Recently, Polish cinema is widely recognised by foreign critics and jury members of many festivals and film reviews. To learn about it, successes of latest productions and post-productions such as „The Peasants” by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, „In the Rearview” – about Maciek Hamela’s trips to Ukraine, or animation- „Kajko and Kokosz”.
„Film&TV Kamera” returns to the last year's most interesting Polish films by meeting authors of „Valley of the Gods” by Lech Majewski, „The Girl with a Needle” – directed by Magnus von Horn, awarded with Silver Lions at last year's Polish Film Festival in Gdynia (2024) and many more. Also, this issue includes a conversation with another popular Polish filmmakers.
We look very thoroughly at selected film festivals and test equipment available from Polish distributors.
We invite you to reading!
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To be the closest to the truth
For several years now, the Polish Society of Cinematographers PSC has been implementing The Art of Vision programme. As part of the spring instalment of the series, a meeting was organised with cinematographer Łukasz Żal, PSC, the author of the cinematography for the film “The Zone of Interest”. We present a transcript of the meeting, which was hosted by Katarzyna Taras. The text was written in collaboration with Marta Chabros.
So the question; at what point did you realise that making this film, accepting such an offer, you had to forget everything you had learnt in Lodz [at the Film School - editor's note]?
Łukasz Żal: It was quite fast, actually at the beginning. Jonathan and I had our first conversation, right
after reading the script, and I already had the feeling that it couldn't be told any other way than that. Our first conversation was precisely about not having the feel of the author behind this film, that we just wanted to be witnesses. Not to judge in any way, just to be as far away and tell the story as objectively
The Art of Vision – Zone of Interest
as possible. We wanted to forget all the tricks and all the beautiful things. Forget the search for glamourisation and glorification, and concentrate on showing the characters. Because how could it be done differently? By showing them in a beautiful counter light? I knew it was a kind of duty to tell the story by forgetting about my ego.
K. T.: You once said that to make a film, in a story you read, you have to find something of your own. What did you find here?
Ł. Ż.: In this case, it's amazing to be part of a project that talks about things that are so important; that – as humans - we can be great, but we can also be
The Art of Vision
’The Art of Vision’ is a series of meetings aimed at deepening the knowledge of the cinematography division, educating students and popularising the profession by introducing the cinematographer's contribution to the final shape of a film work from the artistic and technical side. The screenings are accompanied by meetings with cinematographers, directors, actors and colleagues from related departments. During the meetings, respected filmmakers and industry specialists analyse the artistic and technological solutions used in the production process of the films discussed. Participants can take an active part in the discussion by asking questions.
Organiser: Polish Society of Cinematographers PSC
PSC Patronage: Kino Muranów Co-financed by Polish Film Institute
On the set of a movie
cruel. That as humans we are capable of doing terrible things. We are able to divide our mind into parts, one of which is able to love and hug, and the other is able to walk through the gate and do what our character does. There was no judging in this scenario, there was a dry, emotionless observation and that was the most amazing thing to me. What right have I to judge... I don't know what I would have done in that situation myself. And that was the most amazing thing for me; that there is no judging there, just a cold observation.
K. T.: You have given up fetishising/aestheticising the subject of Auschwitz and showing the ugliness of the place.
Ł. Ż.: I remember a conversation I think with the set designer who argued that we had to play with ugliness, that this is what it looked like at the time. It was nightmarish; we were in the house and we saw the walls, kept almost the colour of skin. I wouldn't have painted the house like that myself, I wouldn't have bought furniture like that, but that's how it looked. But the wall was new, recently erected and
unpatinated. And we showed it exactly like that, with great attention to detail. We didn't use any lights, flags, blends, absolutely nothing of the sort. We made one exception in the form of four sixty-watt light bulbs. We wanted to be as close to the truth as possible. We couldn't shoot in Höss's original house, so we found a house 300 metres away from that property. With attention to detail, we shot in a real basement, showed real tunnels and other locations close to the house. The priority was the truth. We accurately recreated the shape of the garden based on archive photos. It was an amazing experience to shoot so close to the camp, near Auschwitz; when we could see the watchtowers from our set. When I drove to work, I passed this camp every day. It was an incredible feeling to be in the place where it all happened.
K. T.: You said that it wasn't a film on the Cameri mage and I was a little surprised that it wasn't recognised, because you have, however, blazed a trail. Are you aware that you have already made cinema history with your courage and artistic decisions?
On the set of a movie
Ł. Ż.: I think so, although that wasn't important at all. What mattered was the feeling that what we were doing made sense.
K. T.: When Jolanta Dylewska gets a new script, she asks herself, who is the camera? And who is the camera in your film?
Ł. Ż.: Good question; it is Big Brother in a Nazi house. The objective camera in our film is definitely not the author.
K. T.: Who came up with the idea of using ten cameras?
Ł. FG: It was Jonathan's idea, who had previously made a film using multiple cameras. At first we didn't know if it would be 5, 7 or 9; then it worked out to be 10, because that's what the budget allowed us to do.
K. T.: How has this transferred into the actors' work?
Ł. Ż.: We talked to Christian and Sandra and it turned out to be an amazing experience for them because they didn't know when the cameras were on, when we were shooting. The way we worked was that we
would shoot a scene, then repeat it. A lot of shots shot from behind went into the film. The actors sometimes improvised and other times they talked a lot. The children also completely didn't know when we were shooting and that was amazing too. Instead, we had to anticipate where they would go and what they would do. In addition, there was no one from us-team on set; everyone sat in a container and some people (focuspullers) - in the basement. The house, which was our film location, functioned normally; you could cook something, take a bath, wash your hands; everything worked.
We also prepared a bit differently than usual; we had so-called preparation days. Then we tried different settings, looked for frames and most of the day was spent on that. Then we had to wire the room and when it was ready, in half an hour, sometimes an hour, sometimes two hours we would shoot the scene. The light would change, a dog would run, children would come in and everything would be recorded on 10 cameras. It was amazing to be able to shoot pictures in this way. The house was even saturated with microphones and cameras, drilled like
On the set of a movie
The Art of Vision – Zone of Interest
Swiss cheese so you could run cables through, use the Rialto.
K.T.: Explain what exactly it was about with the Rialto.
Krzysztof Włodarczyk: We shot with Sony Venice cameras, which have the possibility of detaching the front part of the camera, i.e. the sensor with the lens, to such an element called Rialto. This makes the camera tiny like a camera, maybe like an older type of SLR. So there was an idea to make these cameras as small as possible so that they couldn't be seen, so that they wouldn't get in the way of the actors, so that they could easily be erased in post-production. Quite often one camera could see the other, especially when shooting at home. We tried to hide them wherever we could, but there were also times when they had to be erased. With this solution, this part of the sensor is connected to the rest of the camera by
a cable, and the rest of the camera had to be hidden somewhere. Sometimes under the bed, sometimes somewhere else.
