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At Docs to go!, we presented a project entitled "Brothers" - a new documentary directed by Wojtek and produced by myself.
It will be ready at the beginning of next year.
It is the story of two brothers who came to Poland from Kazakhstan when they were in their seventies.
They had spent their whole lives together: first when they were sent to Soviet labor camps, later in Soviet Kazakhstan, and now in Poland.
This film is about picking ourselves up, starting from scratch; having a fresh start, and reaching the finish line
because they are now 90 years old and reaching their finish line.
It's about watching how they do it; what sets them apart, and what they have in common. This is what fascinates us.
These two brothers are like two halves of a single human being. For instance, I find qualities of both men in myself.
One says that life has to end sometime and we need to accept that, while the other says: "No, the human body is designed to live at least 150 years".
On his birthday, he wouldn't let us sing "100 lat" (100 Years) - he wanted us to sing "300 Years".
The film is financed by the Polish Film Institute, Polish Television, and the Mazowsze Film Fund.
Now possibly ARTE might become a partner, within the framework of a co-production agreement with Polish Television.
We're about to finish shooting, but we're also in the editing process. But we continue to film, seeing what we're missing, this film continues to develop.
The problem with mainstream distribution of documentary films is that a documentary has to be labeled;
the target group needs to be defined, with its social and political background.
Such universal films about man don't really appeal to distributors. They are hard to label.
"Returns" has caught the interest of sales agents.
The fact that its protagonist is Agnieszka Holland, and that Jacek Petrycki, one of the film's two directors, is a friend of hers,
enables this film to be a sincere, honest, and intimate portrait.
It is also a look at one aspect in the life of Agnieszka Holland that has not been widely known until now, while being extremely significant for her work.
I think this is the factor that most appeals to the people with whom we have spoken here.
I think that the project is now advanced enough for us to start looking for an international distributor.
We try to do that with all the films we produce.
We'll also be screening our project for festival programmers.
Docs to go! gives us an opportunity to do so.
I have been working on this project for four years. My producers, Opus Film, have been attached to the project since 2011.
I was able to find them thanks to the Krakow Film Festival, where we met Ewa Puszczyńska,
we went to Łódź, we pitched the project, and thanks to this we now have Łucja, Mariusz, Ewa, and all of Opus.
Through our network, we managed to reach a person who (without naming any names) helped us a lot.
Thanks to this individual, partly thanks to our luck and partly thanks to Daria's charm and her great passion for this project,
we were able to get into Scheveningen, attend Karadžić's trial, and get archive footage from Scheveningen.
Having found that single friendly person involved, we managed to gather everything we wanted.
In fact, we had taken over this project from another producer who took the project through the development process. Plus Daria already had the support of TVN.
We managed to get financing from the Polish Film Institute.
Because we believe in this project, we also put up our own funds, which secures our whole budget.
For me, this is another cool opportunity for presenting the project to an even wider audience.
8I think that the more we have of such events, such meetings, the better it is for documentary filmmaking.
It is very cool to talk about your project not at the very beginning, when you're looking for money, but when it's almost finished.
We were here last year with this same project at Dragon Forum, and then we had a lot more doubts. That also gave us a push.
But here at Docs to go!, I feel that this is the first opportunity for us to face, on such a large scale, the opinions of foreigners
people from different cultures, different countries. We have received a lot of great feedback.
I're glad that our story has proven to be universal.
That was our goal from the start: to make a film that could be seen everywhere, and not just in Poland and surrounding countries.
We launched this project without financial support. That was my decision as the producer.
Later, I invited Anna Wydra, successful filmmaker and owner of Otter Films, to work on this project.
I'm very happy that she has joined the team and given us her support, I truly appreciate it.
Later things took a turn for the better; we received co-financing from the Polish Film Institute.
Everything turned out well, because when we started, there was only 2-3 of us working on the project.
It was almost a private affair, and now the project has grown to the size of a spectacular major production, at least on the scale of documentary filmmaking in Poland.
