28/08/2006

Filming kicks off today on Lekcje pana Kuki (lit. “Mr Kuka’s Recommendations”), the new film by Dariusz Gajewski, whose previous title Warsaw garnered the Best Director award at the 2003 Gdynia Polish Film Festival.
The cast is headed by Łukasz Garlicki (Warsaw) and Andrzej Grabowski and other actors include Anna Przybylska, Mirosław Zbrojewicz, Tomasz Karolak, Branko Samarovski (The Time of the Wolf by Michel Haneke), Nadia Cameron Blakey and German actor August Diehl ( Distant Lights , A Birch Tree Meadow).

The film is an adaptation of Radek Knapp’s bestseller (Herrn Kukas Empfehlungen/Mr Kuka’s Recommendations), which brilliantly unmasks the myth of the western "El Dorado" held by the average eastern European. Knapp’s book tells the story of Waldemar (Garlicki), a young Pole who decides to goes on holiday to western Europe in order to find a temporary job. On the advice of his neighbour Mr Kuka, he heads for Vienna.

"It’s a journey into the unknown. The story of a young man at an important and intense time of beginnings and being open to the new," the film’s producer Piotr Dzięcioł of Opus Film told Cineuropa.

The €2m film is a co-production between Poland and Austria (Prisma Film) and is being produced with financing from Eurimages (€250,000) and the Polish Film Institute (PISF) (€600,000). Filming will bring DoP Wojtek Szepel and his camera to Łódź (16 days) and Vienna (22 days). The first print of the film is due for delivery in March 2007.

"With Knapp’s book a bestseller in German-speaking countries, the Austrian producer is hoping for the same commercial success with the film," explains Dzięcioł. "Negotiations with German, Swiss, Austrian and Polish distributors are already underway but no contracts have been signed as yet," he added.

(Translated from French)