31/03/2006

It has been 40 years since Janusz Majewski told the story of a man surrounded by women in his first film, Sublocator. Today, he returns to the same theme in his newly released film, Po sezonie (lit. "After the Season"), in which the director explores the deep feelings developing between Léon, a man in his 70s (Leon Niemczyk), and 30 year-old Emilia (Magdalena Cielecka).

The beautiful Emilia, however, is not the only woman whose life is changed when former music hall star Leon shows up. Two other women live in the peaceful lakeside boarding house where they meet – boarding house owner Rita (Ewa Wiśniewska) and young waitress Dasia (Małgorzata Socha) – and both are all too aware of Leon’s presence.

The director’s screenplay came about from long conversations he had over the years with Niemczyk, whose participation in film marks the actor’s return to leading roles (we recall his excellent performance in Roman Polański’s 1962 film The Knife in the Water.

Witold Adamek is both producer and DoP on the film, which was produced by Close-Up Productions and will be distributed by Kino Świat.

However, this intimate film from Majewski has little chance of emulating the success of three other Polish titles that came out in the first quarter of 2006: the romantic comedies: Tylko mnie kochaj (lit. "But You Have To Love Me") by Ryszard Zatorski and Ja wam pokażę (lit. "You’ll See") by Denis Delic, and Francuski numer (lit. "The French Number") by Robert Wichrowski, all of which set admission records (with, respectively, €1.6m in 10 weeks, €1.1m in 7 weeks and €214,000 in 10 days).

As the Polish box office experienced a severe drop in 2005 (see news), these results have revived hope in domestic films.

(Translated from French)