When life is examined through a lens, it can look very different. Anna (Julia Kijowska) is a geneticist, working with a modified version of Crispr to improve the editing of gene sequences with a view to curing cancers and other diseases. She's as fluent as anyone in the small details that make up a human being, but, despite her partner's pleas, she's not interested in making any new ones in the near future. Passionate sex in the lab or their adjoining residence does not involve a desire to reproduce. She's happy with her life as it is - until, one day, she's snatched away from it, confined in a room in the same complex, become part of somebody else's experiment.
With a fisheye lens in one wall providing a view of her own apartment, Anna watches her partner, friends and family members as they recognise, question and finally begin to accept.
With a fisheye lens in one wall providing a view of her own apartment, Anna watches her partner, friends and family members as they recognise, question and finally begin to accept.
- 12/1/2020
- by Jennie Kermode
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
In today’s Global Bulletin young U.K. directors get a powerful new resource in Director Now from “Humans” director Lewis Arnold, Endemol Shine Poland starts shooting “The Crack,” Starzplay gets “High Fidelity” in Latin America and parts of Europe, plus Australia Media House and Leonine announce major hires.
Directors
More than 100 emerging U.K. directors have joined together to launch Directors Now, a free downloadable document in which each shares their unique backstory, musings and anecdotes about working in the industry today.
Meant as a resource for the next generation of filmmakers, the document was put together in part to counteract the negative impact the Covid-19 situation has had on new filmmakers who might otherwise have been starting their careers if circumstances were more normal.
Directors Now was created and edited by director Lewis Arnold, who also frequently teaches at the University of Gloucestershire and the National Film and Television School.
Directors
More than 100 emerging U.K. directors have joined together to launch Directors Now, a free downloadable document in which each shares their unique backstory, musings and anecdotes about working in the industry today.
Meant as a resource for the next generation of filmmakers, the document was put together in part to counteract the negative impact the Covid-19 situation has had on new filmmakers who might otherwise have been starting their careers if circumstances were more normal.
Directors Now was created and edited by director Lewis Arnold, who also frequently teaches at the University of Gloucestershire and the National Film and Television School.
- 9/1/2020
- by Jamie Lang
- Variety Film + TV
Olga Chajdas’s story of a couple seducing a surrogate is a preposterous exercise in erotic intensity
First-time Polish film-maker Olga Chajdas gives us a movie acted and shot with confidence. But no amount of confidence can disguise how deeply silly this adventure in softcore lesbian sexiness is in terms of credible drama and human motivation – a silliness that escalates into something a little crass.
Nina (Julia Kijowska) and Wojtek (Andrzej Konopka) are a thirtysomething couple, a schoolteacher and a garage owner, who are supposedly desperate for a baby. They’ve tried fertility treatment and surrogacy, and nothing works. Then they come across Magda (Eliza Rycembel), a young gay woman who works in airport security, and who is initially shown having a frisson while frisking a female passenger – because, of course, that obviously happens with gay security officials at airports.
First-time Polish film-maker Olga Chajdas gives us a movie acted and shot with confidence. But no amount of confidence can disguise how deeply silly this adventure in softcore lesbian sexiness is in terms of credible drama and human motivation – a silliness that escalates into something a little crass.
Nina (Julia Kijowska) and Wojtek (Andrzej Konopka) are a thirtysomething couple, a schoolteacher and a garage owner, who are supposedly desperate for a baby. They’ve tried fertility treatment and surrogacy, and nothing works. Then they come across Magda (Eliza Rycembel), a young gay woman who works in airport security, and who is initially shown having a frisson while frisking a female passenger – because, of course, that obviously happens with gay security officials at airports.
- 1/24/2019
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Variety has been given exclusive access to the trailer for “Via Carpatia,” the feature debut from Student Oscar medalist Klara Kochańska and her directing partner Kasper Bajon. The movie premieres Saturday in the East of the West Competition section of the Karlovy Vary Intl. Film Festival.
The film centers on a middle-class couple from Poland, Piotr and Julia, who have been planning their holiday for months. Their plans are ruined by Piotr’s mother, who wants them to travel to a refugee camp on the Macedonian-Greek border and bring Piotr’s father home.
The film stars Julia Kijowska, who appeared in Agnieszka Holland’s “In Darkness” and Tomasz Wasilewski’s “United States of Love,” and Piotr Borowski, who starred in “Quo Vadis.”
It is produced by MD4’s Agnieszka Kurzydło, whose credits include Małgośka Szumowska’s “In the Name Of,” winner of the Berlinale’s Teddy Award. International sales are...
The film centers on a middle-class couple from Poland, Piotr and Julia, who have been planning their holiday for months. Their plans are ruined by Piotr’s mother, who wants them to travel to a refugee camp on the Macedonian-Greek border and bring Piotr’s father home.
