Lewandowski shoots debut feature The Mole
After his narrative shorts (Journée de Fin d'Été, Moteur, Un Ranch au Nevada) and documentaries (Cela, A Shadowed Gaze, Hearings, Children of Solidarnosc), Rafael Lewandowski is currently shooting his debut narrative feature: The Mole (Kret).
Born in 1969 to a French mother and Polish father, Lewandowski, who graduated in Film Directing from La Fémis, has won awards at numerous festivals, including Cinéma du Réel, New Documentaries - MoMA, Traces de Vies and the Warsaw Jewish Film Festival. He has also put together around 100 interviews with former prisoners, Resistance fighters and children hidden during the war, for the Survivors of the Shoah Audiovisual History Archive Foundation (set up by Steven Spielberg).
Like his documentaries, The Mole focuses on the relationship between the individual and memory. The film tells the story of Zygmunt, a miner and member of Solidarity, who is thus involved in the opposition against the communist regime.
Accused of cooperating with the secret police as an infiltrated agent (a mole), Zygmunt has to face, after the collapse of the communist system, a lustration process before the special verification committee. Zygmunt denies any cooperation. But the committee will interrogate a former secret police agent, the one who personally recruited Zygmunt.
The cast includes two stars of Polish cinema: Borys Szyc (Snow White and Russian Red [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) and Wojciech Pszoniak, alongside Marian Dziędziel, Magdalena Czerwińska and Bartłomiej Topa. The film is lensed by DoP Piotr Rosołowski (My Flesh, My Blood).
The Mole is produced by Metro Films for €1.1m, including €338,000 from the Polish Film Institute (PISF) and backing from the Silesia regional film fund. The title is expected to be released theatrically in autumn 2010.
(Translated from French)
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