06/06/2011

Polish director Jan Komasa's feature debut, Suicide Room [+see also:
trailer
interview: Jakub Gierszal - Shooting S…
interview: Jan Komasa
film profile], which was launched as a Panorama Special during this year's Berlin International Film Festival (read the news), has been licensed to US distributor Wolfe Releasing by Danish international sales agency, Level K.

Also scripted by Komasa, the film was most recently awarded the international critics' FIPRESCI prize at the Off Camera Plus festival of independant movies in Krakow. Domestically it has taken more than 790,000 admissions, close to the record for indie product.

The son of a successful business couple, Dominik has everything - he is popular, has a pretty girlfriend, and only 100 days to go before passing his final exam - he is set for a top performance and is certain to enter Poland's finest university.

However, a series of humiliating events push him into a dangerous online world with disturbing real-world implications. Starring Jakub Gierszal, Suicide Room was produced by Jerzy Kapuscinski and Wojciech Kabarowski, for Film Studio KADR.

Last month (May) the Polish Film Institute awarded €1.5 million production funding - the largest grant of the subsidy package - for Komasa's upcoming project, Miasto, which will start shooting this summer in Warsaw and Lower Silesia, after almost six years of preparations.

The more than €5.1 World War II epic about the 63-day Warsaw uprising in 1944 will be produced by Film Miasto (Akson Studio, ATM Grupa, and Polish television TVN). "Back then, in the heat of the fight, it was easy to see who was brave and who wasn't," said Komasa.

"Still fighters on both sides of the barricades were only human." The director is currently casting the 90 roles, including three lead characters, adding extras, watching tapes from the auditions at the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising, where 2,400 Poles participated.