The film stars Julia Kijowska, who appeared in Agnieszka Holland’s “In Darkness” and Tomasz Wasilewski’s “United States of Love,” and Piotr Borowski, who starred in “Quo Vadis.”
It is produced by MD4’s Agnieszka Kurzydło, whose credits include Małgośka Szumowska’s “In the Name Of,” winner of the Berlinale’s Teddy Award. International sales are...
- 6/28/2018
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
Sami Blood, Borg McEnroe also scoop prizes.
At an awards ceremony held in Swedish capital Stockholm last night (Jan 22), The Nile Hilton Incident was the surprise big winner of the 2018 edition of the Guldbagge Awards, Sweden’s primary film awards ceremony.
Source: Strand Releasing / Curzon
The Nile Hilton Incident / The Square
Kristina Åberg’s crime drama, which premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, triumphed over Ruben Ostlund’s The Square, the 2017 Palme d’Or winner at Cannes.
Ostlund did take home best director from the ceremony, and his film also picked up the best cinematography prize for Fredrik Wenzel.
The Nile Hilton Incident won five prizes overall, scooping best actor for Fares Fares, best costume design for Louize Nissen, best sound design for Fredrik Jonsäter, and best set design for Roger Rosenberg.
Among the other big winners on the night was Amanda Kernell’s 2016 Venice premiere Sami Blood, which took best actress...
At an awards ceremony held in Swedish capital Stockholm last night (Jan 22), The Nile Hilton Incident was the surprise big winner of the 2018 edition of the Guldbagge Awards, Sweden’s primary film awards ceremony.
Source: Strand Releasing / Curzon
The Nile Hilton Incident / The Square
Kristina Åberg’s crime drama, which premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival, triumphed over Ruben Ostlund’s The Square, the 2017 Palme d’Or winner at Cannes.
Ostlund did take home best director from the ceremony, and his film also picked up the best cinematography prize for Fredrik Wenzel.
The Nile Hilton Incident won five prizes overall, scooping best actor for Fares Fares, best costume design for Louize Nissen, best sound design for Fredrik Jonsäter, and best set design for Roger Rosenberg.
Among the other big winners on the night was Amanda Kernell’s 2016 Venice premiere Sami Blood, which took best actress...
- 1/23/2018
- by Tom Grater
- ScreenDaily
Four women living in Poland as the Soviet empire falls are oppressed by joyless sex and yearning in Tomasz Wasilewski’s unnervingly sad and icy film
Tomasz Wasilewski brings an icy compositional control to this piercingly sad, strange and unnerving film, about a quartet of lives immersed in toxic obsession and thwarted erotic yearning. It concludes on a stab of what I can only describe as horror and despair. This film is not here to make you feel good. But it has a soap-operatic watchability. Poland in 1990 is the setting, just as the Soviet empire is collapsing. But so far from experiencing a liberation, the characters are only further oppressed by inner desperation, and the title is not entirely ironic. They are in fact “united” by very similar symptoms. There is a kind of eroticised sickness in the air, a compulsive, joyless need for sex. Agata (Julia Kijowska) has a...
Tomasz Wasilewski brings an icy compositional control to this piercingly sad, strange and unnerving film, about a quartet of lives immersed in toxic obsession and thwarted erotic yearning. It concludes on a stab of what I can only describe as horror and despair. This film is not here to make you feel good. But it has a soap-operatic watchability. Poland in 1990 is the setting, just as the Soviet empire is collapsing. But so far from experiencing a liberation, the characters are only further oppressed by inner desperation, and the title is not entirely ironic. They are in fact “united” by very similar symptoms. There is a kind of eroticised sickness in the air, a compulsive, joyless need for sex. Agata (Julia Kijowska) has a...
- 11/17/2016
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Certain Women: Wasilewski Explores Enlightenment and Despair
It was 1990, and the climate was changing. Or so begins Polish director Tomas Wasilewski’s third feature, United States of Love, which chooses to focus on four somewhat related women from the same apartment complex during significant political changes during the dissolution of the Soviet bloc. Accompanying their growing sense of freedom is a nagging element of dissatisfaction as they attempt to pursue fantasies and desires, often resulting in a disquieting mix of euphoria and despair. Arrestingly photographed in flat, sterile palettes with intermittent splotches of vibrant color, theirs is a universe just experiencing the tingle of life following deadening paralysis, with emotions like reawakened limbs still struggling to obtain an originally appointed purpose. Coldly observational, the film is sometimes curiously unsympathetic in its depiction of women experiencing glancing notions of freedom but hopelessly realized they’re still chained to incredibly limiting options.
