Wave of Polish docs unspool at Swiss fest
This year’s Visions du Réel Film Festival in Nyon (April 7-13) has selected three Polish titles, including Pawel Kloc’s Phnom Penh Lulluby, which will have its world premiere in the international feature film competition.
The film centres on Ilhan Schickman who has left Israel for Phnom Penh, where he lives with his Cambodian girlfriend Saran and his two children. He tries to make ends meet by reading the fortunes of passersby.
Kloc films the conflict-filled private life of the couple and offers a modern-day version of the “wandering Jew” by painting the portrait of a complex man, caught between realism and innocence, whose sincere desire for love clashes with a society blighted by mass prostitution. Phnom Penh Lulluby will also be presented at Toronto’s Hot Docs Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest and Krakow Film Festival.
Among the 19 titles in the Etat d’Esprit section is Michal Marczak’s feature-length Koniec Rosji (The End of Russia), on 19-year-old Alexei, whose military service takes him to a small base in northern Russia.
Far from everything, in a hostile world and arctic conditions, he comes into contact with five other soldiers who have been based there for some time. From them he learns the discipline and routine required by his strange mission: guarding an invisible border.
Finally, the Swiss festival will also show Tomasz Wolski’s short film Slowly in international premiere. It traces life on a small family farm in a mountainous region in southern Poland, where the peaceful daily life contrasts with the chaotic fast road next to the property.
Poland will also be well represented at the Doc Outlook-International Market (DOCM) that is part of Visions du Réel. Besides the above-mentioned titles, the market will present, among others, Scrap Oddyssey by Pawel Ferdek and Lukasz Gutt, Jakub Stożek’s Out of Reach, Beats of Freedom by Wojciech Slota and Leszek Gnoiński, Marta Minorowicz’s A Piece of Summer, Let's Run Away From Her by Marcin Koszałka (prize-winner at Nyon in 2003 and 2008) and Pawel Loziński’s Inventory.
(Translated from French)
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