K. T.: Why did you decide to shoot on the Sony Venice?
Ł. Ż.: We needed the smallest camera possible, so that was the first reason. As far as I remember the Rialto is 8 cm thick and several cm high. It was the smallest camera, and the smallest lenses were also a priority. We used Leitz M 0.8, which are small and very bright. I had previously done trials of various small lenses, but John said: ‘what do you think about us looking at the Germans through German lenses?’. I presented three different possibilities, but the idea was also to make the lens as objective as possible, not to impose any kind of lookup, not to create a vintage style, something that is old, poetic in a way and somehow nice and keeps the blurs. I wanted every-
thing to be sharp and very objective, with a lot of depth of field. So the size of the camera was a priority, as well as the sensitivity, because with the Sony we shot most scenes at a base 2500 ISO. These cameras
were great for using different types of oil lamps and night shots.
K.W.: This solution also allowed a greater depth of field during daytime shooting.
"Zone of Interest"
Ł. Ż.: We tried to make everything sharp. It wasn't always possible to do that, but we often used overfocused 5.6, 8, 11. It was also interesting that the Sony offers 6K resolution and I think there was also
a bit of cropping, because we couldn't always predict what was going to happen, which direction they were going to go, especially - as I mentioned - when it came to children.
"Zone of Interest"
The Art of Vision – Zone of Interest
Question from the floor:
We talk a lot about aesthetics, about non-glorification and not giving a visual look, which begs the question, how challenging was it not to go overboard in the other direction, not to make a picture that was too documentary, Big Brother-style?
In terms of the dynamics and structure of the scenes, this way of working dictates a certain length of scenes, and the act of filming a certain kind of montage and a way of continuing the action.
Weren't you concerned that the film might be uneven and therefore more difficult to edit?
Ł. Ż.: Yes, in terms of aesthetics, I was worried at the beginning of this Big Brother because I had never done anything like this before. With focuspuller Radek Kokot and two cameras, we went to our filming location where, as I mentioned, we spent the whole day on different equipment settings. Secondly, I didn't quite know that this film was going
to look like this, because it's always a product of the whole process.
We went through the house for a month and scene by scene with script in hand, we played off particular scenes. John [the director - editor's note] was present with us, Mark the other director, sometimes Chris sometimes someone else from the crew.
Then the cameraman Stanislaw Cuske was with us and we took pictures. Then I would prepare documents; overhead projections and photographs, and that was the first fitting of where we wanted to hide the cameras. And then came the very interesting and strange process of looking for frames, and at this stage it turned out that what we had prepared often worked, but often didn't. We had quite a team and we worked in such a proce sie so that everyone could talk to everyone. We would communicate where to set up the cameras and after a few hours, when we had set them up, I would ask John what he thought about it. We would then determine what was to be improved and improve, but remember at
"Zone of Interest"
The Art of Vision – Zone of Interest
the same time we also had 10 monitors. At the later stages, communication was along the lines of: ‘camera A here, B is wrong, it goes to the right, D goes back to where it was, camera F beautifully, etc’. And finally, after a few hours, we were getting to the intended result, that it was right, that it was working. It was a very frustrating task and a painful process. We went through it every day in exactly the same way. We had the house, we had the cameras, we had the lenses, and we worked on this stuff. At first, however, I was horrified when John said: ‘It's Big Brother in a Nazi House’. I thought of the CCTV cameras from above, and yet we had to maintain some 50 aesthetic. Because of that, we were constantly concerned with geo metrics, trying to build a specific frame. We also knew that we would be able to convey much more in sound than in image. Sometimes what we don't show is more important than what we show. I also remember the first time we met; he was driving to Warsaw and showed us a bigger part of the film,
saying; ‘this is amazing’. I saw our scene, a portrait of Höss in a cloud of smoke. It was a difficult shooting day, we didn't get much done, and the director said: ‘I went to make myself a coffee and it was giving. I thought it was all bin material and suddenly it just happened'. It's just that something that looked like a disaster was used as very important and high impact material. But I think beforehand nobody knew 100 per cent what the effect would be; we did an experiment. The whole division did a tremendous amount of work, and we wouldn't have achieved the desired effect without the commitment of the whole team. Added to this was the tremendous energy emanating from John, who was always super focused and prepared. After a certain point we were operating like machines, everyone knew what they had to do, we had developed our own style of working.
Jolanta Tokarczyk, Marta Chabros
Translation: Magdalena Brodziak
"Zone of Interest"
The Girl with a Needle
Copenhagen just after the First World War. The echoes of gunfire have not yet died down, the horrors of war have not yet been forgotten, and new demons are already being born in people's minds. Poverty, unemployment, hunger. Fuelled by desires for a better life.
Photos: Gutek Film
The Girl with a Needle
In such circumstances we meet Caroline, a young factory worker. She too dreams of a better world, which she thinks will be provided by the wealthy owner of the factory. She has recently been thrown out of her flat and her husband is missing in the war. However, Cinderella's dream bursts like a soap bubble when it turns out that the girl is about to become a mother. A misalliance in that world cannot be realised, the woman loses her job and is left alone again.
Then Dagmar, the owner of an illegal adoption agency that helps mothers find new homes for the children they cannot bring up, stands in her way. This is one side of the coin. The other is monstrous and horrifying, but before the shocking truth comes to light, many women decide to entrust Dagmar with their offspring.
The film's cinematographer is Michal Dymek, PSC (IO, Dolce Fine Giornata, Sweat). The cinematographer received the Cinematography Award at the recently concluded 49th FPFF in Gdynia. Interviewed by Jolanta Tokarczyk.
You have already had the opportunity to work with the director, although on a project with a completely different visual style. Here, in a picture reminiscent of the classics of German expressionism, the bar seems to have been set quite differently... Magnus von Horn and I had previously met on the set of Sweat and now the director has invited me to work with him again. I joined this project at a fairly early stage, when the script was not yet closed and discussions were taking place with potential co-producers. Even then, and this was about two years before production, we had already talked a lot about the script text, looking at the possibilities of filming it. The text proved to be so inspiring, discussion-provoking and working on many visual levels that it was a great pleasure to search for the form.
What image did you see with your eyes when you first read the script? In what direction did you later develop the project?
We analysed the text scene by scene, thinking about how best to interpret the story cinematically and
how to translate it into images. We had different ideas for different scenes, but we knew that the story should be told in a simple way, without unnecessary ornamentation and fireworks.
And it is a claustrophobic, disturbing, dark and, as far as I know, fact-based story....
Yes, the story we are telling is based on true events. Dagmar, whose life story became the warp of the film, really lived in Denmark and ran an illegal adoption agency in Copenhagen. In reality, however, she did not give the children entrusted to her to new families for adoption, and she hid a terrible secret from their mothers.
During a conference at the 49th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, the director of The Girl with the Needle described this and previous projects [The Here After, Sweat] as ‘altogether quite similar in terms of the theme addressed, whose form, packaging, however, changes’. These similarities are ‘the search for love, but also the barrier in man that prevents him from realising this dream’. How, then, did you seek a visual form for this image?
