83 Zlota Street

Colour, 35 mm
Poland, 2004, 117 min
Section: Documentary Competition

Synopsis

A hotel is scheduled to replace a pre-war apartment block in the middle of Warsaw, and the tenants of the shabby inner wing gradually move to other apartments. Mrs. Krysia embraces the tiled stove that has warmed her here for forty years. It is summer. Children still play in the dirty courtyard, women lean out of windows, but the building is rapidly being depopulated. The number of blocked up windows is increasing, as is the number of blocked up doors along the corridors. Mr. Mirek brags of his superior birth but no longer bothers to maintain his neglected den. He possesses the key to the toilet and is therefore sought out by the remaining neighbours. He films them as a souvenir to take with him. The veteran criminal Henryk talks into camera about his colourful past. Ella is fond of Henryk but the personable widow soon moves as well[cut:, with the help of the carefree married couple Krzysiek and Iwonka]. A beautiful apartment with a stucco ceiling is inhabited by the elderly “Baroness.”
The lonely well-groomed woman lives in a world of music. The first snow has fallen and Mr. Mirek’s furniture is carried out...

About the director

Ewa Borzecka (b. 1960, Warsaw) graduated from Warsaw University where she studied journalism and political science. Following this she worked at TVP in Warsaw, and cooperated with the BBC and the Japanese HBC. She has won a number of important domestic and foreign awards for her documentary work. These includes: I Was Born As an Angel (1986), Sheriff Story (1987), Onna - Means Woman (1990), Women, Cats, Children (1996), Thirteen (1997), Arizona (1998), They (2000) and Women’s and Men’s Affairs (2001).