budget project, so we are very happy that it has been noticed and selected for Cannes.”

Scaffolding was shot in 19 days on location in Tel Aviv, on a budget of approx. 500,000 EUR, a quarter of which was provided by the Polish partner. The film seems to have the sort of universal appeal that has seen many a similar story succeed internationally. The Polish contribution includes Bartosz Bieniek as the DoP and Paweł Fiwek as the camera operator, as well as post-pro-duction services, which were handled by Mastershot and Soundmaking studios. Dziedzic stresses that the cine-matography in Scaffolding is one of the film’s greatest advantages.

“This is a cinema of the young generation, in which the director and screenwriter, cinematographer and main actor are all making their feature debuts. It has extraordinary energy,” says Dziedzic by way of explain-ing the film’s international potential. “Each of us had to grow up at some point, we all went through a rebellious period, and we all struggled with identity. This is a story that will take you back to those times – whatever your background.”

CINEMA OF THE YOUNG

2002

Palme D’Orfor The Pianist(dir. Roman

Polański)

1990

Best ActressKrystyna Janda(Interrogation, dir. Ryszard

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Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Iron (Człowiek z Żelaza), presented in Cannes Classics program is a follow-up of sorts to his epic Man of Marble. Film tells the story of the Solidarity movement in an almost docu-mentary style, mixing observation with dramatization of the labor union’s birth, emergence and revolutionary power.

In the first part of Wajda’s family saga, we meet a Stalinist udarnik Mateusz Birkut who, after several years of exhausting daily work for the glory of communist Po-land, becomes anathema to the authorities and is literally expunged from history. In Man of Iron, we watch the efforts of his son, Maciej Tomczyk (father and son are both played by Jerzy Radziwiłłowicz, pictured above), to organize strikes in the

Want to see new Polish films hand picked by a leading Polish film festival? Then head for Auditorium K, Level 4 at the Palais des Festivals et des Congrès on May 23 at 10:00 a.m.

Sebastian Smoliński

PALME DE FER

ADVERTISMENT

Marcin Pieńkowski, the artistic director of the T-Mobile New Horizons IFF talks about the selection: We’re more than happy to see our festival participating in the most important film market in the world, and to be promoting Polish cinema. This is a tremendous distinction for us. It also shows that our industry program, Polish Days, organized with the support of the Polish Film Institute, is necessary, as well as visible abroad. We’ve picked five diverse, unconventional, and courageous films for the Cannes presentation, so as to reflect the T-Mobile New Horizon program. We’ll

be presenting three brilliant debuts, the long-awaited full-length animation by Mari-usz Wilczyński, and the latest film from one of Poland’s major directors, Dorota Kędzier-zawska. I’m convinced that this broad range of styles and genres will attract sales agents and once again demonstrate just how much Poland has to offer in terms of cinema. To see more, join us for the upcoming edition of Polish Days. The event will be held in Wrocław on 8-10 August. We’re expecting more than 100 industry profes-sionals from all over the world.

Gdańsk Shipyard in August 1980. Wajda was asked by the shipyard workers to make a movie about the Solidarity strikes while they were happening. Later, he would often joke that Man of Iron was the only film he made on commission. Filming began almost immediately. This allowed the filmmakers to capture the true spirit of the movement and the liberating force of August 1980. Lech Wałęsa, the 1983 Nobel Peace Prize winner and the real-life Solidarity leader, appears in the movie as

himself, as do several other key Solidarity figures. When martial law was declared in December 1981, the political thaw gave way to an even more severe regime, and Man of Iron was banned in Poland.

Today, after more than 35 years since its premiere, Wajda’s singular achieve-ment is still one of the most accomplished examples of docufiction ever committed to celluloid. It is also a priceless depiction of one of the most glorious moments in Polish history – a time of real men of iron.

Speedway (Żużel), dir. Dorota Kędzierzawska, presented by Artur ReinhartAbout: Everyday life cannot compare to the high-octane world of the speedway. This is a domain of anxiety, effort, adrenaline and madness - and every race might be your last.

Thrice Falls The Saint (Trzy upadki Świętego), dir. Jacek Jan Juszczyk, presented by Paweł WiteckiAbout: Love, jealousy, richness and poverty. An artist’s struggle to survive in the mystical and ruthless world of a small mountain village at the turn of the 20th century.

Diagnosis (Diagnoza), dir. Ewa Podgórska, presented by Małgorzata WabińskaAbout: The world’s first ever urban psychoana-lyst lays the city down on the therapy couch. The citizenry are invited to express their deepest cravings, pains and desires.

Tower. A Bright Day (Wieża. Jasnydzień), dir. Jagoda Szelc, presented by Marcin MalatyńskiAbout: Mula has been raising her sister’s child as her own. When her sister suddenly returns, Mula is deeply appre-hensive that she might want her child back. Her visit, however has a completely different.

Kill It And Leave This Town (Zabij to i wyjedź z tego miasta), dir. Mar-iusz Wilczyński, presented by Ewa PuszczyńskaAbout: Fleeing despair after losing those dear-est to him, the main protagonist hides in the safe realm of memories. As he grows old, the amazing characters of his imagination lead him back to the real world.

17th T-Mobile New Horizons IFF, August 3-13 Wrocław, Poland www.nowehoryzonty.pl

THE PROGRAM:

POLISH REPRESENTATIVES AT PRODUCER’S NETWORK IN CANNES

1. IZABELA IGEL

2. LESZEK BODZAK

3. MARTA PLUCIŃSKA

4. KATARZYNA FUKACZ

5. MARTA LEWANDOWSKA

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We meet to talk about her career, as she’s finishing the post-production of Frost, an ambitious French-Pol-ish-Ukrainian-Lithuanian movie directed by one of Europe’s most accomplished auteurs. “I have this pro-fessional calling to be a filmmaker who crosses national borders, and Frost reflects this idea in a wonderful way. It’s a delicate, intimate look at the Ukrainian conflict. It’s a great project, which was worth doing not for financial gain, but for the sake of priceless and timeless art,” says Blicharska. She jokes that in Poland she is considered a French producer with Polish roots, and a Polish producer in France. She is convinced that her international approach is exactly what European cinema needs right now. “There are more and more movies that need to be shot in various countries, and multilingual crews are essential. It’s not about competition between different national industries, but about quality and cooperation.”