We take the audience on a distant journey through time and tell the story of Danish history from about a century ago. However, we decided not to try to recreate it 100%, but to show our film interpretation of the events in a kind of fairy tale. There is room for both the wicked witch, who works, nomen omen, in a candy shop, and the poor girl, the filmed Cinderella, who lives in the attic of a squalid tenement house.
Michał Dymek. Photos: PSC
The Girl with a Needle
We wanted to convey the atmosphere of the place (Denmark) and the character of the time (the period of the First World War), for which the inspiration came from old, black-and-white photographs. This was translated into the locations and costumes.
What formal assumptions did you make? In particular, what was the rationale for the monochrome photographs?
Magnus and I were both convinced from the start to realise black and white images. The first impulse to think of the image in these terms was to set the action in the time around the war.
We perceive those times precisely through the prism of monochrome photographs, and we know of no other medium that would show people's lives so vividly a century ago. When deciding on the format, framing and style of photography, we were also guided by the idea of referencing the aforementioned period photographs. Artistic decisions were also derived from the theme presented and following the content of the scenes. We also looked for visual references in films, especially in those pictures that we both know and admire. These include Schindler's List or Oliver Twist in the old blackand-white version from 1948. Although they told stories about different characters, we were particularly interested in how their creators used monochrome.
Good collaboration between director and cinematographer is the key to telling any film story, but another collaboration should not be overlooked either; that between cinematographer and production designer. The production designer of this film, Jagna Dobesz, was also recognised at the Polish Film Festival in Gdynia. How did you work on the visual concept of ‘The Girl with the Needle’ from a cinematographer-scene designer perspective?
Working with black-and-white film is governed by slightly different rules than with colour images. You look for slightly different locations, different textures, and pay attention to other aspects in order to achieve a deeper, more three-dimensional image. Together with Magnus and Jagna, we tested how the world we intended to tell the story of in the film would look in colour versus black and white.
Photos: Gutek Film
After testing, we found out that different colours affect the contrast of the final monochrome image in different ways. To achieve a contrast that satisfied us, we painted the interiors created in the film studio in the appropriate colours. The walls were painted red or green, for example, because these colours reproduced well as eye-pleasing shades of grey in a black-and-white film. It was not ‘dead black’, but conveyed depth and a three-dimensional effect. As with working with the director, the starting point for working with the production designer was the script text. From there we drew information about the look of each location, and in the course of discussions about staging we arrived at how these spaces should be shown in the film. Once we had delineated the framework of the locations, we moved on to delineating the textures and textures and colours that would influence the final message of the film. We wanted to show a world that was dirty,
wet and had a strong impact on the viewer's senses. To make us feel the horror of that world.
We had our own code of filmmaking, a list of rules that we had to keep in mind during the shoot. We often used scenographic materials such as water, dirt, mud, patina. We played with different textures of materials with which we wanted to achieve the desired effect. We wanted to make sure that there were no flat surfaces in the frame, but broken, dirty, uneven surfaces.
The decision to shoot in black and white made it easier to work outdoors, as the black and white evened out the, sometimes overly diverse, shades of the facades of the buildings, positioned next to each other....
Discussions between the set design and cinematography departments also aimed to take into account the perspective of the camera work and the needs
Photos: Gutek Film
of the lighting equipment when designing the interiors in the atelier.
Did you find Danish locations in Poland?
We found most of the locations in the south of Poland, and Copenhagen from the early twentieth century was played by, among others: Bystrzyca Kłodzka, Kłodzko and Wrocław. On the other hand, we shot the factory where the heroine works in Księży Młyn in Łódź. The most important interiors, i.e. Dagmar's shop and flat, as well as Caroline's flat, were built in the Łódź studio.
All this influences the reception of the film, making the viewer anxious, fearful, not allowing them to sink calmly into the cinema seat, although these are probably subliminal, unconscious factors. For the finale, let's talk about the equipment that helped the assignment and the post-production work.
We worked with an Arri Alexa Mini LF camera, using Leitz HUGO lenses, and classically tripods, a Fischer brand trolley, different types of lamps (incandescent light, discharge light, led light). We shot for three days with Steadycam.
We did the post-production in Sweden. We tried to limit the use of computer-generated special effects and record as much material as possible directly on set. We used different kinds of backgrounds, translays, so as not to generate them later by computer.
And if we did use computer special effects, they were based on analogue solutions, such as miniatures or scanning elements of natural textures and then multiplying them in the computer. All this was done to faithfully convey the realism of the bygone world in which our characters lived.
Photos: Gutek Film
We have become tired with the images of war...
They are continuously on the move. They are driving all the time. From where? To where? The faces of the passengers change, the camera captures more and more stories. Often really dramatic.
A few-year-old girl after the rocket attack has stopped talking and only hugs her dad tightly. An elderly woman wipes away tears at the memory of the cow, Krasula, which they could not take away and which eaten just everything such as leftovers from dinner or citrus peels. A heroine from Azovstal
recalls colleagues who stayed on eternal guard duty. Someone goes to Poland, someone to Berlin, someone to Paris. Someone can finally, under these dramatic circumstances, realise their dream of travelling abroad. It's too late because they waited a long time for their passport. An eternity of wan-
Photos: “In the Rearview”
In the Rearview
dering. In bundles the most necessary items, clothes for the children. And tears wiped in secret. Will they ever come back here again?
Maciek Hamela returns again and again. He crosses checkpoints, carefully avoids impassable sections, carefully turns back because the road is mined. This Warsaw-born Pole is, as he says, part of the first generation who were not forced to learn Russian at school. Perhaps for this reason he learned on his own, on his own terms. He went to study in St Petersburg; he wanted to read Nabokov and Dostoevsky in the original. And he soon found out how far removed his ‘literary’ perception of Russia was from the reality he found there. Film and radio producer, director, screenwriter, graduate of French literature at the Sorbonne. Long-time contributor to the BBC Channel. Co-creator of the short documentary “Bless you”, awarded the Doc Alliance Award at the Cannes Festival (2021). Previously, he made a film about Majdan. When his protagonist joined the Azov battalion to defend Mariupol, he tried to find him. To absolutely no avail.
Photos: “In the Rearview”
In the Rearview
An attachment to Ukraine was brewing in his soul, so when Russia launched its invasion, he immediately got involved. He bought a van and, as a volunteer, helped transport refugees from the border. A week later, he was driving around Ukraine, offering transport not only from Kyiv or major cities, but also from remote corners of the country where there was no other way to go. He worked with international organisations and helped to evacuate pregnant women, disabled people and foreigners. In all, more than 400 people were evacuated.
This is when the idea for the next film was born. A story without commentary or analysis, but with characters who chose to escape. With the war landscape in the background. Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Chuguyev, Bakhmut. The van travels tens of thousands of kilometres, sometimes with passenger numbers beyond acceptable standards. The interior of the van serves a variety of functions: a waiting room, a hospital, a shelter and, above
all, a space for confidences and confessions shared by fellow travellers. Words interweave with the harsh landscape of a devastated Ukraine. Their temporary home is like a confessional on wheels.
All the passengers have one goal: to find a safe haven. In the van, they feel no difference in gender, age, skin colour, physical ability, background, views or faith. ‘From where’ and “to where” are the routine questions they hear as they try to get through the numerous checkpoints.
