Karlovy Vary International Film Festival

July 2 - 10, 2010

The Wedding
( Wesele )

Colour, 35 mm
Poland, 2004, 109 min
Section: East of the West - competitive
wesele.grupafilmowa.com.pl

Director: Wojtek Smarzowski
Screenplay: Wojtek Smarzowski
Dir. of Photography: Andrzej Szulkowski
Music: Ryszard Tymon Tymański
Designer: Barbara Ostapowicz
Editor: Paweł Laskowski
Producer: Anna Iwaszkiewicz, Dariusz Pietrykowski, Bartłomiej Topa
Production: Grupa Filmowa, koprodukce/coproduction: TVP SA - Film Agency
Sales: SPI International Poland
Contact: Grupa Filmowa

Cast

Marian Dziędziel, Iwona Bielska, Tamara Arciuch, Bartłomiej Topa, Maciej Stuhr, Paweł Wilczak, Arkadiusz Jakubik, Jerzy Rogalski, Elżbieta Jarosik

Synopsis

The impetus for this blackly absurd comedy of unchecked monetary obsession is the wedding of the daughter of a rich villager who is well aware of money’s power. He bribes the groom with a fancy car but the supplier demands immediate payment. While the guests revel, the father gets mixed up in a complicated transaction of dubious character: he ends up bribing a notary, the police, and even the priest in order to evade the clutches of a coldly calculating gangster. And all this, by the way, happens in the midst of unbridled merrymaking by a troupe of very thirsty wedding guests. The magnetic rhythm of the scenes and dialogue, in harmony with the music, invariably suggests the raffle in Forman’s Fireman’s Ball or analogous scenes in Wajda’s own The Wedding. Of course, in contrast to Stanislaw Wyspiański’s country folk, intoxicated by visions of the struggle for national independence, Smarzowski’s villagers are preoccupied with envy and greed.

The Cottbus Film Festival is honoured to present The Wedding, screened at Cottbus 2004, in the KV IFF section East of the West.

About the director

Wojtek Smarzowski (b. 1963, Korczyn) broadened his studies in film science at Jagiellonian University in Cracow with film school in Lodz (PWSFTViT). He has shot music videos, including one for the band Myslovitz which brought him the Fryderik Prize. He then wrote the script for Bream’s Season (Sezon na leszcza, 2001) directed by Bogusław Linda, and in 2001 he staged the TV play Kuracja (Therapy), based on the Jacek Głebski’s novel. It took Best Director at the 2002 Directors’ Festival in Katowice (Interpretations Award), Grand Prix at the 2nd National Festival of Polish Radio and Television in Sopot, and a Special Prize at the International Television Productions Festival in Plovdiv. He also did some directing for the TV series “On Wspólna Street.” The director’s TV-movie debut Seashell (Małźowina, 1998) brought him the Special Prize of the Young Jury for Best Film in the Polish film competition at the 1999 Youth and Film festival in Koszalin.