Polish-French connectionBlicharska’s road to Paris and to prestigious projects was fast, but even 15 years ago, no one would have sus-pected that she would one day be a key Polish producer operating internationally. “I studied French philology and cultural management. I had nothing to do with the cinema until I happened to be on the set of Mar-cin Krzyształowicz’s The End of Holidays in 2002,” she says. “I soon became fascinated by the possibilities that filmmaking had to offer. It’s a fusion of art, finance, law, mathematics, and technical and practical knowledge, as well as creative contact with talented people,” she adds. Blicharska finished post graduation film produc-tion studies in Katowice and soon decided to go abroad.

“I was interested in international co-productions from the outset. I went to Paris to gain experience and knowl-edge about them, and then Poland joined the EU. I start-ed working with Rafael Lewandowski, a Polish filmmak-er raised in France. A few years later, when he made

his debut feature The Mole (2011), which was filmed in Poland and France, I worked on the French side.”

Blicharska was primarily a line producer in the early years of her career. She worked with foreign film com-panies, viz. a Brazilian company shooting in Poland and Germany, and a Belgian company going to Ukraine with a Polish crew. She also organized the filming of many Polish movies in France and elsewhere. Blicharska is especially proud of the big-budget American historical documentaries shot in Poland, viz. One Day in Auschwitz (2015), produced by Steve Purcell, Stephen D. Smith and Leslie Wilson with music composed by James Horn-er. The movie was broadcast on 250 TV stations in 45 languages.

In 2006, Maria Blicharska and Monika Sajko-Gra-dowska founded the Polish film production company Donten & Lacroix Films. “We were working on Polish films and we managed to organize few shooting days in New Orleans right after Katrina hurricane struck. We thought that everything had been going so well that we should set up a company to help Polish filmmakers shoot outside Poland. I think we’ve worked on all the major Polish films shot in France over the past 10 years.”

Trans-Europ-ExpressBlicharska was soon given an opportunity to further develop her skills. “I met Margaret Ménégoz from Les Films du Losange, who had produced many nouvelle vague films since 1962, when she founded the company with Éric Rohmer and Barbet Schroeder,” says Polish producer. “She had always fascinated me, I admired her work, and working with her was a dream come true. I became a unit production manager for Margaret in 2006, even though I had a company in Poland. I spent two years there and it was the best school I’ve ever had.”

Blicharska later went back to Donten & Lacroix Films own projects, viz. short animations. Esterhazy (2009) was shown at the Annecy Film Festival and won the

We managed to or-ganize few shooting days after Katrina hurriacane struck.

Golden Hobby-Horse at the Krakow Film Festival.

“The first full-length feature we made as pro-ducers, Julia Kowalski’s Crache Coeur, premiered

in the ACID section at Cannes in 2015, and was given positive reception. It was such a great experience.”

In the same year, Blicharska founded Blick Produc-tions, a French production company based in Paris. She is currently working on Polish projects, like the upcom-ing feature Kantor: I Shall Never Return (a bio-pic about the legendary Polish theatre director), some of which was shot in Paris. “We hired 150 people and closed off half of Paris. The French Film Commission must have been impressed, because they later had us included in a delegation of French filmmakers going to Hollywood.” she says.

Blicharska’s next project, however, is not going to be a big-budget studio film. She is developing a “hybrid of animated and live-action film about the deportation of Polish Jews to Siberia. The people who survived this are still alive and can share their stories.” she says.

Sebastian Smoliński

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Maria Blicharska has a company in Paris and another in Warsaw. She works with American, Iranian, Egyptian and Belgium crews. Her latest international co-production, Frost, is being premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes

CANNES 2017

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Zofia Jaroszuk

Polish animation, which celebrates its 70th anniversary in 2017, is a world cinema phenomenon, winning Poland more awards than any other genre. Here’s a beginners’ guide to the most graphic of films

1 Playthings (Igraszki) is a 1962 work by Kazimierz Urbański.

2 Tomasz Popakul’s Ziegenort presents an alternative reality.

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Polish animation officially came into being in 1947 with In the Time of King Krakus (dir. Zenon Wasilewski). How-ever, the groundwork for the genre had already been laid by the following three artists: Władysław Starewicz, who made stop motion films in Russia at the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century; and the avant-garde oeuvre of Franciszka and Stefan Themerson in Warsaw in 1930-1937.

The rapid growth of the genre was impressive, given that there was no infrastructure to support it in the aftermath of WWII. Animation was most commonly used in advertisements in those days. Innovative methods and new techniques often emerged fortuitously as a by-product of commissioned projects. The turning point came with Jan Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk’s Once There Was (1957). This film shattered everything that animation had held itself out to be. Once There Was revels in improvised nonsense and pays homage to ab-stract thinking. This formal experiment set a new course for non-narrative animation cinema – one that is still cultivated in Poland.

How to paint a human experience?Whether the Polish School of Animation existed as a formal and conscious artistic movement or was merely a term popularized by critics and theoreticians has been much debated. Undoubtedly, films created in Poland in the 1960s and 1970s have enough in common – capti-vating images, symbolism, figurative language, and exis-tential themes - to justify considering them as belonging to a distinctive group. Moreover, this particular poetics (“the poetic of pessimism”) is still a distinguishing feature of Polish animated film. Works by directors such as Jan Lenica, Daniel Szczechura, Mirosław Kijowicz, Wi-told Giersz, and Kazimierz Urbański gained international acclaim and were extolled as compelling portrayals of individuals opposing a totalitarian system. However, the political context wasn’t the only thing that appealed to the audience. No less impressive was the fact that every one of these films could extract the essence of human experience and present it allegorically. This specific form also helped animation filmmakers escape the keen eye of Poland’s communist censors.

But make no mistake – the Polish School of Animation is not a closed chapter in the history of the genre, but a wellspring of inspiration for the next generation of filmmakers.

100 hours of solitudeAnimation established itself as a separate discipline at the very outset. This can be partly explained by the na-ture of the work involved. Animation filmmakers spend tens of hours on solitary, strenuous work. Moreover, this way of working is nurtured by the educational system in Poland, which fosters self-reliance and being able to take up each stage of the creation process independent-

ly, rather than teaching students how to work together in a group. This approach is not without its critics, but it has proved to be very effective - animation graduates successfully launch their careers and hit the festival circuit every year. There are current-ly three major animated film departments, and they are in Kraków, Poznań and Łódź.

The rapid growth of the genre was impres-sive, given that there was no infrastructure to support it in the af-termath of WWII.