The music for the film was written by Antoni Komasa-Łazarkiewicz, known for his multiple collaborations with director Agnieszka Holland. The design of the film poster used the Signpost font designed by Marek Sigmund in 1975, and developed on the basis of guidelines on road signs. It is the only font that millions of citizens and those who have crossed the border for the first time on their way to safety pass by every day.
Photos: “In the Rearview”
The film “In the Rearview” has been awarded at many Polish and international festivals, including Millennium Docs Against Gravity. The director, Maciek Hamela, is interviewed by Jolanta Tokarczyk.
How much time did you spend in Ukraine after the Russian invasion began?
I spent a total of six months there and only briefly returned to Warsaw. More than half of the routes I did, however, did not lead to Poland, but I travelled within Ukraine. I evacuated people from tiny towns, including in Donbas or Zaporozhye, from places far away from larger centres, where they could transfer to buses or trains.
What was the evacuation like in terms of formalities?
It was the beginning of the war and hardly anyone was going there, except for a few humanitarian aid. I did not work for any organisation and was simply a volunteer, a freelancer, although I received various requests for help in transporting specific people from organisations as well. We exchanged information in chat rooms, which became an online communication space for volunteers, but most people spoke directly to me or to my Ukrainian friend Ksenia, who worked with me.
Well, that's right, some people go abroad, someone to Poland, someone to Berlin, and someone to his wife in another part of Ukraine.
This last passenger was Viktor from Soledar, not far from Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. He called one of the aid organisations, which put him in touch with me. However, he was unconvinced to go, and was more persuaded by his wife. When I went to pick him up the first time, he decided to turn back, so I drove him back. From him, however, I found out that there are a lot of families with children in the village who are hiding in the basements all the time. They have no humanitarian aid, no gas, no water, no electricity. We decided to look for them. Wiktor knocked on every door, urged people to come out of their hiding places because there was a possibility of evacuation. I confirmed that there was such a chance, that I could just get them out of there. And then, over the course of the next two weeks, these people called me saying that they were ready to leave. This was all only possible because I met Victor first. When they found out that everything was fine, that he had reached Kyiv and nothing bad had happened on the way, they also decided to leave. I took from there at least six families.
Photos: “In the Rearview”
People hiding in cellars, deprived of their livelihoods, set off. It would be a truism to ask whether they were afraid.... Did many situations put evacuation in question?
Of course, we knew that we had to avoid places that were not safe, but shelling cannot be predicted. There were difficult situations, but that's not what the film is about, and I didn't want to shock you with images of war or tell you how dangerous the work of volunteers in such regions is. There will certainly be films dealing with these issues. I wanted to tell a simple story about my passengers, people who are driving a van and do not know what will happen to them on the way. They haven't quite come to terms with the idea that they might be leaving forever, that they are leaving everything they have. Perhaps there will be
no return to this life. These are the stories of these people and I made a film about them. We have grown tired of the images of war on television, we are tired of this war and many people are not impressed by it.
The decision to make a film was secondary to the relief effort itself, or did you decide straight away that a film would be made of it?
The film was, in a way, a secondary effect of our activity. The idea came after some time, when I realised how important the stories my passengers were telling were. Because of my knowledge of the region and the language, it was easier for me to talk to them. I realised that it was possible for us to start shooting in parallel with the evacuation and hence the simple form of the film, a result of the constraints imposed
Photos: “In the Rearview”
In the Rearview
by the evacuation processes. We didn't want the film to distract us from what I had been doing since the beginning of the war and this dictated the style of storytelling.
How was the evacuation itself handled? You mentioned that people found out through Victor that this was a possibility. Were they prepared for it, or did they make decisions on the spur of the moment? These were very difficult decisions. The evacuations that took place from mid-March onwards were carefully planned, because the front did not move as it did in the first weeks of the war, when people fled as they stood. After a while, the situation stabilised, in the sense that it was clear where the Russian army was stopped and which roads were safe and which were not. People who decided to leave their homes made very careful preparations. When I evacuated Viktor, it was the end of summer, so they were already used to living under wartime conditions. Even so,
Photos: “In the Rearview”
In the Rearview
evacuation was a leap into the unknown; they feared it almost as much as the shelling they were exposed to day and night. Before they decided to leave, they carefully sorted out the things they wanted to take with them that were important to them. You can't see it in the film, but the first family has a huge colourful bag that they hold between their legs. And in it is a plasma TV, the most valuable thing they took with them. And the others took only two commercial bags and not much stuff inside. It all depended on the place and time of the evacuation.
How many such stories have you heard? As you might guess, only some made it into the film?
Some spoke more, others less, and selecting the ones that went into the film was a painstaking process. We wanted to make a film that would be accessible to a wide audience, which means it should
have a cinema format and not be two and a half hours long, although we were tempted to do so. We decided to fit in a time close to that of a regular feature film. The final running time is 84 minutes.
In a documentary, there is often a lot of emotion about what is behind the frame, what has not been recorded. It is intangible or conveyed between words. How was it in your case? Which stories made the biggest impression on the filmmakers?
One of the strongly memorable ones was the story of Evelina, a surrogate mother who was being taken out of a besieged small town near Kharkiv. As we were travelling in the car, she was talking to the French family she was supposed to go to. She was pregnant, but it turned out that her mother had also previously been a surrogate mother. This story shows the dramatic economic situation of the
Photos: “In the Rearview”
region even before the invasion started. People had a really difficult life there and this story really touched me. Ewelina is a person who has a lot of positive energy and tries to see everything in rosy colours. Stories like this catch the heart. There are also stories of people who went back to Ukraine with me, or just went there, guys who went to war, older people who went back to defend their homes or to take care of their elderly parents because they chose not to evacuate. People had to make difficult decisions, and many of these stories just didn't measure up after the final edit.
There is also the theme of the five-year-old who hugs her dad tightly. After she heard the bombing, she stopped talking.
Nearby, a rocket hit an apartment block. In Sasha's flat, all the windows and the door frame were blown out. The shock wave ravaged the flat, Sasha's son lost an eye. His wife managed to get this son and another child out of Czernichów in one of the last evacuation transports. Then all the bridges were blown up and he was left alone with his youngest daughter. The girl stopped talking. Sasha was very nervous about being inspected as he had no documents. He was afraid of the journey. The film also shows
that Sania, as that was the girl's name, makes friends with Sofia, who sits next to him. The girl doesn't mind that her friend doesn't like her; she just talks to her and starts playing with her; showing her different books and telling her stories. At a certain point, they start making sort of animal sounds together and this is a very important moment for Sania. There were many such moments during the evacuation. Unheard-of things happened, and when we left the war zone, we entered a completely different world.
There is also a girl from Africa, Sifa, who came to Ukraine to study and fell in love with the country as her homeland. What was the fate of this girl, for whom your car became an ambulance?
