09/12/2016 - Piotr Stasik’s film is one of the six titles in the running for the prize for Best European Documentary, which will be awarded tomorrow in Wroclaw

Nominated for the 29^th European Film Awards, the ceremony for which will take place on 10 December in Wroclaw, Polish documentary 21 x New York [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Piotr Stasik is not just a transposition of life in New York in the modern era, but rather a dreamlike journey into the personal lives of 21 people encountered in this city, documenting their dreams, concerns and desires.

Acclaimed most notably for The Last Day of Summer (which won the Grand Prix at Camerimage in 2010 and also won awards at the Wiesbaden and Perm film festivals), Piotr Stasik made the most of a recent trip to New York to make a film that’s a sort of collage made up of the personal remarks of 21 metro passengers who reveal their memories, visions of what is possible and impossible, and their confessions.

"21 x New York, a documentary film by Piotr Stasik, is probably a story about you" states the trailer for the film. Indeed, despite its fragmented, poetic and visually hypnotic form and lacking critical, denunciatory and societal content, the documentary offers a reflection of mankind today in all its universal glory, without hiding the dark, wild and violent nature that lies dormant in each and every one of us. And although the sequences in which we hear the stream of thought of the New York metro passengers could be compared to the same scenes that unfold in Berlin in Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders, Stasik’s film is more akin to the work of Gaspar Noé.

21 x New York is a film that without a doubt confirms a very personal style which the director developed in his previous films, and which is based on a rather unique sensitivity, a stylistic consistency and the subtlety with which he uses his camera to penetrate the most intimate spheres of mankind. Also worth noting is the attention he pays to sound, which plays a crucial role in the film, which Piotr Stasik wrote and worked on the footage, sound and editing for himself.

Produced by Lava Films, 21 x New York was co-produced by TVP and supported by the Polish Film Institute.

(Translated from French)