3 In Tango Zbigniew Ryb-czyński plays with space and time.

4 Daniel Szcze-chura made Hobby in the turbulent year 1968.

5 Reksio - Po-land’s most beloved dog.

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Animated seriesThe second pillar on which Polish animation rests are series. These are mostly created for younger audiences. A whole generation of Polish children was brought up watching the adventures of the two brisk boys Bolek and Lolek, and the resourceful Reksio the Dog. These cult series were produced in the late 1960s and were exported to many Eastern Bloc countries. For many years now, series have underwritten the stable development of large national studios, e.g. Animated Film Studio in Bielsko-Bi-ała, Se-Ma-For in Łódź, and Film Miniatures Studio in Warsaw. The last of these recently worked on Anca Da-mian’s full-length animation The Magic Mountain, which received a Special Mention in Karlovy Vary in 2015.

The Oscars and other accoladesAnimation has long been Poland’s most successful film genre in terms of the number of both domestic and international awards. The industry’s greatest success to date is an Academy Award for Best Animated Short, and the timing could not have been more unexpected. The year was 1983, the twilight of martial law in Poland, and a time when the film industry was in a state of collapse. Zbigniew Rybczyński, a young filmmaker and one of the country’s most original and versatile talents, won

an Oscar for his avant-garde short Tango. This was the first-ever Academy Award won by a Polish director. Ryb-czyński later worked in New York, where he continued to create experimental shorts, as well as music videos for John Lennon (Imagine –Silver Lion for Best Music Video, Cannes, 1987), Mick Jagger and Lou Reed.

The next Oscar opportunity came in 2003, when Tomasz Bagiński received an Academy Award nomi-nation for his 3D short The Cathedral. This prestigious distinction launched Bagiński’s career and made him the to-go animator in Poland. His second short, Fallen Art, won a BAFTA award and was recognized at dozens of festivals. Bagiński is currently collaborating with Platige Image – one of Poland’s leading studios – where he recently directed the acclaimed teaser campaign for Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (a video game).

The reputation of Polish animation has attracted foreign investors and artists. In 2003, British producer Hugh Welchman teamed up with the well-established Polish studio Se-Ma-For on the puppet animation short Peter and the Wolf (dir. Susie Templeton). Five years later, the film won an Oscar for Best Animated Short. At the time, Peter and the Wolf was Poland’s biggest ever ani-

mated short production. It also won significant recog-nition and made Polish short animated films for adults internationally popular. Multi-awarded films include Ziegenort (dir. Tomasz Popakul, Grand Prix at Oberhau-sen ISFF, 2013), The Lost Town of Świteź (dir. Kamil Polak), which was presented in the Berlinale Shorts and won the Best Debut award at the Annecy IAFF in 2011.

The modern era – Shaping the marketThere are around 25 animation studios in Poland. Almost every one of them fluctuates between commercial and artistic projects, and works with a range of techniques. Their refreshing combination of styles and formats creates a vivid portfolio with artistic films and television series being two equally developing poles.

There has been a noticeable shift towards full-length animated films over the past 6 years. These projects are very demanding, especially budget-wise, and the major-ity of them are executed as international co-productions. This year and next are expected to see the premieres of the two biggest ventures in the history of Polish ani-mated film: Loving Vincent (dir. Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, read more in 2/2016 PFM), the world’s first painted full-length animation that will premiere at the upcoming festival in Annecy; and Another Day of Life (dir. Damian Nenow, Raul de la Fuente), an animated docu-mentary biopic about Ryszard Kapuściński (1/2016 PFM).

ProspectsPolish animation has also been expanding its presence internationally. Since 2013, the French events Cartoon Forum and Cartoon Movie have seen numerous Polish projects being pitched. The number of animation film producers travelling to international film festivals, and looking to extend their networks abroad and find co-producers is likewise increasing. They pitch their own projects and additionally offer production or postproduc-tion services.

The Polish industry has the means and the potential to become a player on the European market. With its rich traditions and background, it has so much more to offer than merely technical expertise - experience and artistic sophistication.

Public supportPolish animation relies on regular subsidies from the Polish Film Institute (est. 2005) for its continued devel-opment. This has resulted in the production of numer-ous animated short films that have toured festivals and brought home more and more awards. Newcomers such as Kamil Polak and Tomasz Ducki, have walked side by side with acclaimed directors and animators, such as Jerzy Kucia, Witold Giersz and Piotr Dumała. Since 2008, the PFI has also been offering financial grants to animated series for young audiences. This has boosted the revival the genre, as demonstrated by the interna-tional success of Agi Bagi (more 3/2016 PFM). The Polish market is gradually being saturated with new series produced domestically, while the general interest in films for young audiences is increasing. Those series that are worth keeping an eye out for include Casperade, Basia or Hug me.

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→ PLATIGE IMAGEThe studio has 15 years of experi-ence. It specializes in CG imagery, 3D animation, and digital special effects. It is currently adding the finishing touches to an animated documentary Another Day in Life (a Polish-Spanish-German-Bel-gian-Hungarian co-production). They’re also developing two family full-length films – Privisa (2D animation) and a Polish-Por-tuguese co-production, Fatima (3D animation).www.platige.com

→ HUMAN ARKHuman Ark specializes in 3D character animation and visual effects. The studio has a team of over 30 specialists, including some of Poland’s best animation and concept artists. Human Ark is currently working on Diplodo-cus, its first feature 3D animation targeted at a family audience. The studio launched Casperade, a 3D children’s series, last year.www.human-ark.com

→ BREAKTHRU FILMSThis is an award-winning studio based in London and Gdańsk. It specializes in stop motion and painting animation. Their film-ography includes The Magic Piano, a puppet animation short about Frederic Chopin’s piano, and the Oscar-winning Peter and the Wolf. In 2017 they’re launching Loving Vincent. The team is currently working on their most recent stop-motion feature film, The Junks.www.breakthrufilms.pl

→ BADI BADIBadi Badi is an animation and post-production studio founded in 2003 and shifts between com-mercial projects and animated projects based on their own IP. Their domain is 3D animation. Their 3D series Agi Bagi was sold to over 40 countries. Badi Badi is working on its first feature-length family animation, Flying Bear: Return of the Guardian. This is simultaneously being produced as a series.www.badibadi.com

→ GS ANIMATIONAnimation studio and production company that specializes in 2D animation. Their portfolio includes the children’s 2D series Mami Fatale, and short Lost Senses. The studio is finishing the production of the series Basia, and developing Mironins, a co-production with Spain. www.g-s.pl

→ STUDIO MINIATUR FILMOWYCH

During its 50+ years of working, the studio has produced over 1,500 films, including works by Walerian Borowczyk and Kazimierz Urbański. The studio is currently working on the series Joyets, a co-production with the UK.www.smf.com.pl

