04/07/2018 - As his short film Sweet Home Czyzewo prepared to screen at EFP’s Future Frames at Karlovy Vary 2018, we caught up with Polish filmmaker Jakub Radej to talk about it

Well known for his documentaries such as Dust (2017) which won many plaudits on the festival circuit, Polish filmmaker Jakub Radej returns with fiction short Sweet Home Czyzewo a dark look at small town mentality and big time ambition. As the film prepares to screen at EFP’s Future Frames at Karlovy Vary 2018, Cineuropa caught up with the graduate of the Krzysztof Kieślowski Faculty of Radio and Television at the University of Silesia to talk more about the film.

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Cineuropa: How did the film come about? It does seem to come from a very personal point of view…
Jakub Radej: I originally come from a small place which I left at the age of 13 when moving to Warsaw. After some years I had the occasion to go back. This time it was to visit my grandma and I hadn’t had any contact with my local friends for years It was a special moment as I had changed a lot, my views had altered compared to the times I remembered as a kid. I had a strange feeling that the town became empty even with its busy people, my old friends and their new mates. A particular story concerning an acquaintance of mine then inspired me to write a rather fictional story.

You make both documentaries and fiction. How do you think your work as a documentary maker informs your fiction, in particular, this film?
I think that thanks to making documentaries I have a developed sense of knowing when fakery happens in a screenplays that is supposed to portray the truth. In technical terms, , we decided that the camera should not “weigh” more than operators. This comes from documentaries where the camera naturally follows and does not produce action. If you want to be realistic, the emotions are way more important than the technical quality of the footage.

There’s a sense of claustrophobia here, lots of tight shots and enclosed spaces that seems to indicate the closed-in and suffocating nature of small-town life. Was it difficult to get the sense of entrapment on screen?
It was rather magically achieved by the actors and the camera operators such as Joseph Gocman. I'm pretty sure that he felt it came across naturally and so did you.

How did you cast the leads? There’s a great sense of chemistry but there’s also a tangible estrangement between the two that makes what happens later on so believable…
The main actor Adam Bobik comes from a rather small place, however his flow and generation of ideas did not even require approval, we were just talking and improvising. Furthermore, Angelika is a girlfriend of the main actor and knowing her well while working I found out that this role fits her pretty well.

Where there other filmmakers that influenced you? I detect the likes of Loach and Leigh and others of a social realist background. I think there’s even a bit of Lynch, with the dark underbelly of small-town life.
I like what Loach is doing a lot. He was adored by Kieślowski who originally was my inspiration and hero in the past. At times there even could be echoes from Gaspar Noe or Kieslowski but there are only so many. But for this movie, I cannot suggest only one inspiration, rather an unknown outcome from a variety of combinations. From the more heavy guys I have been inspired by Wojciech Smarzowski and Aleksei Balabanov, but I also try to find my own style of storytelling.

You’ll be at Future Frames at Karlovy Vary. What are you hoping to get from the event?
I'm not really sure that one festival screening can change my life in a dramatic way however it can impact your career. I have good faith in the people who will see Sweet Home Czyżewo and I'm open to talking about new projects.

What projects will you be working on next?
My new short film Ricochets is in postproduction and it will have the premiere at the end of August. It’s about a family in communist times in Poland. It’s inspired by real events from the town of Lubin in 1982, when the militia shot and killed three people. At the same time I am developing a long documentary film-essay called Land. It’s about my country, but that one will take three years.