WARSAW: After a filming break of over a year, production has resumed on the Polish war drama Mystery Of Westerplatte (Tajemnica Westerplatte), a debut film directed by Paweł Chochlew.

Mystery Of Westerplatte follows one of the most significant episodes in Polish history: the defense of the Westerplatte peninsula against the Nazi army attacks in 1939. The production of the film launched in 2009. The internationally co-produced project faced several financial problems and was the topic of a long media debate about its content and the risk of it being "anti-Polish." This delicate situation caused the producers to postpone completion of the production.

The first part of the shoot took place between September and November of 2009 in Lithuania, near Vilnius. The second part of the shoot resumed in Warsaw on 10 November 2011 and and will last till the end of December. A location shoot Will take place in March and April of 2012, probably both in Poland and Lithuania. The film is produced by the Polish company Pleograf in co-production with Lightcraft Warsaw (www.lightcraft.pl); Ag Group (www.aggroup.co.uk); Baltic Film Group (www.bfg.lt); Consus Sa (www.consus.eu); Studio Papryka (www.papryka.com.pl) and Pay-Studio (www.pay.com.pl). The budget of the film is 14 million PLN (EUR 3 million). The film received financing from the Polish Film Institute (www.pisf.pl).

For the second part of the shoot Bogusław Linda, who was playing a lead character of major Henryk Sucharski was replaced by Michał Żebrowski. The change was made due to Linda's health problems and currently Żebrowski is working on shooting the scenes replacing the ones with Linda. The cast of Polish and Lithuanian actors includes Piotr Adamczyk, Mirosław Baka,Jakub Wesołowski, Andrzej Grabowski and Lubomiras Laucevičius.


Crew:

Director - Paweł Chochlew
Cinematographer - Waldemar Szmidt, Algimantas Mikutenas
Music -  Jan A.P. Kaczmarek
Set design - Allan Starski
Costumes - Andrzej Szenjch
Producion - Pleograf
Co-production - Lightcraft Warsaw; Ag Group; Baltic Film Group; Consus Sa; Studio Papryka; Pay-Studio
Producers - Jacek Lipski, Andrzej Haliński, Robert Żołędziewski
Co-producers -  Daniel Markowicz, Wojciech Pałys, Robertas Urbonas
Co-financing - Polish Film Institute

Cast:

Michał Żebrowski
Robert Żołędziewski
Piotr Adamczyk
Mirosław Baka
Jakub Wesołowski
Bartosz Obuchowicz
Marcin Janos Krawczyk
Przemysław Cypryański
and others  

Production contact:

Pleograf
02-595 Warsaw
ul. Puławska 67 lok.14
tel. +48 22 646 21 80
fax +48 22 845 51 77
pleograf@life.pl, www.pleograf.pl