→ FUMI STUDIOFumi Studio specializes in 2D animation. It is Poland’s lead-ing producer of artistic shorts, including Piotr Dumała’s Hippos. In 2016, the studio co-produced The Man Who Knew 75 Languages, a Polish-Norwegian-Lithuanian film about linguist Georg Sauerwein. Fumi works on its full-length debut, a family animation Bik & Bak.www.fumistudio.com

→ ANIMOONThe studio specializes in 2D ani-mation and has developed its own puppet motion capture technology, (SMODO). Animoon is preparing its first feature film, Moomins and the Winter Wonderland, based on the books by Tove Jansson. The project is a Polish-Finnish co-production. The studio is also developing a puppet animation Pelican.www.animoon.pl

→ LETKOLetko is an animation studio specializing in developing and pro-ducing 2D projects. With a growing team of talented illustrators and animators, the studio provides a wide range of services and de-velops its own productions. Letko is currently working on a Latvian project, Jacob, Mimi and the Talking Dogs, as a minority co-producer.www.letko.co

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8 Another Day of Life depicts Kapuściński’s journey to 1970s Angola.

6 Peter and the Wolf - the mod-ern face o Pol-ish animation.

7 The Lost Town of Świteź is based on a Pol-ish legend.

WORK WITH THEM: BEST ANIMATION STUDIOS IN POLAND 1

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There is a lot more to the Monika Lenczewska’s story than a list of career milestones. In fact, earning the right to call herself a “feature cinematographer” was merely the culmination of the long and bumpy road she had traveled. But it was also the start of yet another jour-ney. Since she made her feature debut with Zeresenay Mchari’s powerful Ethiopian drama Difret, a tale about the legal defense of a 14-year old girl who killed her would-be-husband when he tried to rape her, Lenczews-ka’s career has gone from strength to strength. From the social drama Imperial Dreams (dir. Malik Vitthal), starring the then unknown John Boyega in 2014, to the recently wrapped LAbyrinth (dir. Brad Furman), a thriller set in the wake of the murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious BIG, on which she worked with A-listers Johnny Depp and Forest Whittaker, the Polish cinematographer has proven herself capable of handling pretty much anything.

Patience pays offBut Lenczewska’s beginnings were a little more erratic. Although she had always been interested in photog-raphy, and adored the work of Diane Arbus, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Nan Goldin, etc., she tried her hand at every filmmaking job she could get, including working in production on Polish features. “I tried to be somewhere near filmmaking, just to experience things, and observe the process,” explains Lenczewska, who was then mo-tivated by the famous Polish cinematographer Edward Klosiński to go to film school and study cinematogra-phy. She considered, but did not choose, the obvious Lodz Film School, instead opting for the United States.

“I wanted to be surrounded and stimulated by people from all over the world. I chose AFI, which was one of the best decisions of my life. It was a perfect melting pot of filmmakers.”

By the time she graduated, Lenczewska had already established the core visual style that now makes her a highly sought after cinematographer, although she waited a couple of years for an interesting project before she made her debut. In the meantime, she shot short films, commercials and, she reminisces, “experimented with film, digital, and the language of moving images.” When Difret materialized, she was hungry to become part of serious and important storytelling on which she could make her mark as a cinematographer. “I love natural light, or imitating natural light if I can’t have the real deal. Natural comes first for me. I love mixing light, and different colors. I love to have a “rough look” instead of striving for some kind of ideal. The image has to be alive, has to mean something. I want to use light and color to reveal the truth behind whatever is in front of the camera.

Right person for the jobDespite now having shot eight feature films, such as festival favorites Message from the King (dir. Fabrice Du Welz) and Park (dir. Sofia Exarchou) and winning in-dustry recognition in the process, Lenczewska remains refreshingly level-headed. “I always tried to listen to my inner voice and just followed a path, without think-ing too much about it,” she explains. “And it just so happened that there were people who liked what I was doing, and who had similar sensibilities. After that, I just started to get flooded with proposals, and one day I found myself on a plane, flying over the Atlantic for a shoot,” she adds. Lenczewska still likes to keep up with short format projects and recently worked on a commercial directed by Daniel Wolfe. “It’s pretty simple. The script is the main thing. Then it’s a matter of talking to the director. We have to click, you know? Being a cinematographer is too tough a job, especially in a male-dominated industry, for me to get involved in something I don’t believe in. It’s almost psychophysical. I get 100% involved. I have to feel that I’m the right person for the job.”

Lenczewska really does value the chemistry on set. When hiring a gaffer for LAbyrinth, she spent two weeks looking for the right person. It was her biggest film to date, and she needed someone who would understand her way of working. “This was a complicated project. We had three cameras the whole time, and some days we had eight. A different budget, a different scale, seven months of work, sometimes 14-16 hours a day, some-times weekends. But the experience was wonderful. I got even more confident in proposing what I think is best for the story, and that includes natural light,” she laughs. With an attitude and a body of work like that, Lenczewska will probably never shoot Hollywood block-busters, but this is not something she aspires to. “I love my work, despite all the hardships. And I have a strong desire to progress, to try new things, to experiment. I believe that being a cinematographer is about learning, all the time, all the way, until the end of my career.”

She made her feature film debut in 2014. In 2016, she was named one of Variety’s “10 Cinematographers to Watch.” Now, in 2017, Polish cinematographer Monika Lenczewska is already a household name

NATURAL COMES FIRST

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FIRST ONE:Beau Travail, dir. Claire Denis

FAVORITE ONE: Persona, dir. Ingmar Bergman

LENCZEWS-KA’S FILM PICKS

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Having spent ten years in the increasingly in-demand business of international film sales, and having orga-nized industry events at the T-Mobile New Horizons IFF before going on to establish his own film festival in Edinburgh, Jan Naszewski has certainly earned his place at the table. But he has refused to follow the paths of others. Instead – on the recommendation of Ralph Waldo Emerson – decided to “go where there is no path and leave a trail.” “I see myself, and sales agents in gen-eral, as a part of an ecosystem that can influence what people are exposed to in terms of art and culture,” says Naszewski, who, since setting up his own sales company

Want to reach a larger audience with your film? Join the growing family of Jan Naszewski’s New Europe Film Sales

in 2010, has become a champion of both the short form of filmmaking and art-house features “I want to bring a certain kind of cinema to people. I create a demand that wasn’t there before. It gives me great joy to be able to find a bold, interesting film that might not be all an obvious choice commercially viable, and help it find an audience.”

