Magic and political manipulation at Gdynia
Andrzej Jakimowski’s second feature, Tricks [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andrzej Jakimowski
interview: Tomasz Gąssowski
film profile] (Europa Cinemas Label for Best European Film at Venice 2007, see news), which was enthusiastically received by Venice audiences, has proved equally as popular at the 32nd Gdynia Polish Film Festival (September 17-22).
The public were expecting a film similar to Jakimowski’s first feature Squint Your Eyes, which won awards at the San Francisco, Sochi and Gdynia festivals, as well as an Eagle in 2003. And although Tricks is directed just as subtly, with the same sincerity, wisdom and strength of emotions, it is very different in terms of content and more condensed than the director’s previous film.
A good dose of poetry, poetic magic even, marks producer Dariusz Jabłoński’s directorial debut Strawberry Wine, a Polish/Slovak co-production between the director’s company Apple Film Production and Trigon Production.
Based on Andrzej Stasiuk’s novel Galician Tales (Opowieści galicyjskie), the film tells the story of a police officer who, under the burden of a painful past, leaves the city for the countryside near the Polish/Slovak/Ukraine border.
Another title to have stirred up enthusiasm among festival audiences was Twist of Fate by well-known actor-director and rector of the Kraków National Theatre Academy Jerzy Stuhr.
The film centres on the relationship between two generations of contemporary Poles: students and their parents. In the sociological sketch, which has a slight didactic slant, the director takes a look at one of the most controversial subjects in contemporary Polish politics, lustration (the rediscovery of dark times in the past in a mood of widespread suspicion).
"I wanted to show to what extent it is dangerous to play around with the past, to what point destruction can lead us to what we call revelation of the truth," explains Stuhr.
Twist of Fate – filmed by Bartek Prokopowicz (Feliks Falk’s Collector, Krzysztof Krauze’s The Debt) and scored by Paweł Szymański – is produced by Studio Filmowe Zebra, Telewizja Polsat, Oto Studio Filmowe and Jacek Kulczycki.
The title will be distributed by Fundacja Film Polski from November 9.
(Translated from French)
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