Sifa survived the shelling, one bullet still lodged under her ribs. The girl had a completely shattered leg, very large cut wounds, which were caused by operations she had undergone in a hospital in Kyiv. Polish medics intercepted her at the border, and after a stay in a Polish hospital, she was taken to Berlin. There she underwent more than 20 operations and a long convalescence, but she is now walking normally and even presented a film in Berlin recently. It was a very difficult journey from Kyiv to the Polish border.
Photos: “In the Rearview”
You mention operations, and I think that's very difficult in war conditions....
It varies; in some cities, towns or villages that have been heavily shelled, people are still hiding somewhere in basements, there is no water, no electricity. For the most part, however, the inhabitants organise themselves very quickly and efficiently; they arrange
batteries and power generators, so even in basements there was usually electricity somehow. The mobile phone is the most important source of information, also warning of shelling. Everyone kept a very close eye on their mobile phone, and phones deliberately appear in the film to show contact with the outside world.
Photos: “In the Rearview”
In the Rearview
Much depended on the region we happened to be in, as in some there was no network at all and even we had no reception. The google maps didn't work and you had to be prepared for that; have your routes worked out, plan your evacuation very well so you didn't get lost. The biggest problem with connections was for those who stayed in the occupied areas. There, in the cities, mobile telephony was very quickly disconnected and Russian SIM cards were introduced, which could not be used to make calls to Ukraine, because calls were blocked.
From where and to where are also questions asked when crossing checkpoints. How densely spaced are they?
Last year, until the Ukrainian army went on the counteroffensive, checkpoints were usually spaced at the entrance and exit of every major city. In Kyiv they were spaced as far apart as every 200 - 300 metres, so passing through the city involved getting through 2030 such checkpoints. Kyiv is well guarded, but this slowed down the evacuation a lot, and the closer we got to the front line, the more checkpoints were set up. We tried to avoid unnecessary checks, checking documents, calling our superiors, so as not to lose valuable time. I often spoke Polish at these checkpoints, which usually helped, and we were supposed to go without being checked. We had the necessary documentation that allowed us to move around. From the end of April 2022, we also had a special permit from the army that allowed us to move in all the frontline areas.
Kyiv was also subject to massive shelling and bombing, so there was indeed increased control there. The Russians, especially at the beginning of the war, tried to penetrate the Ukrainian capital with diversions, so the city had to be well protected. Today, within the city, most of these points no longer exist and Kyiv looks almost normal. The capital also has the best anti-aircraft protection in all of Ukraine.
The shooting conditions probably determined the choice of equipment you filmed with. What constraints were involved in making a road documentary in such difficult conditions?
We filmed with 6K cameras; and the equipment assumptions were worked out (and equipment organised) by Piotr Grawender, one of the cinematographers and
co-producer of the film. In addition to the two of us, the following also travelled with me to Ukraine: Wawrzyniec Skoczylas, Yura Dunay and Marcin Sierakowski. Piotr has a lot of technological knowledge and experience in filming in difficult conditions. We used equipment of considerable size, but it was also important to reduce the effects of shaky images that we were constantly exposed to, driving on poor quality roads and wilderness. We were aware that audiences would not be able to stand a one-and-a-half-hour film shot in a car in the cinema if the image was shaking. Sound recording was complicated; we used a total of six different types of microphones, and the development of the sound concept is also down to Peter, as we worked alone without a sound engineer. The author of the music for the film is Antoni Komasa-Lazarkiewicz. He took a great interest in our project. We met in Berlin, after which Antek did a great conceptual work, which was based on the idea of creating organic music, based on pr cessed sounds from our car. We composed it with a poem by Alina Kostenko, the most recognisable contemporary Ukrainian poet, which talks about longing for the homeland. We recorded the music in Warsaw with a choir of Ukrainian refugees and refugee women living in Poland and the Lutoslawski Quartet.
Do you have contact with the passengers you evacuated? Do you know what their current fate is? We have contact with many. Some lived in my flat or in my father's house, who made it available as a temporary shelter for Ukrainian families. Some stayed there for more than a year and we are still in contact. I also renewed many contacts before the film's premiere. Some of my former passengers are attending screenings of the film across Europe. Larysa is showing the film in France; she is touring festivals telling her story of getting out of besieged Mariupol. Sifa presented the film in Berlin; Sofijka, or ‘the girl with the card’, together with her family, was present at our Warsaw premiere at the Luna cinema. Many of them, like Larysa, who put all her savings into renovating her flat when the war broke out, have not made a life for themselves and want to return. However, they come from occupied territories and cannot do so for now.
Interviewed by: Jolanta Tokarczyk
Global Artist –Lech Majewski Casus
Lech Majewski is recognised as an innovative, intellectually stimulating, and provocative artist. He created films all over the world: in Poland, the US, Italy to name a few. He has collaborated with many great stars and actors known from outstanding films, including Charlotte Rampling, the British actress shortlisted for an Oscar for a leading role in Andrew Haigh’s „45 Years”, Josh Hartnett (known from „Pearl Harbour”), John Rhys-Davies (who starred in „Lord of the Rings”), Keir Dullea – the unforgettable David Bowman in Kubrick’s 2001: „A Space Odyssey”, and Bérénice Marlohe (known from Skyfall directed by Sam Mendes).
In 1985 Lech Majewski directed „Lot świerkowej gęsi” („The Flight of the Spruce Goose”), his „American debut”. In brief, the plot of the film is as follows. In one of the mines in Pittsburgh, a photographer and a model called Terry awaits the miners leaving the shift. He selects a young miner, Adam, for an adver-
tising photo of a white wedding outfit shot against the background of a coal heap. The main character falls in love with the girl with whom he poses for an advertising photo. The next day he finds the girl posing as a live advertisement in the shop window of the „New Paris” boutique. Majewski builds meaning
”Valley of the Gods”. Photos – Galapagos Films – Polish Distributor
Lech Majewski – Presentation
through metaphors to show the “media nature of the protagonists desires. (…) The characters’ dreams are utopian. And their pursuit of success is deceptive. The film itself – wrote Nowakowski – was also defined as a tribute paid by Majewski to American cinema ...” (J. Nowakowski, „Towards paradise. On the literary and film works of Lech Majewski”, Poznań 2012, pp. 91-93). As the director put it in a conversation with Tadeusz Sobolewski, this is a story about impossible dreams. The main protagonist of the film, a young coalminer, falls in love with a beautiful girl and takes her to Hollywood hoping for their dreams to come true. „The title of the film corresponds with the name of a famous plane – here symbolising the power of dreams” (T. Sobolewski, „Kino” 1990, no. 10, pp. 1417). In his interviews with the press, Majewski has often referred to events and situations from his childhood or adolescent years that have left him with a distinct impression and years later provided inspiration for his artistic projects, for example „The Flight of a Spruce Goose”. In his work as an artist, Majewski derives inspiration from dramatic events, such as the death of a loved one, which he himself experienced and managed to overcome, recalling that it helped him realise that we treat death with an increasing superficiality, we push it aside in the present times when entertainment is the sole value (K. Bielas, „Man competed in tramway”. Interview with Lech Majewski, „Gazeta Wyborcza” 2004, no. 26, pp. 8-10.
