New directors showcased
“One of the main ideas of the festival organisers is to rejuvenate the festival. A wave of new directors has recently emerged in Polish cinema and we think that they should be allowed to present themselves to the public,” said Mirosław Bork, artistic director of the Gdynia Polish Film Festival, which opened last Monday. Indeed, 14 of the 24 titles in official competition are debut films.
Unfortunately, a film by the oldest new director, renowned actor Andrzej Seweryn, in whom critics and audiences alike placed so much hope, turned out to be a failure. Kto nigdy nie żył (lit. Who Never Lived) tells the story of a priest whose mission is to help drug addicts and who contracts AIDS himself, gives little room to the audience to develop their own opinon.
Two other debut films presented on the second day of the festival are certainly more interesting. The screening of Chaos by Xawery Żuławski, son of the director of Possession, was met with applause. Despite the profusion of content and form (several episodes, a multitude of formal interventions), the story centres on three brothers and deals with the real problems faced by thirtysomethings in modern-day Poland.
The debut feature by Marek Stacharski is more interesting still. Przebacz (lit. “Forgive Me”), Grand Prix winner at the 2006 Era Nowe Horyzonty Wrocław Film Festival, like Chaos, has a marginal setting. However, the language Stacharski uses to recount the story of Stan (Bartosz Turzyński) – a member of a group of delinquents who, after having committed a serious crime, try to redeem themselves – is much more discreet, thus making the film more expressive and convincing.
The screening of German films – including The Lives of Others [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Florian Henckel von Donners…
interview: Ulrich Muehe
film profile] by Florian Henckel von Donnersmark and Go for Zucker [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Dani Levy, open the programme of European films planned at Gdynia for the years to come – is a sign of the festival’s opening by its organisers.
(Translated from French)
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