It was 1990, and the climate was changing. Or so begins Polish director Tomas Wasilewski’s third feature, United States of Love, which chooses to focus on four somewhat related women from the same apartment complex during significant political changes during the dissolution of the Soviet bloc. Accompanying their growing sense of freedom is a nagging element of dissatisfaction as they attempt to pursue fantasies and desires, often resulting in a disquieting mix of euphoria and despair. Arrestingly photographed in flat, sterile palettes with intermittent splotches of vibrant color, theirs is a universe just experiencing the tingle of life following deadening paralysis, with emotions like reawakened limbs still struggling to obtain an originally appointed purpose. Coldly observational, the film is sometimes curiously unsympathetic in its depiction of women experiencing glancing notions of freedom but hopelessly realized they’re still chained to incredibly limiting options.
- 2/26/2016
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
It’s the dawn of a new era in ’90s Poland. The Wall is no more; ideas, news, and commodities from the West are coming in hard and fast, along with messages from family members working in West Germany, taped-over pornos on VHS. Yet those vague promises of freedom also reveal a disquieting undercurrent and the sense that, whatever the future may bring, there’s a harsh present that still needs to be reckoned with.
This is especially apparent in the isolated town that Tomasz Wasilewski picks as the setting of his austerely accomplished third feature United States of Love — removed from the city and shot grey-on-grey against miles of wintry landscapes, these apartment complexes feel like a world of their own. A world that those seeking change, consciously or otherwise, will also find capable of oppressively folding onto itself.
Perfectly summed up by the local priest (“Lord, I bring to you my narrow borders.
This is especially apparent in the isolated town that Tomasz Wasilewski picks as the setting of his austerely accomplished third feature United States of Love — removed from the city and shot grey-on-grey against miles of wintry landscapes, these apartment complexes feel like a world of their own. A world that those seeking change, consciously or otherwise, will also find capable of oppressively folding onto itself.
Perfectly summed up by the local priest (“Lord, I bring to you my narrow borders.
- 2/20/2016
- by Tommaso Tocci
- The Film Stage
As if new films from the Coens and Jeff Nichols weren’t enough, the 2016 Berlin Film Festival has further expanded their line-up, adding some of our most-anticipated films of the year. Mia Hansen-Løve, following up her incredible, sadly overlooked drama Eden, will premiere the Isabelle Huppert-led Things to Come, while Thomas Vinterberg, Lav Diaz, André Téchiné, and many more will stop by with their new features. Check out the new additions below, followed by some previously announced films, notably John Michael McDonagh‘s War on Everyone.
Competition
Cartas da guerra (Letters from War)
Portugal
By Ivo M. Ferreira (Na Escama do Dragão)
With Miguel Nunes, Margarida Vila-Nova
World premiere
Ejhdeha Vared Mishavad! (A Dragon Arrives!)
Iran
By Mani Haghighi (Modest Reception, Men at Work)
With Amir Jadidi, Homayoun Ghanizadeh, Ehsan Goudarzi, Kiana Tajammol
International premiere
Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea) – documentary
Italy / France
By Gianfranco Rosi (Sacro Gra, El Sicario...
Competition
Cartas da guerra (Letters from War)
Portugal
By Ivo M. Ferreira (Na Escama do Dragão)
With Miguel Nunes, Margarida Vila-Nova
World premiere
Ejhdeha Vared Mishavad! (A Dragon Arrives!)
Iran
By Mani Haghighi (Modest Reception, Men at Work)
With Amir Jadidi, Homayoun Ghanizadeh, Ehsan Goudarzi, Kiana Tajammol
International premiere
Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea) – documentary
Italy / France
By Gianfranco Rosi (Sacro Gra, El Sicario...
- 1/11/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
New titles from Thomas Vinterberg, Mia Hansen-Løve, Danis Tanovic, Lav Diaz and Gianfranco Rosi among line-up.Scroll down for full list
Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 11-21) has added nine titles to its Competition line-up, bringing the current total to 14 (the full Competition programme will be announced soon, according to the fest).
The new additions include The Commune, marking the first time Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt, Far From The Madding Crowd) has been in Competition at Berlin since Submarino in 2010. The film centres on a Danish commune in the 1970s and will be released in Denmark this weekend (Jan 14).
French director Mia Hansen-Løve (Eden) has been selected with her drama Things to Come, starring Isabelle Huppert as a woman embarking on a new life after her husband leaves her for another woman. The film will world premiere at Berlin.
Another world premiere will be documentary Fire at Sea, capturing life on...
Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 11-21) has added nine titles to its Competition line-up, bringing the current total to 14 (the full Competition programme will be announced soon, according to the fest).