In 1992 Majewski made „The Gospel According to Harry” (initially entitled „Pustynny lunch”/ „Desert Lunch”) about the world of consumerism, associated primarily with America. The film is a biblical soapopera which unfolds in the desert. Karen and Wes’s marriage is crumbling apart – like a sandcastle. Karen can't even make love to her husband anymore – the sand has managed to get everywhere. Harry, a tax collector, becomes a witness to this marriage falling apart. As a civil servant, he hears Wes’s confession. However, he can’t help him. The omnipotent eye of television glitters above the desert. It is a raw allegory of America where neither the whites nor the blacks
“I am a tree that grew in Poland. This inner landscape is always carried within oneself”.
Lech Majewski
have it good. The director divided his film into parts – chapters, giving them the names of the books of the Bible, or inventing his own biblically inspired titles. While discussing „The Gospel According to Harry” it should be mentioned that the film is set in the desert that was supposed to be California, but it could have taken place anywhere else. The „Gospel According to Harry”, in which the title role was played by Viggo Mortensen, paradoxically was not filmed in the deserts of America, but in Poland, in the dunes of the Słowiński National Park. This setting also served Majewski for his feature film debut „Rycerz”/ „Knight” (1980). The symbolism of the desert is of great significance in the Bible but in „The Gospel According to Harry” it is the marital crisis that seems to play the central role. Can the desert be considered a perfect setting for a film about the crisis of not only an average American marriage, but the American family in general?
During the production of „The Gospel”... Majewski was in the USA. His observations, although subjective, „fit in” with the pessimistic diagnosis of interpersonal relations in the most developed countries in the 20th century. This is not exclusive to the USA, but undoubtedly, America turned out to be the most representative place in this context. The desert can also be a source of wisdom and enlightenment, of trial, but also of reward. It is far outside of normal
Lech Majewski – Presentation
existence. Lech Majewski, born in Poland, claims that thanks to his position as an outsider in American society, he can develop and translate into the language of film a fuller picture of contemporary America. „Like many other people, I came to this country with the conviction that it is a real paradise. I found and discovered a lot of good here, but at the same time I was struck by the extent to which people here do not feel safe”, said Majewski in interviews. „The harshness of the desert, with its furniture absurdly delimiting the boundaries of the invisible house, makes viewers perceive the characters as archetypes. Wes and Karen are two people who reflect the darkest feelings that penetrate the people of this country: despair, helplessness, anger” (T. Sobolewski, „I'm bored with Batman”. Lech Majewski is speaking, „Kino” 1992, no. 12, pp. 20-23). The author wanted to demythologize the American paradise of wealth and civilization development, which is symbolized by a TV set or a computer. Nevertheless, the film finale is hopeful, related to the conception of a new life.
In many of his films, Majewski uses motifs from the tradition of esotericism to penetrate metaphysical mysteries. In „The Gospel According to Harry”, the director highlights different aspects of the existential quest. His interests lie in existential pain, which is an integral element of the extreme and reckless attitude of his protagonists, and can be found in such films as „Wojaczek” (1999) or „Basquiat – Taniec ze śmiercią” („Basquiat” 1996, dir. Julian Schnabel), a film about a legendary American graffiti artist (1960-1988). The last movie on the list „Basquiat” (1996), which was not personally directed by Majewski takes on the subject of „cultural stereotype” and „rebellion without cause”. Director had a dream to make a film about this painter, but it was just a naive fantasy. Hollywood wants to make films for the masses not poetic biographies appreciated by the few (L. Majewski, „Official Center of the World: Painters, Stars, Cities, Pictures”, Gdańsk 1998, p. 141). The film presents Basquiat’s life from his childhood in a Haitian-Puerto
Rican family. The painter was born in New York and worked there; at the beginning as a graffiti author using the pseudonym SAMO. He was homeless at times, but slowly he made his way in the artistic world. The breakthrough was his acquaintance with Andy Warhol. Basquiat was gaining more and more recognition, had promise of future financial successes, but he fell into a drug addiction, which had catastrophic consequences for his psyche, and re-
sulted in his premature death, at the age of 27, as a result of mixing cocaine with heroin. Jacek Nowakowski noted that „In Jean-Michel Basquiat, the Polish author saw not only a talented painter and poet of American neo-expressionism of the 1980s, but also an artist with energy and courage in viewing the contemporary world” (2012, 163). Julian Schnabel, Majewski’s associate and a painter who knew Basquiat, directed the film in 1995. Thanks to this
film, we learn how Majewski perceives New York. For the Polish director, it is a city of contrasts that can be crossed in spheres related to art. A city that “pretends” to be a paradise, but becomes quite quickly a bittersweet poison. People in the art world experienced it especially intensively.
„Valley of the Gods” (2019) is Majewski’s penultimate film so far. The story is based on the Navajo Indian
”Valley of the Gods”. Photos – Galapagos Films – Polish Distributor
”Valley of the Gods”. Photos – Galapagos Films – Polish Distributor
Lech Majewski – Presentation
legend about deities locked in stones of the Valley of the Gods. The Navajo „live in really very harsh conditions and their territory is surrounded by this super civilization, the Roman Empire of today, with this epitome of technical innovation,” Majewski told „Variety”. „I don’t know whether there is another place in the world that has this kind of absolute opposite sides” (E. Meza, „Lech Majewski on „Valley of the Gods,’ Navajo Mythology, Josh Hartnett, Keir Dullea”, „Variety” 2019). The second storyline focuses on Wes Tauros (John Malkovich), the richest man on Earth. Leading an eccentric life after a personal tragedy, Tauros buys the rights to a uranium mine in the Valley of Gods, desecrating Native American holy grounds. The third story focuses on John Ecas (Josh Hartnett), Tauros’s employee who is tasked with writing his boss’s biography. Majewski contrasted his film and its fantastical themes with Hollywood’s ever-growing crop of comic book movies:
I’m always interested in ancient societies and mythologies. I’m interested in archetypes. I’m interested in what is the underlying foundation of us humans and the juxtaposition of this with what is offered today and how bastardized versions of the myths are sold via the box office, those endless reproductions of comic characters. No one wants to try anything new, everything has to be tried and proven (E. Meza, „Lech Majewski on ‘Valley of the Gods,’ Navajo Mythology, Josh Hartnett, Keir Dullea”, „Variety” 2019).
„Valley of the Gods” is a film about contrasts. Lech Majewski didn’t want to tell a story about the Navajos. He wanted a metaphorical image. He wanted to show people living in a cultural enclave surrounded by advanced civilization.
America is not a real place for Majewski. It feeds on illusions, creating new deities from pale stars. Still, they're just wooden statues, eaten up from the inside by bark beetles. The diagnosis of the cultural condition of the contemporary United States, resulting from the works of Lech Majewski turns out to be extremely pessimistic. There is an analogy between Lech Majewski’s films and Jean Baudrillard's image of the United States, emerging from „America”. Both clearly contest the idea of the „American dream”, emphasizing the pessimistic vision of American society. What’s more, to emphasize their theses, both eagerly use irony, while hyperbolising the negative aspects of the vision they create. Both also make it clear that any form of the dream must be followed by a brutal awakening that destroys its utopian image. However, the prospect of a painful collision with reality does not prevent American society from continually cultivating and reinterpreting the dream.
