Stranger

Colour, 35 mm
Poland, Germany, 2004, 95 min
Section: East of the West - competitive
Oficiální stránky: www.bavaria-film-international.de

Synopsis

Born into an intellectual Cracow family, 22-year-old Ewa fails to get into university and works cleaning up at a gas station. Adding to her gloomy situation is her father’s gradual memory loss, a man respected as a classical music expert. Ewa gets pregnant through a casual sexual encounter, and when the money she needs for an abortion is stolen she decides to have the baby. Soon she overcomes the gnawing feeling of life’s fleetingness and latches on to the notion that the foetus within her can hear and perceive everything. She then tries to introduce ‘him’ to his future world. Her responsibility to this ‘stranger’ forces Ewa into a deeper contemplation of the meaning of her own existence and of the lives of others.... The filmmaker’s original orientation towards documentaries is reflected in the depiction of the social environment — Ewa’s unanchored ethical micro world in which she seeks the impetus for self-identification. Casting a professional model in the lead is in line with the film’s style.

About the director

Małgosia Szumowska (b. 1973, Cracow) graduated in art history in Cracow and in direction from the Lodz Film School. Even as a student her films attracted attention — the documentary A Day in the Life of Tomek Karat (Jeden dzień z źycia Tomka Karata, 1997) and the documentary etude The Silence (Tisza, 1997), shown on TV ARTE, Canal+, WDR and Swedish and Finnish TV, and awarded at various IFFs. Other films followed: Seven Lessons of Love (Siedem lekcji milości, 1997), A Wedding in the House of Loneliness (Ślub v domu samotności, 2000), and her feature debut A Happy Man (Szcęśliwy człowiek, 2000), awarded at the Thessalonica IFF and nominated for European Discovery of the Year at the European Film Awards. The film was also screened in Karlovy Vary in the Variety Critics’ Choice. In 2001 Szumowska became a member of the European Film Academy. Stranger (2004) was preceded by the short doc Documentary (2001) and the segment “Crossroad” (“Skrzyźowanie”) from the film Visions of Europe (2004).