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OSCARS 2019 Poland

Cold War is the Polish Oscars entry

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- Paweł Pawlikowski’s black-and-white period melodrama was picked “unanimously” as the country’s hopeful for the Oscar for Best Foreign-language Film

Cold War is the Polish Oscars entry
Cold War by Paweł Pawlikowski

“The decision of the jury was unanimous: the Polish Oscar candidate is Cold War [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Pawel Pawlikowski
film profile
]
,” Jan AP Kaczmarek, an Oscar-winning composer, founder and director of the Transatlantyk Film Festival, and the chairman of the Oscar committee, announced in Warsaw on Monday. “Cold War is an artistically accomplished, universal story of impossible love, inscribed in the turbulent history of 20th-century Poland. Paweł Pawlikowski's film captivates with its performances, excellent acting and unique use of Polish folk-music motifs. The movie’s previous success in the international arena will certainly help in further promotional activities,” wrote the committee in their statement.

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“You all must be shocked,” Radosław Śmigulski, general director of the Polish Film Institute, commented wryly, alluding to the fact that Pawlikowski’s film is already hugely successful, having racked up over 800,000 admissions in its native Poland and been sold to 62 territories. “We all felt that Cold War was the most accomplished of all the movies that were eligible, and we were hugely impressed with the artistic excellence of the film and the unique way in which it depicts Polish history. It is also a powerful melodrama, a musical film and a showcase for some wonderful Polish actors,” another Oscar committee member, critic Michał Oleszczyk, told Cineuropa exclusively.

The Oscar committee consisted of directors Maria Sadowska (The Art of Loving [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
), Anna Ferens and Dorota Kobiela (Loving Vincent [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dorota Kobiela
film profile
]
); producer Anna Wydra (The Mute [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
); critics Barbara Hollender, Michał Oleszczyk and Mateusz Werner; writer Ernest Bryll; Urszula Śniegowska, artistic director of the American Film Festival in Wroclaw; Stefan Laudyn, director of the Warsaw Film Festival; Małgorzata Szczepkowska-Kalemba, head of Film Production and Project Development at the Polish Film Institute; and Radosław Śmigulski.

Pawlikowski previously won an Academy Award for Best Foreign-language Film in 2015 for Ida [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Pawel Pawlikowski
interview: Pawel Pawlikowski
film profile
]
; the picture was also nominated in the Best Cinematography category (for DoPs Ryszard Lenczewski and Łukasz Żal). Likewise, the Polish film industry has high hopes that Cold War will also be in with a chance of bagging more than one Oscar, as Joanna Kulig’s name regularly turns up on many lists of Best Actress candidates, and actor Tomasz Kot has also been turning a lot of heads recently.

The most recent Polish Oscar entries were Spoor [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Agnieszka Holland
interview: Zofia Wichlacz
film profile
]
, Afterimage [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Zofia Wichlacz
film profile
]
, 11 Minutes
 [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Jerzy Skolimowski
film profile
]
, Ida and Walesa: Man of Hope [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
.

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