References:
• Baudrillard Jean. 1989. „America”. Translated by Chris Turner. London-New York: Published „Verso”.
• Bielas Katarzyna. 2004. „Man competed in tramway”. Interview with Lech Majewski. „Gazeta Wyborcza”, no. 26, 8-10.
• Majewski Lech. 1998. „Official Center of the World: Painters, Stars, Cities, Pictures”. Gdańsk: Publishing House „Word / Image of Territories”.
• Meza Ed. 2019. „Lech Majewski on ‘Valley of the Gods,’ Navajo Mythology, Josh Hartnett, Keir Dullea”. „Variety”. Accessed 6.09.2021. https://variety.com/2019/film/festivals/camerimage -lech-majewski-valley-of-the-gods-josh-hartnettkeir-dullea-1203407095/
• Nowakowski Jacek. 2012. „Towards paradise. On the literary and film works of Lech Majewski”. Poznań: AMU Scientific Publisher.
• Sobolewski Tadeusz. 1990. „Lech Majewski. The search for paradise”. „Kino”, no. 10, 14-17.
• Sobolewski Tadeusz. 1992. „I'm bored with Batman. Lech Majewski is speaking”. „Kino”, no. 12, 20-23.
Iwona Grodź
Co-productions
Financing international feature film co-productions in Poland
It goes without saying that co-productions offer numerous advantages and novel perspectives, as well as greater opportunities for the film industry in general. The international ones often significantly enrich domestic cinematography, as they tend to thrive by learning about and then implementing foreign production or distribution standards. Still, international opportunities to co-produce films may not always be around. The recent period of the Covid-19 pandemic, the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the volatile geopolitical situation, inflation or the significant increase in production costs have obviously hampered the growth of international cooperation and the development of international co-productions.
An international co-production is a joint venture between at least two entities from different countries which organise, host and share responsibility for the production of a film, jointly co-financing the production of a film. The co-producers make their co-production contributions and share the economic copyrights in the film. International co-productions infrequently originate from the requirements of the script, when the film is to be set in a particular country, or the landscapes of a particular region abroad are requisite in the film. It may just as well be that it is the film-makers from another country that decide on an overseas collaboration. An international co-production paves the way for the film’s distribution in more than just one country. It is worth remembering that an international co-production will usually be a more time-consuming and costly process than a domestic one. Linguistic or sometimes cultural differences will come into play and additional funding will have to be provided for transport, accommodation, translation of documents or legal services, to name just a few.
Importantly, however, international co-productions facilitate the film’s financing by engaging not only domestic financial sources, but also foreign ones. International co-productions, similarly to domestic productions, allow co-producers to obtain funding from a variety of sources. Yet, international collaborations engender more opportunities to do so. Funding may be obtained from investors - in the case of an international co-production, that translates into investors from more
than one country. Thus, the opportunity to seek and attract investors is broader than for domestic productions. The process of acquiring private investors is definitely less rigid and less formalised than the process of seeking public funding. It is by no means less challenging, though. Just like the public entities, private investors must be presented not only with a script but also with a detailed, well thought-out and convincing financing structure for the production budget and envisaged revenues from the exploitation of the film. Any future investor or investors obviously wants to know when the film will start to generate profits.
The so-called MGs, that is minimum guarantees, constitute another source of funding for international ventures. They are an advance from the distributor against the future proceeds from the film's exploitation in the cinema, and they are provided as early as the production stage. The amount of this advance is later recovered by the distributor and it reduces the subsequent proceeds from the exploitation of the film. This type of funding can also be obtained through a pre-sale, i.e. the advance sale of a licence for the future exploitation rights in a film, to a television or streaming platform. The proceeds from the pre-sale will also be transferred at the very early production stage and they will reduce the subsequent exploitation proceeds of the film.
Another way to obtain funds is through sponsors or product placement. Using advertising in films must, of
course, be well thought out and appropriate to the production in question, taking into account in this case also the international aspect. The content of agreements concluded with sponsors or product placement providers is of ultimate importance, as otherwise their rights or requirements may interfere with the film production process or trigger disagreements. On top of that, loans and credits are also viable ways of financing a film production process. All of the discussed avenues may increase the budget of the film as they may be sought in several countries simultaneously.
Another way to increase the budget at the production stage is to defer payments to creators (deferrals). If oneoff payments to film-makers are applied, which are made upfront, they may unnecessarily strain the budget at the production stage. In the case of deferrals, they are charged to the film budget at the production stage only partly, as the balance may be paid later, out of the exploitation proceeds. Such deferred repayment may also be set as a percentage of the exploitation proceeds. An advance amount may be paid at the production stage, and subsequent tranches may be proportional to the amount of the exploitation proceeds. Hence, these amounts will not, as a rule, be fixed in advance and will depend on the success of the film. When stipulating deferred payments in contracts with creators, it is important to provide for the correct timing of the transfer of copyrights and to determine whether the transfer of copyrights will be contingent on the payment of remuneration. It is in the best interests of creators to allow for economic copyrights to be transferred to the producer as late as the payment of the balance of the remuneration due. This solution is clearly detrimental to the producer, as it postpones the moment of acquisition of economic copyrights. Moreover, the manner in which the moment of transfer of economic copyrights is determined in the contract may additionally be con-
sequential when applying for funding from the Polish Film Institute (PISF). When applying for funds, one must submit to PISF contracts concluded with a number of parties, in particular, contracts with the director, with the screenwriter, with the author of the adaptation if the film will be an adaptation, with the cinematographer and with the production designer. PISF requires that the transfer of economic copyrights not be contingent on the payment of remuneration. Therefore, the transfer of economic copyrights in such contracts should be set forth as unconditional and independent of the payment of remuneration now or in the future.
International co-productions can apply for state funding in more than one country and the funding may be sought from international funds such as Eurimage. The Polish Film Institute (PISF) is the main institution that supports the development of film production and subsidises film production ventures in Poland. PISF supports film productions and co-productions by means of, among others, various grants and incentives. Any entity active in the area of cinematography (including an entity involved in film production), whether Polish or from another Member State of the European Union, the Swiss Confederation or a Member State of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) - a party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area - can apply to PISF for funding of a film production project. As a rule, PISF will cover up to 50% of the film’s budget. Films whose content and form are artistically ambitious and which have limited commercial value or which are directorial debuts (the so-called ‘difficult films’) and low-budget films may qualify for a much higher funding, though. The amount of co-financing can be up to 90% of the budget of such films.
