The tenth edition of the IFI Kinopolis Festival of Polish Film opens on Thur, 3rd Dec.
Programme:
Thursday 3rd December
18.30 11 Minutes
Friday
4th December
18.30 Karbala
Saturday
5th December
16.00 Chemo
18.10 Anatomy of Evil + Q&A with Krzysztof Stroiński
Sunday
6th December
12.00 Kinopolis for Children: Animated Programme
18.30 Body/Ciało
More information at
http://www.ifi.ie/kinopolis
http://kinopolis.ie/
https://www.facebook.com/KINOPOLIS.DUBLIN/
and in the press release below.
IFI Press release
The
IFI and Kinopolis celebrate the Festival’s tenth edition with one of its
strongest programmes yet, displaying the wealth of talent currently working in
Polish cinema, from elder statesman Jerzy Skolimowski to auteur Małgorzata
Szumowska to first-time director Bartosz Prokopowicz. The Festival will welcome
special guest Krzysztof Stroiński, star of thriller Anatomy
of Evil, who will take part in a Q&A.
IFI Director Ross Keane said: "We're delighted to once again collaborate with
Kinopolis, particularly with such a fine programme of new releases on its tenth
anniversary, including the latest feature from a previous IFI
guest, Jerzy Skolimowski, to open this year's Festival."
Opening this year's feast of Polish film is 11 Minutes (11 Minut), an Irish
co-production from director Jerzy Skolimowski (Essential Killing) about an ordinary day on and around Warsaw’s
Grzybowski Square where the lives of a disparate group of people overlap
over the course of 11 minutes, leading to an unexpected chain of events that
will decide many of their fates.
Mainstream Polish cinema is represented by Krzystof Lukaszewicz's Karbala. In 2004, the Polish military controlled the
South Central zone of Iraq, which included the Karbala governorate and its capital, a city
holy to Shi'a Muslims. A sudden uprising saw a small contingent of Polish and
Bulgarian soldiers hugely outnumbered by militia forces, but ordered to hold Karbala’s City Hall, seat
of the local authorities and police. This fictionalised version of the
subsequent battle, the largest in which Polish troops had taken part since the
Second World War, is an intelligent and unsentimental example of quality
mainstream Polish cinema.
In Bartosz Prokopowicz's Chemo, Benek
(Tomasz Schuchardt), suffering from depression and entertaining thoughts
of suicide, meets the vivacious Lena
(Agnieszka Żulewska), whose free-spirited embrace of life turns him around. Lena’s attitude, however, is revealed to be inspired by
her cancer, for which she has decided not to undergo treatment. This resolve is
pushed to the background when she unexpectedly falls pregnant. Drawn from the
experience of first-time director Bartosz Prokopowicz, whose own wife was
killed by the disease, Chemo is undeniably
moving in its depiction of Lena’s decline, but
it determinedly avoids the maudlin, instead celebrating the couple’s
love.
The Festival welcomes Krzysztof Stroiński to the IFI for a Q&A following
his latest feature, Anatomy of Evil, a
gripping thriller directed by Jacek Bromski in which he plays former
hitman ‘Lulek’, recently released on parole and offered one last job
by the very prosecutor responsible for his imprisonment. Realising the
limitations imposed by age, he presents himself to Staszek (Marcin Kowalczyk),
a sniper dishonourably discharged from the army, as a senior officer who may be
able to get him back in uniform. Duplicity and suspicion abound as events come
to unexpected conclusions.
The Animation
Programme is always one of the
festival’s most popular events, and this year’s begins with a trio of shorts
featuring Hip-Hip
and Hurra, the pink hippopotamus and
purple weasel who together solve mysteries aimed at imparting knowledge of
nature to children. This is followed by an episode of Mami Fatale, in which an elderly woman abandons the city for an
idyllic life in the countryside, preparing delicious meals for her pets, Psiną
(Doggie) and Prosięciem (Piglet). The final film, Jim and Screw, sees two boys whose lively imaginations lead them to
adventures in which they encounter beloved characters from well-known
fairy-tales.
Closing the festival this year is Body/Ciało by Małgorzata Szumowska (Elles, In the Name of . . . ) which won the Berlinale’s Silver Bear for
Best Director. Body is a complex,
eccentric, and thoroughly engaging rumination on how one deals with the loss of
a loved one, laced with droll black humour. Coroner Janusz (Janusz Gajos), for
whom death is quotidian, is unable to relate to the grief of his daughter Olga
(Justyna Suwała) at the loss of her mother. Olga’s decline into an eating
disorder leads them to therapist Anna (Maja Ostaszewska), who claims she has a
message for them from beyond . . .
