23/11/2012 - Films on Polish World War II in the works

After signing a co-production agreement with India earlier this year, Poland is aggressively wooing the lucrative Indian market. At the ongoing Film Bazaar in Goa organised by India’s National Film Development Corporation, Polish minister for culture Bogdan Zdrojewski (photo) stressed the importance of film business between the two countries. This was followed by a series of presentations on Indo-Polish projects.

Interestingly, two films are being made on the same subject – one from a Polish perspective and the other from an Indian one. Little Poland In Kathiawar by Indian directors Anu Radha and Sumit Osmand Shaw and Jamsaheb’s Children by Polish director Magdalena Kazarkiewicz both tell the tale of 1000 Polish children and a few women from Nazi-occupied Poland and Soviet prison camps during World War II who were provided refuge in India by the Maharaja of Jamnagar Digvijaysinhji. Both films are Indo-Polish coproductions. Radha and Shaw’s film is budgeted at $130,000 and Kazarkiewicz’s at $400,000.

Other co-productions looking to complete financing at the Bazaar include Piotr Trzaskalski’s surrogate mother drama Re:Paradise and Piyush C. Panjuani’s Idgah that describes the special relationship between a grandmother and grandchild.

“What we are now trying to do is implement the co-production agreement and have more India-Polish co-productions,” Polish Film Institute’s Head of International Relations Izabela Kiszka-Hoflik told Cineuropa. “The Film Bazaar is the most important film market in India for us. We are also inviting Indian producers to Poland. I was also pitched many projects at the co-production market here and some of them are very interesting,” she added.