Naszewski is one of the increasingly rare breed of passionate young professionals who have never tried to catch the fast train to Hollywood. “I’m in the business of discovery. I consider myself more of a curator with a preference for projects that are courageous and which expand the language of film,” he explains. “I never fin-ished any film school. My film education and networking skills came through working for T-Mobile New Horizons and each and every job I performed.”

Now that his company is in its seventh year, Naszews-ki boasts an catalogue of projects from including Israel, Spain, the UK, Argentina, the USA, and Russia. Polish ones too, although they only constitute approx. 20% of New Europe’s business. “This may seem strange to some, but I don’t want to be considered a Polish sales agent. Just a sales agent of quality films. I don’t give any thought to a film’s nationality when I take it on.”

Looking for his own Polańskis and HanekesNaszewski’s film creed is reflected in how his boutique sales company works. “The idea was to make it a small, but very selective, company from the outset. I wanted to focus on quality, not quantity. We have a rigid pre-selec-tion process. We watch 500-600 films a year and choose 6-8,” he explains. Naszewski’s previous successes include the Cannes-honored Rams (dir. Grímur Hákonar-son) and the Berlinale-awarded United States of Love (dir. Tomasz Wasilewski), as well as dozens of short films.

“They might not be for everybody, but they certainly ap-peal to those who know what to expect from us. That’s what “boutique” means to me - we’re not a supermar-ket, but a very specialized small shop.” While Naszewski believes in building filmmakers’ images, and growing together with them, he says that the market, with its tiny theatrical distribution windows and overabundance of films, doesn’t reward this way of thinking.

The reality of the market doesn’t make Naszewski any less optimistic about the future of his company. “Be-cause of our size, we don’t have to be conservative like big companies, so our choices can be a little more radi-cal,” he explains. Although it seems the time has come to steer New Europe Film Sales into the more turbulent waters of bigger contracts and financial risk-taking, he intends to hold true to his core values. “I don’t have to work with Roman Polański or Michael Haneke. I have to find my own Polańskis and Hanekes,” he says. “I always say that I make a living out of it, but I’m not in it for the money. If I was only in it for the money, I’d work in a bank. Still, I want to find interesting films that will have their place on the market and will make money for the filmmakers.” That there are sales agents with such an ethos and passion for non-mainstream films that can really change the way people think about and perceive the world bears testimony to the enduring power of cinema.

Darek Kuźma

THE TRAILBLAZER OF FILM SALES

Darek Kuźma

PFM 2|201726

A Romanian-Polish co-production,

Florin Şerban’s Balcanic 1: Dog promises

to be a stunningly shot tale of man

vs. nature vs. human nature

Balcanic 1: Dog (Balcanic 1: CÂINE) is definitely not your typical Romanian New Wave film. It portrays a forest ranger who consciously abandons the world of people to live the life of an emotional recluse in the Carpathian Mountains with a dog as his only companion. A myste-rious woman, badly beaten up and unable to take care of herself, complicates his predictable existence with her problems, which stem from the civilization of men. Two opposing forces of human nature, struggling with their feelings and inner demons against the backdrop of a silent and eternal nature that has seen everything. Pure cinema, almost devoid of dialogue, told through emotions, the language of film, images, juxtapositions, compositions, and yet as gut-wrenching as the best stories from Cristian Mungiu, Cristi Puiu, Radu Munte-an and any other distinguished Romanian director. The

tion with his Berlinale-awarded feature debut If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle. “It’s a story of love and passion, of man vs. nature, and of the relationship between the male character and his dog, which is far more important than the bonds he has with other people. The film is not set in a specific time period. It could be 30 years ago or even 100 years ago. Basically, I wanted to give the viewers a chance to live through a truly cinematic experience.”

Balkan soul“It’s a very formal film in terms of visual approach. There’s more creativity than there is the sort of realism typically associated with the Romanian New Wave. It has beautiful long takes, carefully composed shots, and sophisticated lighting,” adds Polish cinematographer Marcin Koszałka. Koszałka was an obvious choice for Şerban because of his background in art-house film-making and mountaineering documentaries. “The protagonist is influenced by the natural world he has become part of. This solitary life in the wilderness has softened his emotional rawness and temperament. But the appearance of other people makes him go back to his old ways.” Because of the setting, Dog required a small but dedicated crew that had to endure many physical challenges. This included living in a secluded cave for four days to cut costs. “We had problems with portable

power supplies and thus with lighting. We had to work in difficult conditions. But I loved every minute of it. It was a beautiful, wild spot where we shot. The weather was intriguing, with lots of fog and natural phenomena, and the light was amazing.”

“I think we were too romantic when we chose such a remote setting, but ultimately it was worth the effort. The audience is going to see it and feel it on the screen,” assures Şerban. “If you want to learn about Balkan sensibilities by experiencing them through the power of cinema, then this is a good movie to start with. But if you’re looking for an American-type thriller or drama, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.” As Dog promises to be visually spectacular, this archetypal story of man vs. nature vs. human nature may well find an audience beyond the art-house diehards.

PFM 2|2017 27

film was produced by Fantascope Films (Romania), in co-production with Poland’s Harine Films, Non Stop Film Service, and FilmDistrict, and shot in 32 days in the Piatra Craiului Mountains in the Southern Carpathians on a budget of approx. 900,000 EUR. It promises to be a dream come true for lovers of art-house cinema.

“We are very proud to be part of this project. This is a minority co-production for Poland, with about 20% of the budget on our side,” says producer Izabela Igel from Harine Films. “But our involvement was not limited to putting up money. Most of the cinematography crew was from Poland, as was some of the equipment, cour-tesy of Non Stop Film Service and Film District. We did the color correction in MultiLab and the final sound mix in Sound Mind, which was also the film’s co-producer,” adds Igel, who sees international co-productions as the best way to support great storytellers and distribute their endeavors around the world. “I loved working with Polish professionals, especially Michał Fojcik, who is one of the best sound designers I’ve ever met. It’s rare to meet people who are so passionate about their work that they infuse you with the same excitement,” says Şerban. “I hope this will not be my last project with Polish participation.”

Dog is to be the first installment of the Balkan Trilogy. This promises to be both an audiovisual treat and an existential experience. “The idea behind the trilogy is to some of the attributes of the Balkan soul cinematically. We breathe contradictions, we are both brave and cow-ardly, caring and unstable, curious and hard to decipher. It’s a fascinating thing to try to depict in front of the camera,” says Şerban, who captured international atten-

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WILD THING

Valeriu Andriuta (above, left) is the main character, Simion. He previously played in Cristian Mungiu’s Beyond the Hill with his Dog co-star Cosmina Stratan.

