The new picture by the director of the Academy Award-winning, black-and-white Ida was one of the most lauded competition entries at this year’s Cannes, with the award for Best Director confirming that claim. This enchanting story of fated love set in grey-tinged Poland (as well as in Berlin, Yugoslavia, and Paris) between 1949 in 1964 is both stirring and melancholy, as are the infectious tones of folk music and contemplative jazz that assume a special place in the film.
Zula and Wiktor meet in 1949. He’s a talented musician who’s putting together a folk music and dance ensemble; she’s a temperamental young woman with a flair for music who’s a perfect candidate for his troupe. Thus begins a gripping love story that rightfully won this year’s Best Director Award at Cannes. Consistent with their Oscar-winning Ida, Pawlikowski and director of photography Łukasz Żal work magic with black-and-white images that leave their mark on the viewer’s memory. Music is an equally central element of this compelling story of an impossible love – both the touchingly simple folk songs of the Polish countryside and the melancholy jazz standards played in smoke-filled Parisian flats full of debating intellectuals.
Lenka Tyrpáková
84 min / Black & white, DCP
Director Paweł Pawlikowski
/ Screenplay Paweł Pawlikowski, Janusz Głowacki
/ Dir. of Photography Łukasz Żal
/ Editor Jarosław Kamiński
/ Art Director Katarzyna Sobańska, Marcel Sławiński
/ Producer Tanya Seghatchian, Ewa Puszczyńska
/ Production Opus Film, Apocalypso Pictures, MK2 Productions
/ Cast Joanna Kulig, Tomasz Kot, Borys Szyc
/ Sales mk2 Films
/ Distributor Aerofilms
Pawel Pawlikowski (b. 1957, Warsaw). Selected filmography: From Moscow to Pietushki (1991, medium-length doc.), Dostoevsky’s Travels (1991, medium-length doc.), Serbian Epics (1992, medium-length doc.), Tripping with Zhirinovsky (1995, medium-length doc.), Last Resort (2000), My Summer of Love (2004), The Woman in the Fifth (La femme du Vème 2011), Ida (2013), Cold War (Zimna wojna, 2018)
mk2 Films
55, rue Traversière, 75012, Paris
France
Phone: +33 144 673 111
Fax: +33 143 072 963
E-mail: [email protected]
Aerofilms
Milady Horákové 383/79, 170 00, Praha 7
Czech Republic
Phone: +420 224 947 566
E-mail: [email protected]
Ivo Andrle
Distributor
Ewa Puszczynska
Producer
Tomasz Kot
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