03-08-2011

Three Polish Films Head to Venice

By FNE Staff

    Three Polish accents appeared in the line-up of the 68th Venice International Film Festival.

    Bóg zemsty (Carnage) by Roman Polanski was selected to the main competition and will fight for the Golden Lion. The film will have its premiere at the Venice Film Festival. It's a story based on Yasmina Reza's Tony Award-winning comedy God of Carnage, starring John C. Reilly, Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet and Christoph Waltz. The film follows two sets of parents who meet up to talk after their children have been in a fight that day at school. The cultural conversation at some point starts to get out of control. Polish co-producer on ‘Carnage' is SPI International Polska. The director of photography is Paweł Edelman.

    In the line-up of the International Film Critic's Week which is another non-competitive section of the Venice festival appeared Znieważnona ziemia (La terre outragée/Land of Oblivion) by Michale Boganim. It's a French/German/Ukrainian/Polish co-production starring Andrzej Chyra in one of the leading roles and with Leszek Możdżer's music. The Polish co-producer on this project is Apple Film Production. As a debut Land of Oblivion also has a chance to win the Lion of the Future.The film retraces the irreversible consequences of the accident at Chernobyl nuclear power station in 1986. The organizers of the International Film Critic's Week wrote that Land of Oblivion is "the highest quality debut".

    Leszek Dawid's feature debut Mam na imię Ki (My Name is Ki) will be screened at the Venice Days - a non-competitive section for independent film productions during the 68th Venice International Film Festival. The Venice Days selectors have chosen 12 movies. One of them will get an honorable mention of the Europe Cinemas connected with a distribution support. All debut films shown during the Venice festival compete for the Luigi De Laurentiis Venice Award - Lion of the Future. The winner will get 100 000 euros.

    My Name Is Ki has already been presented at the Polish Films Festival in Gdynia where Roma Gąsiorowska got the award for the best actress in a leading role. My Name Is Ki is a film portrait of a girl who tries not to follow her mother's pattern of a single woman having a child. She wants to live a full life - fast and intense. Ki meets Miko. The difficult relation between those two helps Ki to grow up and start loving and being responsible for herself and her son. The organizers of the Venice Days have written that My Name Is Ki is "a unique portrait of woman, almost an emblem of this edition".

    All films were supported by the Polish Film Institute.