The new additions include The Commune, marking the first time Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt, Far From The Madding Crowd) has been in Competition at Berlin since Submarino in 2010. The film centres on a Danish commune in the 1970s and will be released in Denmark this weekend (Jan 14).
French director Mia Hansen-Løve (Eden) has been selected with her drama Things to Come, starring Isabelle Huppert as a woman embarking on a new life after her husband leaves her for another woman. The film will world premiere at Berlin.
Another world premiere will be documentary Fire at Sea, capturing life on...
- 1/11/2016
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
In an impassioned and perceptive manner, Loving (Milosc) breaks down the essence of a marriage on the verge of collapse. The sharply-written script goes beyond the surface in order to expose all the ingredients crucial for the formation and further development of a full-bodied relationship. Basing its premise on the foundation that even the slightest alteration in the trajectory of a seemingly blissful marriage might have catastrophic consequences, the film gives way to a slow-burn examination of the characters' inability to cope with a sudden tragedy that strikes violently like a bolt from the blue.In a small town somewhere in Poland, a couple is expecting their first child. Maria (Julia Kijowska) and Tomek (Marcin Dorocinski) are at that point in their married life where even such common...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...
- 3/5/2014
- Screen Anarchy
Rural Russian film takes top prize at Poland’s New Horizons International Film Festival.
Russian director Alexander Fedorchenko’s Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari received the Grand Prix and a €20,000 ($27,000) cash prize at the 13th New Horizons International Film Festival (July 18-28) in Wroclaw.
The decision by the International jury, headed by Hungary’s Bela Tarr and including Polish film-maker Joanna Kos-Krauze and Berlinale Forum director Christoph Terhechte, was announced ahead of the Polish premiere of Malgorzata Szumowska’s In The Name Of on Saturday evening.
Fedorchenko’s film had its world premiere at last year’s Rome Film Festival.
Review: Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari
In June, it won three awards - best script, best cinematography and the Prize of the Russian Guild of Film Scholars and Film Critics - at the Kinotavr “Open Russian” Film Festival in Sochi.
The $2m production by Fedorchenko’s 29 February Film Company explores the myths of the Russian...
Russian director Alexander Fedorchenko’s Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari received the Grand Prix and a €20,000 ($27,000) cash prize at the 13th New Horizons International Film Festival (July 18-28) in Wroclaw.
The decision by the International jury, headed by Hungary’s Bela Tarr and including Polish film-maker Joanna Kos-Krauze and Berlinale Forum director Christoph Terhechte, was announced ahead of the Polish premiere of Malgorzata Szumowska’s In The Name Of on Saturday evening.
Fedorchenko’s film had its world premiere at last year’s Rome Film Festival.
Review: Celestial Wives of the Meadow Mari
In June, it won three awards - best script, best cinematography and the Prize of the Russian Guild of Film Scholars and Film Critics - at the Kinotavr “Open Russian” Film Festival in Sochi.
The $2m production by Fedorchenko’s 29 February Film Company explores the myths of the Russian...
- 7/29/2013
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Traffic Department
Written and directed by Wojciech Smarzowski
Poland, 2013
The titular police department of Wojtek Smarzowski’s film is made up of such corrupt individuals that any one of them could plausibly be the star of their own Bad Lieutenant. Rampant debauchery is the norm for the Warsaw officers, their vices extending beyond dabbling in simple bribery with those unlucky enough to be stopped or tracked down by them. Heavy substance abuse and fistfights are regular features of the policemen’s lives in the film’s opening hour, as are frequent forays into sex with prostitutes, often on the side of the road during shifts.
Complementing the film’s content excesses is its aesthetic, a mixture of lightning fast editing and varied use of different cameras, from traditional film to CCTV footage, video recordings and footage shot on mobile phones. Regarding the former attribute, the drive of the film’s lightning fast pacing and editing,...
Written and directed by Wojciech Smarzowski
Poland, 2013
The titular police department of Wojtek Smarzowski’s film is made up of such corrupt individuals that any one of them could plausibly be the star of their own Bad Lieutenant. Rampant debauchery is the norm for the Warsaw officers, their vices extending beyond dabbling in simple bribery with those unlucky enough to be stopped or tracked down by them. Heavy substance abuse and fistfights are regular features of the policemen’s lives in the film’s opening hour, as are frequent forays into sex with prostitutes, often on the side of the road during shifts.
Complementing the film’s content excesses is its aesthetic, a mixture of lightning fast editing and varied use of different cameras, from traditional film to CCTV footage, video recordings and footage shot on mobile phones. Regarding the former attribute, the drive of the film’s lightning fast pacing and editing,...
- 6/21/2013
- by Josh Slater-Williams
- SoundOnSight
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