The Polish Film Festival showcases the best the new generation has to offer
- From 13 November in Rome, featuring guest of honour Krzysztof Zanussi. Today the winner of the Silver Bear, Body hits Italian theatres
Today heralds the arrival in Italian theatres, under the distribution of Cine Club Internazionale, of Body [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Malgorzata Szumowska
interview: Malgorzata Szumowska
film profile] by Małgorzata Szumowska, the winner of the Silver Bear for Best Director at this year’s Berlinale. The story, which is brought to life by one of the most interesting actresses on the Polish film scene, is set in Warsaw, and centres on a depressed deputy public prosecutor and his daughter, who’s suffering from anorexia and looks to the paranormal for comfort. Body was released in Germany on 29 October under the distribution of Peripher Filmverleih, whilst in Poland, where it was released on 6 March by Kino Swiat, it sold 284 thousand tickets.
Polish film is without a doubt going through a good spell, and not only due to the success last year of the multi-award-winning Ida [+see also:
film review
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interview: Pawel Pawlikowski
interview: Pawel Pawlikowski
film profile] by Pawel Pawlikowski. Poland’s dynamism will once again be confirmed with the third edition of CiakPolska, the Polish film festival that will take place from 13 to 19 November at the Casa del Cinema in Rome.
CiakPolska will take place over seven days and will bring some of the writers that best represent the new generation of Polish filmmakers to Italy. The Festival will feature almost 30 productions in total, between feature films being shown in competition, documentaries, animations, short films from the Andrzej Wajda School and the classics by the great masters of Polish cinema.
The Festival’s guest of honour will be Krzysztof Zanussi, to whom a short review by Emma Neri will be dedicated. Six of his films, which, in a long European tradition, show his many ties to Italy, will be screened.
Another retrospective will be dedicated to director Michał Waszyński. For the first time, three of his films made in Italy in collaboration with the great director and screenwriter Vittorio Cottafavi will be shown.
Among the films in competition, mostly first and second films by young directors who deserve the spotlight as representatives of the new generation of Polish filmmakers have been chosen. The programme will notably feature Gods [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], the third feature film by Łukasz Palkowski and the highest-grossing film in Poland in 2014, which successfully married together arthouse and mainstream film.
Other guests of the Festival will include Grzegorz Jaroszuk, the director of Kebab & Horoscope [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], a comedy of the absurd that was awarded the prize for Best Foreign Film at the Rome Independent Film Festival last year. Katarzyna Klimkiewicz will also be presenting her debut film Flying Blind [+see also:
trailer
film profile], filmed and produced entirely in England. This edition will also mark the return of Borys Lankosz with A Grain of Truth [+see also:
trailer
interview: Borys Lankosz
film profile], a thriller which focuses on Poland’s recent history.
Krzysztof Zanussi will not be the only well-known writer in attendance at the Festival. Others include Wojciech Smarzowski with The Mighty Angel [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], and Maciej Pieprzyca with Life Feels Good [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile].
The Festival is organised by the Polish Institute of Rome in collaboration with the Polish Film Insitute, Cortoitaliacinema, the Rome Independent Film Festival, the Cineteca Nazionale – Cinema Trevi, the Casa del Cinema and Studio Filmowe TOR.
(Translated from Italian)
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