East of the West - Competition 2005 / Wesele / Poland 2004
The wedding of a rich villager’s daughter climaxes with exuberant drinking and a settling of debts between the father and his ‘creditors’ - the groom, who’s only after a hot car, and the gangster, who’s supplying it. In this blackly absurd comedy, runaway cupidity is demonstrated by not only the wedding guests but by the local authorities as well: the notary, the priest and the police....
The impetus for this blackly absurd comedy of unchecked monetary obsession is the wedding of the daughter of a rich villager who is well aware of money’s power. He bribes the groom with a fancy car but the supplier demands immediate payment. While the guests revel, the father gets mixed up in a complicated transaction of dubious character: he ends up bribing a notary, the police, and even the priest in order to evade the clutches of a coldly calculating gangster. And all this, by the way, happens in the midst of unbridled merrymaking by a troupe of very thirsty wedding guests. The magnetic rhythm of the scenes and dialogue, in harmony with the music, invariably suggests the raffle in Forman’s Fireman’s Ball or analogous scenes in Wajda’s own The Wedding. Of course, in contrast to Stanislaw Wyspiański’s country folk, intoxicated by visions of the struggle for national independence, Smarzowski’s villagers are preoccupied with envy and greed.
The Cottbus Film Festival is honoured to present The Wedding, screened at Cottbus 2004, in the KV IFF section East of the West.
109 min / Color, 35 mm
Director Wojtek Smarzowski
/ Screenplay Wojtek Smarzowski
/ Dir. of Photography Andrzej Szulkowski
/ Music Ryszard Tymon Tymański
/ Editor Paweł Laskowski
/ Producer Anna Iwaszkiewicz, Dariusz Pietrykowski, Bartłomiej Topa
/ Production Grupa Filmowa, koprodukce/coproduction: TVP SA - Film Agency
/ Cast Marian Dziędziel, Iwona Bielska, Tamara Arciuch, Bartłomiej Topa, Maciej Stuhr, Paweł Wilczak, Arkadiusz Jakubik, Jerzy Rogalski, Elżbieta Jarosik
/ Contact TVP SA, Grupa Filmowa, SPI International Poland
www: wesele.grupafilmowa.com.pl
Wojtek Smarzowski (b. 1963, Korczyn) broadened his studies in film science at Jagiellonian University in Cracow with film school in Lodz (PWSFTViT). He has shot music videos, including one for the band Myslovitz which brought him the Fryderik Prize. He then wrote the script for Bream’s Season (Sezon na leszcza, 2001) directed by Bogusław Linda, and in 2001 he staged the TV play Kuracja (Therapy), based on the Jacek Głebski’s novel. It took Best Director at the 2002 Directors’ Festival in Katowice (Interpretations Award), Grand Prix at the 2nd National Festival of Polish Radio and Television in Sopot, and a Special Prize at the International Television Productions Festival in Plovdiv. He also did some directing for the TV series “On Wspólna Street.” The director’s TV-movie debut Seashell (Małźowina, 1998) brought him the Special Prize of the Young Jury for Best Film in the Polish film competition at the 1999 Youth and Film festival in Koszalin.
TVP SA
J.P. Woronicza 17, 00-999, Warsaw
Poland
Phone: +48 225 478 501, +48 225 476 203
Fax: +48 225 474 248
E-mail: [email protected]
Grupa Filmowa
Wolodyjowskiego Str. 42/1, 02-724, Warsaw
Poland
Phone: +48 22 853 8668
Fax: +48 22 852 1516
E-mail: [email protected]
SPI International Poland
ul. Tyniecka 38A, 02-621, Warsaw
Poland
Phone: +48 22 854 0337, +48 22 646 2036
Fax: +48 22 848 4570
E-mail: [email protected]
Aleksandra Biernacka
Publicist
Bartlomiej Topa
Actor
Wojtek Smarzowski
Film Director
Maciej Karpinski
Film Institution Rep., Film Institution Rep.
Andrzej Serdiukow
Distributor
Pawel Wilczak
Film Crew
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