07/11/2022 - As the country’s box office continues to recover from pandemic-era losses, Daniel Jaroszek’s warm-hearted biopic of a priest is enjoying huge success

Johnny, a biopic of father Jan Kaczkowski, an unconventional, direct and very popular priest, is currently topping the Polish annual box office, after having sold 800,000 admissions. The film, directed by Daniel Jaroszek, won the Audience Award at the recent Polish Film Festival in Gdynia as well as the Best Actor gong (for Piotr Trojan). The story revolves around Kaczkowski (Dawid Ogrodnik), who is terminally ill, and an ex-con called Patryk (Trojan), who gets a second chance while working at Kaczkowski’s hospice.

All of this may sound fairly depressing; however, Jaroszek has made a very warm film without a shred of cynicism, which also doesn’t shy away from kitsch and melodrama. It seems as though biopics of famous people are what Polish audiences like the most, as a documentary about late actress Anna Przybylska (Ania) is the second local runner-up at the annual box office, with over 500,000 admissions. The first runner-up is Kogel-Mogel 4 (with over 750,000 admissions, so not that far behind Johnny), a romantic dramedy and part of a saga of flicks that originated in the 1980s. Indeed, every new instalment has performed well at the box office.

There is one Polish title this year that is expected to attract a sizeable audience: Letters to Santa 5. The first instalment, Letters to Santa, took over 2.5 million admissions, and the third, Letters to Santa 3 [+see also:
trailer
film profile], racked up more than 3 million. Since that was during the pre-coronavirus era, it’s hard to say whether the new Christmas ensemble comedy can get anywhere near these numbers, but a result of over 1 million admissions looks more than probable. The movie was released on 4 November and sold over 290,000 tickets during its opening weekend.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the looming economic crisis discouraged the Polish audience from attending cinemas. Lockdowns, the surge in streaming platforms and the rising cost of living have left their mark on attendance levels. However, the audience is slowly returning to the dark rooms: the general number of admissions is about 75% of what it was in the pre-pandemic season, and Poland is one of the markets that has enjoyed constantly growing box-office figures and a decent share of local titles, amounting to over 30%.

However, as industry players have observed, Polish films have taken a strong hit. In recent years, mainstream titles have been able to take 1 or 2 million admissions, while last year, only the erotic thriller Girls to Buy, which opened in November 2021, was able to reach these heights (see the news – as of February 2022, it had amassed 1.16 million admissions).