15-05-2013

ScripTeast 2013 at Cannes I Miss You

    Polish scriptwriter Małgorzata Piłacińska competes for the Krzysztof Kieslowski ScripTeast Award during the 2013 Cannes IFF with I Miss You, the story of an Israeli man who travels to Warsaw to evict tenants in a rental building, but falls in love with a German activist who protests the action.

     

    Synopsis:

    Avi (30) is a smart and uncompromising Israeli negotiator. He fears that he doesn't earn enough to get married his girlfriend Nili. For twenty thousand dollars he agrees to persuade the residents to move out from the tenement house, that an Israeli developer - Bauman has bought in Warsaw.

    Melanie (25) is German anarchist. She lives in a neighbouring squat with her Polish boyfriend - Szymon. Their main activity is protesting against gentrification.

    A lonely mother, a retired woman of "loose morals", a kind-hearted tailor and anti-Semite are just some of the Poles, who Avi tries to throw out of their homes. On the other hand Melanie, by creating a garden on the tenement's roof, succeeds to unite them in their fight against Avi.

    Warsaw, its complicated history, stereotypes and prejudgments are the background for the love affair flourishing unexpectedly between Avi and Melanie. However, it is stopped, when Nili, Avi's girlfriend comes to visit him in Warsaw and presses him to finalize the Bauman's contract.

    Eventually, when Avi manages to persuade the tenants to move out, he discovers, that Bauman bought the building under false claims. Avi is the only one, who knows, that its true heir is the anti-Semite, unaware of his Jewish origin. Now Avi starts his own battle for the tenement house to regain Melanie's love.

    Commentary about the script and programme:

    What inspired me to write this script happened few years ago. I was in New Zeeland and on a mountain I met a boy and a girl. They wondered where I’m from. I said, I’m from Poland. He was from Israel, she from Germany. For a moment we all stood there saying nothing. Half a century after the war, on the other side of the world we got caught up by the demons of history. For a moment he did not know what to talk about.

    In this story Avi, Israeli, and Melani, German, meet in Warsaw and fall in love. Though they come from different milieus, they stumble over walls of former ghetto almost every day, they manage to create a history of their own, with a small “h”. This History with capital “H”, just like politics, splits people apart.

    "I Miss You" is a film about love, searching for your own identity and about „freedom is something, that grows right there, where is shouldn’t”

    ScripTeast and its outstanding teachers, talks with other participants helped me make my initial idea clear, expressive and dramatic shape. My draft characters become ‘full-sized’ characters.

    At the beginning Dariusz Jabłoński made sure, ScripTeast is extraordinary: it’s not just workshop, it’s a spiritual journey. He did not lie. I am still impressed, where I am now.

    BIO: Małgorzata Piłacińska

    Her script REJS DO RZESZOWA was awarded the first prize for the best short film script in the competition organized by BAHAMA FILMS in 2010.

    Graduated from the University of Warsaw with the master's degree in Journalism.

    From 1997 to 2002 she worked for PANI magazine. She was the author of numerous interviews and reportages. Being a keen traveler, she wrote, for example, texts about Bolivian women's lifestyle and Buddhist Thangka school in Nepal. She also had her own series of interviews (ex. with Stanisław Lem) popularizing science and futurology.

    From 2003 to 2004 she worked as a freelancer for some magazines and newspapers (PRZEKRÓJ, ZWIERCIADŁO, FOCUS).

    In 2005 she suspended her journalism activity to set up her own business - one of the first hostels in Warsaw.

    In 2010 she returned to writing as a scriptwriter.

    Information Courtesy of ScripTeast

    contact:

    Violetta Kaminska 
    Independent Film Foundation
    + 48 501 299 276
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