21/01/2008

After Toronto and Pusan, the Trieste Film Festival is next to screen one of the most awarded Polish titles of last year, Time to Die ( Pora umierać).

Director Dorota Kędzierzawska made it for the pleasure of once again working with Danuta Szaflarska and offering her a leading role, something that was still missing from the actress’ 60-year-career (spent mostly in the theatre, but also working alongside some of the most renowned Polish directors, including Andrzej Wajda).

The film – which originally came about 17 years ago on the set of Kędzierzawska’s first feature film, The Devils, The Devils, and won Szaflarska the Best Supporting Actress prize at the Polish Film Festival – is the latest since the director’s internationally successful I Am (Jestem). It also differs from the previous films of Kędzierzawska, who has always probed with sensitivity into stolen childhoods.

Here, the filmmaker casts her gaze upon the world of the elderly, with a portrait of Aniela, a lonely but combative woman who struggles with the gratuitous hostility of strangers and her family’s indifference. The only who seems to understand her is her dog. Speaking to him, she voices her disappointments and frustrations over a world that no longer pays any attention to her.

“I hate inner monologues,” says Kędzierzawska by way of explanation about the dog, “and it seemed like a good way to give the character a conversation partner”.

Until a young boy (Kamil Bitau, also in I Am) helps her understand that all is not lost. The large house in which she lives and dreams of restoring restore – despite the fact that her son wants to sell it to the highest bidder – may be brought back to life yet. And the “time to die” will thus become a moment of tranquility.

Not in Trieste because she is currently working in a play, Szaflarska creates a character simultaneously tender and derisive, ladylike and course. Her masterful performance –awarded at the latest Polish Film Festival, where the film also picked up Best Sound and prizes from the audience and critics alike – comes close to overshadowing the beautiful black and white cinematography of expert DoP Arthur Reinhart, who returns to Polish cinema after having worked on the international blockbuster Tristan + Isolde.

Like Kędzierzawska’s previous three films, Reinhart edited A Time to Die (though for the first time with the director) and also worked as production designer and producer on the project. His Kid Film financed the film with Tandem Taren-To, in co-production with Telewizja Polska S.A. and with support from the Polski Instytut Sztuki Filmowej Filmowej.

(Translated from Italian)