"Walk like children of light". A small Polish town profoundly influenced by Catholicism is the setting Piotr Domalewski has chosen for The Altar Boys, which follows in the wake of four young altar boys bound together by friendship. The film recently won multiple trophies in the Gdynia Festival (Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Editing and the Audience Award) and has now been presented in an international premiere in competition at the 26th Arras Film Festival.

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With subject-matter ranging from St Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians to the Mass of the Resurrection, by way of a sermon calling upon the faithful to choose purity and to make a stand as the last bastion against darkness (the latter made deeper by the war in neighbouring Ukraine), this 4th feature film by the director who won particular acclaim for Silent Night [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Dawid Ogrodnik
intervista: Piotr Domalewski
scheda film] (2017) and I Never Cry [+leggi anche:
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trailer
intervista: Piotr Domalewski
scheda film] (screened in San Sebastián’s New Directors line-up in 2020) unfolds in a highly religious context. But the angle from which Domalewski (who also wrote the screenplay) broaches his story, following in the wake of four teenage friends who are Christian rappers in their free time and who decide to take the Church’s message very literally, is far more original than would usually  be implied by this liturgical decorum (which isn’t surprising given the Polish cultural context and which opens with a regional altar boy competition of football-match proportions).

Shocked by the discovery that the archdiocese has dipped into the money their parish had collected for the poor ("blame it on inflation"), Filip (Tobiasz Wajda), Gucci (Bruno Błach-Baar) and the two Kurczak brothers (Mikołaj Juszczyk and Filip Juszczyk) decide to restore justice by pilfering from the donations in the sacristy coffers, donning masks and redistributing the money to the needy themselves. But how do you work out who’s poor? With this in mind, our four thieves instal a hidden camera in the confessional booth. It’s a risky operation with all its twists and turns, and doing good proves far from easy. Especially since the leader of the group, Filip, who has a difficult home life with his depressive mother (Kamila Urzędowska), almost starts to believe he’s God and shares increasingly radical ideas ("let’s try again, we can change the world").

A moving portrait of the naivety of "childlike" faith – an inverted reflection of the adult world, wrestling with misery, violence and brutal reality - The Altar Boys is first and foremost an accomplished film about friendship and a surprising "coming of age" tale whose feel-good narrative doesn’t skirt over humanity’s grey zones, zigzagging fairly skilfully between comedy and drama. Like a younger brother - in a whole other style - of Kirill Serebrennikov’s Disciple, Piotr Domalewski’s movie also avails itself of a masterful mise en scène approach and wonderful visuals (courtesy of Piotr Sobocinski Jr as director of photography) to deliver its hymn on the complexities of good and bad.

The Altar Boys was produced by Aurum Film.