East of the West - Competition 2015 / Między nami dobrze jest / Poland 2014
The Mother, the Daughter, the Grandmother, and other archetypal characters gradually come together in a room where they talk incessantly. Their monologues rarely cross over into dialogue but taken together they create an absurdly humorous and satirical look at contemporary Poland, which in their opinion isn’t (and perhaps never was) a nice place to live. The movie is an adaptation of Dorota Masłowska’s successful theater play.
The Mother, the Daughter, the Grandmother, the Neighbor, and many other nameless characters gradually come together in a room that initially looks as if it came out of a child’s drawing and only gradually, fluidly changes from a post-communist era apartment into a TV studio. Their humorously absurd-sounding monologues, delivered in lofty language at an incredible clip, rarely connect into dialogue. Taken together, however, they create a picture of Poland as a society that still hasn't been able to recover from the loss of their former oppression, and is schizophrenically torn between feelings of national pride and shame. Leaflets offering discounts, television, beauty in its most commercial form; all of these artifacts become integral props in the film adaptation of the popular eponymous theater piece by Polish playwright Dorota Masłowska. Such is the backdrop for encounters between the nouveaux riches and a middle class living on the edge of poverty, and for three different generations, each with its own unique social trauma.
Anna Kořínek
70 min / Color, DCP
International premiere
Director Grzegorz Jarzyna
/ Screenplay Grzegorz Jarzyna podle stejnojmenné divadelní hry / based on a play of the same name by Dorota Masłowska
/ Dir. of Photography Radosław Ładczuk
/ Music Piotr Domiński
/ Editor Rafał Listopad
/ Art Director Magdalena Maciejewska
/ Producer Wojciech Gorczyca, Grzegorz Jarzyna
/ Production TR Warszawa
/ Coproduction National Audiovisual Institute - NInA, Fundacja Generacja TR Warszawa
/ Cast Aleksandra Popławska, Danuta Szaflarska, Magdalena Kuta, Maria Maj, Adam Woronowicz, Rafał Maćkowiak
/ Sales Teamwork Production
Grzegorz Jarzyna (b. 1968, Chorzów, Poland) is a director of films as well as opera and theater productions. Since 1998 he has been the Artistic Director of TR Warszawa, one of the most progressive theater companies in Poland. He gained acclaim for his unusual and bold productions of classic drama, theatrical adaptations of famous European and American literary works, and provocative plays partaking of both theater and film: The Celebration (Uroczystość, 2001), T.E.O.R.E.M.A.T. (2009), Nosferatu (2011), and The Second Woman (Druga kobieta, 2014); and all, directly or indirectly, pay tribute to the world of cinema. Although No Matter How Hard We Tried is Jarzyna’s film debut, he has already completed a number of TV projects: The Story (Historia, 1998), The Tropical Craze (Bzik tropikalny, 1999), and 2007: Macbeth (2006). He is currently working on a new feature with the working title Owl, the Baker’s Daughter.
Teamwork Production
Poland
Phone: +48 507 980 983
E-mail: [email protected]
Grzegorz Jarzyna
Michał Goździk
Producer
Radosław Ładczuk
Director of Photography
Antonina Gugała
Film Crew
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