18-12-2008

Ladies conquers the Polish box office 2008

By Katarzyna Grynienko
    2008 has been especially successful for the national productions: for the first time in two years a local title is on top of the box office charts.
    Ladies, directed by Tomasz Konecki, not only seized the title of most successful movie this year, with over 2.4 million viewers since the premiere on February 1; it also broke the audience attendance record for a Polish comedy, replacing Juliusz Machulski's Killer. Local distributor ITI Cinema released Ladies on 160 copies, which earned PLN 45 million (€11.5 million), becoming one of the most successful Polish pictures ever. The success of this modern comedy caused discussion about the direction of Polish cinema. The movie, billed as the Polish answer to Sex in the City, was praised for its modern topic and humor, but criticized for pushy product placement and lack of realism.

    Ladies was shoot on location in the fall of 2007. "The total budget is PLN 5.35 million (€1.55 million) and the movie was produced single-handedly by Van Worden," Iwona Ogonowska-Konecka, second director and administrative producer of Ladies told FNE. The young Polish company also handles foriegn distrubution and has premiered the film in England and Ireland. The DVD release took place in June 2008 and was handeled by TiM Film Studio (www.timfilmstudio.com.pl).

    The foriegn future for the film will likely be local remakes rather than distrubution. "We are in talks with producers from Portugal and Greece. The most advanced disscussions are with Russia, which proposed we direct their versions of Ladies," Andrzej Saramonowicz, the co-scriptwriter and producer, told Wirtualna Polska.