TALENTS

BALCANIC 1: DOG

Director: Florin Şerban. Screenplay: Florin Şerban.

Cinematographer: Marcin Koszałka. Cast: Valeriu

Andriuţă, Cosmina Stratan, Florin Hriţcu, Vitalie

Bantaş, Mihaela Măcelaru. Producers: Oana Iancu,

Florentinca Onea, Florin Şerban, Izabela Igel.

Marcin Koszałka is

a versataile artist

- one of country’s

top DoP, fantastic

documentary

directors and

intriguing new-

comer to the world

of fiction. His de-

but feature The Red

Spider premiered at

KVIFF in 2015.

PFM 2|201728

FINANCINGFor a Polish co-producer, the maximum subsidy is:

PLN2 000 000 approx. EUR 470 000

OPERATIONAL PROGRAM FOR FILM PRODUCTIONPolish Film Institute

HOW TO FIND MONEY IN POLAND

FOR PRODUCERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLDParticipation of Polish co-producer neccessary

DEADLINESThere are three application sessions per year

REQUIREMENTSThe Polish producer’s own contribution must amount to no less than 5% of the expected cost of the Polish financing.

• A separate selection commission for minority co-productions;

• Bilateral treaty not necessary, even for non-European projects;

• One more session in 2017 (August 1-14).

2017

January 6-23, 2017 April 10 - 24, 2017 August 1 - 14, 2017;

MINORITY CO-PRODUCTIONS MAJORITY CO-PRODUCTIONS

TTernopilernopil

DaugavpilsDaugavpils

FINANCINGFor a Polish co-producer, the maximum subsidy is:

PLN4 000 000 approx. EUR 932 000

subsidy up tu 50% of the total budget

WHO TO BOTHER FOR MORE INFORMATION: Robert Baliński, tel.: +48 22 42 10 387, email: robert.balinski@pisf.pl.

50%

To be eligible for consideration, applications must include the following i.e.: script, director’s statement, synopsis, budget, estimated production costs, script rights agreement.

REQUIREMENTS • For bilateral co-productions,

the Polish contribution must be at least 20% of the total budget;

• For multilateral co-productions, the Polish contribution must be at least 10% of the total budget;

• At least 80% of the subsidy must be spent in Poland;

• You have to hire at least one Pol-ish Head of Department.

ENTIRE

BUDGET

MAX. PFI SUBSIDY

POLISHBUDGET

50%70%

30%

PFM 2|2017 29MONEY BANK

POLISH-GERMAN FILM FUNDFunding institutions: Polish Film Institute, Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA), Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM) and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

REGIONAL FILM FUNDSThe Polish regional film funds seek film projectsby announcing competitions, usually once a year. Basic requirement for projects applying for support is the relation of the production with the local city or region. There are spending conditions for support granted of at least 100% to 150% of the funding spent the region. The Polish regional film funds differ in the size of the annual budget, the forms of support and the amounts to be spent locally.

All the Polish film funds provide support of up to 50% of the film budget, this may be higher in the case of documentaries and animated films.

Foreign producers are also welcome to submit projects, preferably as partners of Polish producers.

REQUIREMENTS

FOR PRODUCERS FROMPoland | GermanyApplications for production may only be submitted on condition that an agreement has been signed by at least one Polish producer and at least one German producer based in the region in which MDM and Medienboard operate. In case of development application, the German producer must be based in Germany.

FOR DEVELOPMENT the maximum subsidy is:

EUR 70 000

FOR CO-PRODUCTIONS the maximum subsidy is:

EUR150 000

Annual budget approximately

EUR500 000

WHO TO BOTHER FOR MORE INFORMATION: Robert Baliński, tel.: +48 22 42 10 387, email: robert.balinski@pisf.pl.

Two sessions per year in 2017 (application forms and application dates are available on the websites of the Fund’s founders);

The budget of the film should not exceed EUR 750 000;

For: animated films, creative documentaries, low budget narrative films and/or first films and/or films that present an innovative approach;

Television projects are eligible in exceptional cases, with the exception of television feature films.

FINANCING

1 BIAŁYSTOK FILM FUND emozyrska@um.bialystok.pl

2. GDYNIA FILM FUND www.ckgdynia.pl

3 LOWER SILESIAN FILM FUND www.wroclawfilmcom mission.pl/dkf

4 LUBLIN FILM FUND www.film.lublin.eu

5 ŁÓDŹ FILM FUND www.lodzfilmcom mission.pl

6 KRAKOW REGIONAL FILM FUND www.film-commission.pl

7 MAZOVIA FILM FUND www.mff.mazovia.pl

8 PODKARPACKIE FILM FUND www.podkarpackiefilmcommission.pl

9 REGIONAL FILM FUND POZNAŃ www.poznanfilmcommission.pl

10 SILESIAN FILM FUND www.silesiafilm.com

11 WESTERN POMERANIAN FILM FUND www.pomeraniafilm.pl

12 WARMIA-MASURIA FILM FUND www.ceik.eu

SESSION 1 SESSION 2 SESSION 3

10

11

12

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PFM 2|201730 PFM 2|2017 31MONEY BANK

POLISH NUMBERSREGIONAL FILM COMISSIONS If you want to make your lm in Poland, they are your guides and trusted partners, always ready to roll

1 KRAKOW FILM COMMISSION

www.film-commission.pl

dnosal@film-commission.pl

+48 508 120 413

supported films:

● Denial, dir. Mick Jackson

● True Crimes, dir. Alexandros Avranas

● The Mighty Angel, dir. Wojciech

Smarzowski

2 ŁÓDŹ FILM COMMISSION

www.lodzfilmcommission.pl

m.glowacka@ec1lodz.pl

+48 605 054 235

supported films:

● Maria Curie, dir. Marie Noelle

● Ida, dir. Paweł Pawlikowski

● Who Will Write Our Story, dir. Roberta

Grossman

3 MAZOVIA WARSAW FILM

COMMISSION

www.mwfc.pl

a.spisz@mwfc.pl

+48 667 550 565

supported films:

● All These Sleepless Nights,

dir. Michał Marczak

● Body, dir. Małgorzata Szumowska

● The Last Family, dir. Jan P. Matuszyński

4 PODKARPACKIE FILM COMMISSION

www.podkarpackiefilm.pl

m.kraus@podkarpackiefilm.pl

+48 721 288 004

supported films:

● Speedway, dir. Dorota Kędzierzawska

2009marks the establishing the first film commis-sion in Poland, in Łódź.

