Filming of the thriller The Photographer now underway

by Dorota Hartwich

29/03/2013 - An investigation on a serial killer and a return to Poland of the 70's for Waldemar Krzystek, contender for the last Oscars with 80 Million

Waldemar Krzystek (photo), Polish contender for the last Oscars with 80 Million and noticed in the Certain Regard section in Cannes in 1990 with The Last Ferry, is currently shooting The Photographer. The cast features actors both Polish (Agata Buzek, Sonia Bohosiewicz, Tomasz Kot and Jan Frycz) and Russian (Andriej Kostash, Tatyana Arngoldts, Alena Babenko and Aleksiej Gorbunov).

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A large part of the film takes place in the 70's in the town of Legnica (as in another movie by the filmmaker, Little Moscow [+see also:
trailer
film profile], winner of the Grand Prix at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia in 2008), which is in the western part of Poland and played host to the Russian army's largest garrison in the days of the USSR. But the core of the plot is contemporary, set in Moscow, with the investigation of a serial killer.

"Without this flashback, when the main character, Kola (Andriej Kostash) was seven years old, the investigation would come to nothing. My film is thus a reflexion on the fact that, without knowing the truth about the past, we are inacapable of understanding our contemporary era," says Waldemar Krzystek.

The Photographer is also a genre movie. "The story that unfolds is a vehicle used to convey an idea, a reflexion. In Little Moscow, the subject was impossible love and it was therefore a drama. Here, it's the investigation which is central to the story and that's why I thought the thriller genre would be more appropriate."

Produced by Yes To Film, The Photographer benefits from coproductions with Odra-Film, TVP, Orka, Banana Split Polska, Canal+Cyfrowy, EBH Polska and Dreamsound, as well as backing from the Polish Film Institute and the Lower Silesia Film Center. It's worth noting that direction of photography has been entrusted to Arkadiusz Tomiak (winner of the Aigle 2013 for his work on Manhunt [+see also:
trailer
film profile]).