Detailed rules for the award of grants by PISF are set out in the Operational Programmes, which, together with the application and selection procedure, are ap-
Co-productions
proved annually. Applications to Operational Programmes are accepted through the PISF Internet Application System. The Film Production Operational Programme is divided into priorities. In particular, funds have been provided for support of international co-productions under Priority VII - Production of minority coproductions (with minority contribution of a Polish coproducer), which is aimed specifically at supporting international cooperation. In the case of feature films intended for exploitation in cinemas or VOD services, co-financing may not exceed 70% of the production budget calculated from Polish funding and in 2023 a maximum amount of PLN 2,000,000.00 could be obtained in this respect. This year there have already been application sessions under this priority. However, the Director of the Polish Film Institute (PISF), at the wellreasoned request of the producer, may agree to accept an application for funding outside the session. In the case of feature films, the rules for the submission of applications and their consideration relating to Priority II - Feature Film Production apply.
International co-productions can, of course, also benefit from the same funding opportunities as domestic productions. For feature films, for example, funding is provided under the already mentioned Priority II - Feature Film Production. In this priority, the amounts of co-financing for feature films, including minority co-productions with the participation of a Polish director, amount to a maximum of 50% of the project budget and PLN 4,000,000.00 for auteur films and PLN 6,000,000.00 for films on historical topics. However, in the case of a difficult film, including minority co-productions with the participation of a Polish director, the funding cannot exceed 70% of the project budget and the amount of PLN 2,000,000.00 for ‘auteur films’ and PLN 3,000,000.00 for films on historical topics. This priority also provides for additional requirements for international co-productions. They concern, among others, cost estimates or information on the amounts spent on the territory of Poland. This year's sessions have already taken place. For next year 2024, the PISF envisages higher funding thresholds.
The funding amounts are lower for minority co-productions. However, under the priority for minority co-pro-
ductions, only minority co-productions compete, so this competition is lesser than for other priorities. Incentives are another form of PISF support options for feature film productions (cash rebate). They are based on slightly different principles than the PISF Operational Programmes. Under incentives, it is possible to receive reimbursement of production costs incurred in Poland in the amount of 30% of Polish eligible costs. This form of support is intended for Polish productions as well as international co-productions and services provided for foreign productions. In order to apply for support under incentives, a Polish partner or the entity registered in Poland is a must, as only a Polish entity can apply for such support. Criteria that must be met relate to the minimum duration of the film and the excess of the value of Polish eligible costs. A cultural qualification test must be performed as it determines, inter alia, the following: the use of Polish or European cultural heritage in the film, the location of the action of an audiovisual work on the territory of Poland, the realisation of the audiovisual work on the territory of Poland, the participation of Polish creators, crews and service providers in the audiovisual production or the use of Polish film infrastructure. The support under incentives lasts until the pool of funds has been exhausted.
Regional Film Funds are one more source of public funding for film productions. Their rules and the amount of support depend on the region in which the application is submitted. The prerequisite for receiving financial support from such regional funds is often that the film production is linked to the region in question, e.g. through the subject, place of filming or the film’s creators. Budgets are usually lower, but they often provide attractive support nevertheless.
International co-productions can certainly contribute a lot to the national film sectors of all cooperating countries. Foreign partners often lend a helping hand in 'closing' the budget, and such international collaborations offer more opportunities in terms of sources of funding for the film’s production. However, it should be borne in mind that funding is first and foremost about the wider artistic, cultural and cognitive opportunities that can then be offered to audiences.
Katarzyna Kosiba-Łuczak Attorney-at-law, Senior Associate
Steve McQueen with Special Award of Outstanding Director
Academy Award-winning British filmmaker Steve McQueen, to be awarded with this year’s Special Award of Outstanding Director at the 32nd EnergaCAMERIMAGE.
Photos:
EnergaCAMERIMAGE
“Steve McQueen is an artist known for his uncompromising engagement in tackling difficult social and political issues. His vivid filmmaking style explores the problems of racism, violence, addiction and inequality, constantly moving and provoking discussion, which situates him as one of the most important contemporary film creators. We couldn’t imagine a better laureate for the Special Award for Outstanding Director than Steve McQueen,” said Marek Żydowicz - Festival Director at EnergaCAMERIMAGE.
McQueen will receive his Golden Frog in November, during the 32nd edition of McQueen’s 2008 feature film debut, the critically acclaimed Hunger, starring Michael Fassbender as a starving IRA hunger-striker premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Camera D’Or. McQueen teamed up with Fassbender on his second feature, Shame in 2011. Fassbender received a Volpi Cup and the director of photography, while Sean Bobbit was honoured with the Carlo Di Palma Award for Cinematographer of the Year during the European Film Academy Awards gala. The film was also selected for the Main Competition at CAMERIMAGE Festival in 2011.
In 2013, McQueen directed Academy Award and BAFTA-winning 12 Years a Slave, based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man kidnapped and sold into slavery. The film dominated the awards season, garnering numerous prestigious awards both for Best Film and for McQueen’s directing achievements. The film won the Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and AAFCA Awards for Best Picture while McQueen received DGA, Academy, BAFTA and Golden Globe directing nods. Sean Bobbit, who once again collaborated with McQueen on the set of 12 Years a Slave, saw the film compete once more for The Golden Frog at the Main Competition of the 21st edition of CAMERIMAGE. McQueen went on to co-write and direct Widows (2018) starring Viola Davis, Cynthia Erivo, Elizabeth Debicki and Michelle Rodriguez. In 2020, McQueen’s anthology series Small Axe, comprising five original
films about resilience and triumph in London’s West Indian community from the late 1960s through the early 80s, was awarded Best Picture by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, while McQueen received the Storyteller Award for series at the 16th Annual Final Draft Awards. Small Axe was also the recipient of fifteen BAFTA Television nominations. Three of the five films in the series played at the 58th New York Film Festival with Lovers Rock opening the fest, with two of the five selected for the 2020 Cannes Film Festival.
McQueen has teamed with cinematographer Yorick Le Saux (Little Women) on his latest film, Blitz, which follows the epic journey of George (Elliott Heffernan), a 9-year-old boy whose mother Rita (Saoirse Ronan) sends him to safety in the English countryside during World War II. George, defiant and determined to return home to Rita and his grandfather (Paul Weller) in East London, embarks on an adventure, only to find himself in immense peril, while a distraught Rita searches for her missing son. Written and directed by McQueen, the film stars Academy and BAFTA Award-nominee Saoirse Ronan and newcomer Elliott Heffernan, with Harris Dickinson, Benjamin Clementine, Kathy Burke, Paul Weller, Stephen Graham, Leigh Gill, Mica Ricketts, CJ Beckford, Alex Jennings, Joshua McGuire, Hayley Squires, Erin Kellyman, and Sally Messham rounding out the cast.
McQueen is an accomplished documentarian. His feature documentary, Occupied City (2023), screened at numerous film festivals across the world, premiering at the Cannes Film Festival. His previous work in the field includes the BAFTA-awarded three-part series Uprising (2021), which McQueen both co-directed and produced. He also served as a co-producer on Three Minutes: A Lengthening (2021, dir. Bianca Stigter).
McQueen is a Turner Prize and Johannes Vermeer Prize laureate and in 2009 he represented the UK in the Venice Biennale. His work can be seen in galleries and leading museums across the world, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Schaulager in Basel, as well as Tate Modern and Tate Britain in London.