5 POZNAN FILM COMMISSION

www.poznanfilmcommission.pl

m.gramacki@poznanfilmcommission.pl

+48 513 396 033

supported films:

● Chronology, dir. Kipp Tribble, Derik

Wingo

● A Heart of Love, dir. Łukasz Ronduda

● Into the Spiral, dir. Konrad Aksinowicz

6 SILESIA FILM COMMISSION

www.silesiafilmcommission.pl

p.mlynarczyk@silesiafilm.com

+48 698 353 147

supported films:

● Valley of the Gods, dir. Lech Majewski

● Demon, dir. Marcin Wrona

● I Am Lying Now, dir. Paweł Borowski

7 WROCLAW FILM COMMISSION

www.wroclawfilmcommission.pl

rbubnicki@wroclawfilmcommission.pl

+48 601 384 194

supported films:

● Bridge of Spies, dir. Steven Spielberg

● I, Olga Hepnarová, dir. Tomás Weinreb,

Petr Kazda

● Spoor, dir. Agnieszka Holland

ADVERTISMENT

FILM COMMISSION POLAND

www.filmcommissionpoland.pl

office@filmcommissionpoland.pl

+48 693 477 607

FCP coordinates efforts to promote

Poland’s film industry and locations on

the international market. It serves as

the first contact point for filmmakers

interested in working in Poland. All the

regional film commissions are managed

independently but collaborate closely

with Film Commission Poland.

What regional film

commission do:

• location scouting;

• administer and update

a database of locations;

• assist in obtaining

permits to film,make

use of roads and so on;

• reduce the length of time

required to obtain permits;

• assist in talks with the

owners of buildings,

facilities and land;

• assist in contacting the

municipal offices and

services;

• assist in arranging

accommodation often

with discounts;

• provide information

and contacts on local

professionals and

production companies;

• provide information on

the infrastructure and

film resources available

in their region.

TITLE DIRECTOR POLISH PRODUCER SUBSIDY IN EUR

Based on a True Story Roman Polański Monolith Films 281 690

The Last Journey of Monsieur Pichon

Soren Kragh-Ja-cobsen

Akson Studio 281 690

Jacob, Mimmi and the Talking Dogs

Edmunds Jansons Letko 93 896

Kawki na drodze (no eng. title)

Olmo Omerzu Koskino Natalia Grzegorzek 70 422

Balcanic 1: Dog Florin Serban Harine Films 70 422

What a Country Vinko Bresan Studio Produkcyjne Orka 70 422

Butterfly Kisses Rafael Kapeliński Solopan 46 948

The Director’s Chair Sophie Delvallee Entertain Pictures 8 215

Films that have received a support from the Polish Film Institute’s minority co-production scheme (session 1/2017)

17.09 mln admissions in Polish cinemas

5.05 mln

admissions to Polish films

1.76 mln

admissions to The Art of Loving

352 911admissions to most popular co-production Marie Curie

Box-office in the first quater of 2017

1 EUR = 4.26 PLN

WHERE THE LIE LIESI Am Lying Now, the spectacular and long-awaited second feature from Paweł Borowski, demonstrates that  Polish locations can be adapted to suit every vision and every imagination. The film is set for a 2018 premiere and here is a sneak peek at it’s amazing world

1 Set built in Katowice-Miasto Ogrodów (Katowice - A Garden’s City), a Krystyna Bochenek Cultural Centre

32 PFM 2|2017 33

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34 PFM 2|2017 35PFM 2|2017 LOCATE&SHOOT

2 This mysterious corridor was built in a filming lot in Łódź.

3 The interior of The International Conference Centre in Katowice was transformed into a restaurant.

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4 Stylish bedroom was built in a neo-ba-roque Cavalier Palace in Świerklaniec (Sile-sia region).

5 Another intriguing interior - adapted in the hall of the Polish National Radio Sym-phony Orchestra in Katowice.

We wanted to create a world that screams fiction, a bit like in a fairy-tale,” says director Paweł Borowski, whose feature debut Zero was presented at festivals in Busan, São Paulo, Rotterdam, Milan, Washington, Munich. “At the same time, I wanted this fictional world to feel palpable. I chose retro-futuro and space-age aesthetics to bring this feeling to the big screen.” I Am Lying Now was shot on location in Łódź, Silesia, and the Netherlands. According to the director, it is

a thriller noir in which nothing is what is seems. The film was produced by Łukasz Dzięcioł from Opus Film (Poland) and Sander Verdonk from New Amsterdam Film Company (Netherlands). Daria Dwornik is a production designer, and Arkadiusz Tomiak is a DoP. Film is currently in the post-production, and its international premiere is planned for the beginning of 2018. World sales is open.

4

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A BRIDGE NEVER TOO FARWhether it’s an adrenaline-pumping pursuit, a romantic walk or a mood shot, Polish bridges are a perfect backdrop - whatever the style and genre

7 . Sajid Nadiadwala shot his action film Kick in War-saw. In a one spectacu-lar scene, a double-decker bus falls from the Gdański Bridge.

36 PFM 2|2017 37

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1 Stańczyki

3 Kraków

2 Płock

4 Wrocław

6 Toruń5 Tczew

7 Warsaw

WANT TO SEE MORE?

Check out the new pub-lication of Film Commis-sion Poland and fall in love with diverse and ver-satile Polish locations.

www.filmcommission-poland.pl/about-fcp/poland-lookbook/

38

managed to evade censorship through implication and subtlety. These films contained enough ambiguity to satisfy the authorities. But Polish audiences easily found their way to the deeper meanings of all these films. Wajda’s Danton, Holland’s Provincial Actors, and Kieślowski’s Camera Buff are just a few examples of the deft manner in which Polish filmmakers commented on specific events, or the more gener-al malaise.

Well, times have changed – or have they? Two recent Polish films have given me much pause for thought, as

Recent films by Andrzej Wajda and Agnieszka Holland are warnings writes Piers Handling*

the country labors under a right-wing government whose recent actions trouble many filmmakers. Both are films made by “older generation directors”, i.e. directors who lived through the Communist era and know only too well what a totalitar-ian system looks like. They are alert to the dangers of a government that attempts to control freedom of speech and action.