That gives us joy, but we're also aware of the responsibility that comes with it.
Our film is a music documentary, mostly about experimental music.
We discuss this music by showing the life and work of Eugeniusz Rudnik, one of the pioneers of electro-acoustic music in Poland and around the world.
We want to make a film where the staged part is as important as the documentary part.
We are searching for ways of showing music, which also makes us discuss our culture in the film - a culture that is very visual,
and yet has a lot left to discover in the realm of audio.
I have known for a long time that I want to make music films, but I was also fascinated by this idea, which really focuses on music.
In a way, this is also a biopic of an artist and a portait of a certain era.
It is a film about sound, about the change in perception.
It's fascinating that in our whole production structure, and likely also in distribution,
we will be able to bring together different circles those close to filmmaking, music, visual arts, and modern dance.
We went to Bangkok and for the first few days, we met with candidates for our protagonists, got to know them.
That's when I selected Tam, to get better acquainted.
We have a German co-producer, INDIFILM.
We will now be using the first part of our Polish Film Institute funding, to start the first shooting period after we finish scouting, and again in mid-September.
Like all the others, we had an opportunity to meet with sales agents and festival programmers.
That's rather early for this particular project - we have not yet begun filming,
although it's always good to get the word out that a project like this is in the works.
In fact, the project has enjoyed great interest of the festival programmers.
The general tendency these days is to make films that are set in Poland and focus on Poland.
But sometimes the subject matter that is close to our hearts (audiences and filmmakers alike) can be found abroad.
Sometimes it's actually easier to get some distance on the subject, to be able to say something about ourselves. It's like a mirror reflection on the other side of the world.
Being at an event like this, at our stage, in the middle of shooting, is especially valuable because we are able to confront our footage with people who watch a lot of films,
have definite views on them, and are able to tell us something that perhaps we're unable to notice, being immersed in the process.
That's worth a lot.
It was also super cool to see that some of the people couldn't really label this film.
It's cool because when we wrote the script, we expected this problem to arise:
we were interested in something between a live-action film and a documentary film, the way they are widely understood.
Besides, showing the footage to people who are in the business, having them as our first audience - in that sense, this is priceless.
As long as we're still shooting, there's a lot that we can change. The feedback from these people can be very helpful.
This is a pitch that isn't really a pitch. It is a very friendly, very authentic event,
in that these people have been invited here to listen to the likes of me.
Our project was one of eight films presented, as opposed to, say, 40 films.
We had eight minutes, which were somewhat flexible, as opposed to four minutes, after which the microphone is simply switched off.
This year, I presented "The Domino Effect", directed by Piotr Rosołowski and Elwira Niewiera,
and together with Marta Łachacz and Jan Matuszyński, we presented "Deep Love".
Piotr Rosołowski, with whom I had previously worked on "Rabbit a la Berlin" and other projects,
told me about Abkhazia, the separatist republic of Georgia, and in the beginning, this was supposed to be a project about the republic of sportsmen,
that is about Abkhazian residents who are actively involved in various sports.
Because of its proximity to Sochi, Abkhazia was also supposed to serve as the infrastructure resource for the upcoming Olympics.
Over time, it turned out that one of the sports that Abkhazia most loves is playing dominoes,
and that in October 2011 (we learned this in the summer), the world domino championship was to be held in Abkhazia,
as a way for the country to draw the attention of the international community to its very existence.
This year, we received financing from the Polish Film Institute, and late last year an amazing partner came on board - the Berlin-based company Zero One Film, one of the strongest German producers,
and together we applied for funding through the Kuratorium fund, which we received.
Exactly two weeks ago, we received confirmation that RBB/ARTE is also coming on board.
That immediately raises the project's rank on the international scale.
Lately I've been saying that we don't compete with each other - each of us is happy for the others successes.
There is strength in unity, and I feel that more and more people are beginning to understand that if one film succeeds, then it paves the way for other films,
creating a sort of 'domino effect'.