A shy vampire has one night to persuade a suicidal vampire whom she created — and accidentally condemned to eternal life — to accept immortality. She’s helped by a young mortal with an enduring love for life. That’s the crux of Life For Beginners, the feature debut by Poland’s Paweł Podolski (who made a splash in 2020 with the short Do Monsters Eat Kiwi?, which triumphed in Austin and Portland). The movie was unveiled in the Gdynia Film Festival last October (just ahead of its domestic theatrical release via Aurora Films), and French company Reel Suspects - headed up by Matteo Lovadina - has just snapped up international sales rights for the work.

Penned by the director together with Lynn Kucharczyk, the screenplay centres on an introverted but highly functional 26-year-old vampire called Monia. Her job in a care home allows her to feed on blood samples and limits her interactions to chats with elderly people with dementia. It’s a comfortable life for her - a little lonely, but very stable. Monia could probably have kept this up for years, were it not for a 23-year-old Czarek - who doesn’t have much time left to live - coming into her life. He’s is the only one to notice Monia, who doesn’t feel like herself around him and would probably blush at the sight of him if she could. He’s also the first to discover the young woman’s secret. Meanwhile, some strange events begin to unfold. Bite marks are found on the bodies of deceased patients… Another vampire is prowling the home: 35-year-old Mirek, a suicidal man turned vampire by Monia. Mirek hated his life when it was finite and he hates it even more now that it’s eternal. He asks Monia to kill him. But killing a vampire isn’t that easy. Stakes and crosses are useless, and only the one who created a vampire can kill them. Mirek gives Monia an ultimatum: either she kills him, or he will kill all the residents in the care home…

The cast includes Magdalena Maścianica, Michał Sikorski, Bartłomiej Kotschedoff, Małgorzata Rożniatowska and Wojciech Machnicki. The film’s cinematography is by Ernest Wilczyński while the music was composed by Hubert Walkowski.

Life For Beginners was produced by Anna Wereda and Alicja Gancarz for Autograf Karol Wożbiński as part of the Polish Film Institute’s micro-budget programme. The latter is also supporting the filmmaker’s next feature, a dramedy currently in development entitled A Bit of Meaning.