Not long before he died, Andrzej Wajda produced one final master-piece. Afterimage is a film that blazes with indignation and anger. Choos-ing as his subject the life of the famous modernist artist, Władysław Strzemiński, Wajda relentlessly depicts the tragic story of a brilliant artist whose career was stymied at every turn by a government and an

officialdom absolutely determined to ruthlessly crush any form of non-conformism. Clearly brilliant, and obviously a force to be reckoned with, the system simply has no time for this man, who puts their own mediocrity on trial. A brilliant and charismatic teacher, Strzeminski is adored by his students, them-selves looking for role models at a time when they are attempting to discover their individual voices. Strzemiński is brave, courageous, and determined, but the system sets out to crush and even humiliate him. Wajda depicts this grim battle of wills without blinking. He never averts his gaze. Nor does Strzemińs-ki. The two serve as models of con-science in an ocean of compromise and moral bad faith. Most give in to the system, some don’t – and Wajda is determined to show Poles what it means to be one of the outcast few with moral right on his side.

Agnieszka Holland, a name closely linked with Wajda over the decades,

as they were friends and collaborators, was also one of the few. Forced into exile when martial law was pro-claimed in the early 1980s, her moral credentials are second-to-none. Her new film, Spoor, is as relevant and topical as Wajda’s, although she has approached her subject in a complete-ly different way. Holland has made her share of historical films that uncompromisingly deal directly with some of the warts of Polish history

- the Holocaust, Popieluszko, collab-oration etc. - but she has chosen to examine present-day Poland through a crime film. Holland’s protagonist is an elderly and somewhat eccentric woman who lives in the countryside. She is suddenly spurred to action by the mysterious death of her beloved dog. She becomes an animal rights activist, and, more importantly in Holland’s eyes, an engaged citizen who is ultimately driven to civil disobedience. Holland asks the very pertinent question: When is it accept-able to resort to violence and take the

law into your own hands? Her film is loaded with implication.

Afterimage draws an analogy be-tween the past and the present. Spoor eschews the past, employs a familiar genre, and is set in the present. Both ask their audiences to draw their own conclusions and fearlessly examine a society that has lost touch with certain fundamental values. Both are warnings - wake-up calls by artists who have fought tirelessly over the decades for a free society.

Polish cinema has always been a cin-ema of moral conscience. At least the postwar Polish cinema that I know, from Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Zanussi, Krzysztof Kieślowski and Agnieszka Holland to Paweł Pawli-kowski and Małgorzata Szumowska. These directors all made films that grapple with issues of ethics and morality, choice and compromise. During the immediate postwar period and throughout the entire Commu-nist era, their films acted as a moral barometer for the country. They were a form of collective resistance that

POLISH MASTERS GIVE WAKE UP CALL

REMAINS OF THE DAYPFM 2|2017 39PFM 2|2017

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ADVERTISMENTSpoor, dir. by Agnieszka Holland

*Piers Handling is the Director and

Chief Executive Officer of Toronto In-

ternational Film Festival since 1994.

As a programmer he regularly watches

Polish films. He curated many film

retrospectives and sat on numerous

festival juries, including Cannes, To-

kyo and Rotterdam.

40

requests - Kubrick required photos of sunsets and railway stations. And these were not mere whims. Kubrick was always very specific about what he wanted to know. One day, he called us to find out who owned the copyright to a pre-war Polish song he had mailed us. When we played the recording, it turned out to be one of most popular songs of the Polish legions that had fought for the country’s independence, which was eventually won in 1918- We Are The First Brigade.

Kubrick often called and wrote to the Polish team, but never showed up in person. Unfortunately, his project, Aryan Papers, was abandoned, mainly because the producers failed to close the financing.

Mannerheim, hailed as a Euro-pean super production, met a similar fate. The film was to be a biography of Finland’s WWII president, C.G.E. Mannerheim, directed by Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2, Exorcist: The Begin-ning). The Polish team had already organized the casting, and Polish DoP Hubert Taczanowski (Michael Winter-bottom’s Look of Love) was hired. The project was eventually shelved.

The Truce (dir. Francesco Rosi), with John Turturro in the lead role, had more luck. The film was completed, but in Ukraine, not Poland. Why was that? According to the director, the Polish extras looked “too good” to be

underfed WWII survivors. However, during the pre-production, Rosi asked the Polish crew to do the impossible

- get a permit to shoot inside the Aus-chwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Mu-seum. Not even Steven Spielberg was able to film in a former Death Camp when he made Schindler’s List. But the Polish crew didn’t give up, and Rosi and his team were eventually allowed to shoot outside another WWII site

– the Majdanek State Museum. The challenge then became finding a loca-tion without any modern buildings in the background.

Rosi’s film is set during WWII, a pe-riod that foreign producers frequently associate with Poland. No wonder that Véra Belmont’s Survivre avec les loups, a story about a girl who is raised by wolves after narrowly escaping death at the hands of the Nazis, was originally going to be shot here. The film was eventually co-produced by France, Germany and Belgium, because Poland wasn’t able to offer financial incentives. But during the location scouting, we worked miracles in finding locations without any signs of modernity. We may well regret that so many international projects have passed us by, but so should their producers. That’s because Poles don’t know the meaning of the word

“impossible”.

Noted by Artur Zaborski

Why was it that some projects never came to fruition? Poland’s lack of financial incentives was one rea-son. The lower production costs in neighboring countries was anoth-er. Sometimes, it was the foreign producers who backed out. Whatever the reason, Poland was always ready to support the filmmakers. No matter what they demanded from us. And some of them, like Stanley Kubrick, demanded a great deal. Kubrick did not even present us with a script - which was, by the way, how he usual-ly worked. When he called Studio Tor in the early 1990s, everyone thought it was a prank. But the voice on the phone was so relentless that everyone was soon convinced. As it happened, Kubrick had been referred to Tor by Krzysztof Kieślowski, whom he had met after writing an introduction to the American edition of his Decalogue. We were honored that a world-fa-mous director wanted to shoot his next film in Poland. So much so that none of us complained about having to provide all sorts of costumes and props, e.g. special suits and other garments, as well as journals, from the 1920s and 1930s. And just when it seemed impossible to send him peri-od publications, fortune smiled upon us - the Ministry of Culture approved the export of archival newspapers. But Kubrick didn’t stop there. The Polish crew was inundated with more

Irena Strzałkowska

A POLISH

REMAINS OF THE DAYPFM 2|2017

So, one day Stanley Kubrick calls up these Polish producers... Irena Strzałkowska from Tor Film Studio tells a gripping story of international co-productions that were almost made in Poland

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