11/11/2005

Rozdroże Cafe is released today in Poland. The film, directed by Leszek Wosiewicz, is based on the true story of a violent hold up of a Kredyt Bank 's branch, killing four people in March 2001.

Wosiewicz, who also directed Kornblumenblau ( Best Director Award in 1989 at the Festival of Polish Film in Gdynia) and Kroniki domowe (Press Award in Gdynia 1997), is obviously inspired by Dostoievski and does not really make a retrospective of the facts. Acclaimed by the jury during the last Gdynia Festival for its direction and editing, Wosiewicz's film is more a parable in which the director describes the moral drama of the characters. "It is the tragedy of people who want to break free from social nothingness, condemned to corruptibility, infamy, violence and deprivation of any feature of humanity" said Wosiewicz.
The main parts are played by Robert Olech, Maria Pakulnis and Jacek Rozenek, with Andrzej Ramlau as director of photography. The film is mainly produced by Odysey Films in coproduction with Telewizja Polska TVP, Canal + Polska and ITI Film Studio with the support of the Agence Nationale de Production (currently in liquidation). ITI Cinema handles its distribution.

(The article continues below - Commercial information)

The music was written and played by Kazik Staszewski (who also plays in the film), a very committed rocker with a wide audience covering two generations. As a result, the film is likely to attract people, beyond the circle of moviegoers. As it was shown by Komornik [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Feliks Falk (read news from September 19th), which was the big winner of the last Gdynia Festival, local cinema needs that kind of things to find its audience: after one month in theatres, Komornik attracted 107.900 viewers. This is however far behind another European production by Polish director Roman Polański. His Oliver Twist, released in Poland on September 30th, sold 375.700 tickets and was in second position at the local box office last weekend.

(Translated from French)