Archive of films Several People, Little Time / Parę osób, mały czas

Poland
2005, 110 min

Section: Official Selection - Competition
Year: 2006

An evocation of the bizarre relationship between the self-centred Warsaw poet Miron Bialoszewski and the blind Jadwiga Stańczak, which explores the indestructible power of art as a means of self-preservation, even during an era as intolerant as the late 1970s/ early 1980s. The film is dominated by the fine performance of actress Krystyna Janda.

Synopsis

Warsaw during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Hard times and the “literary Tuesdays” of the poet Miron Bialoszewski define the interior drama of the blind Jadwiga Stańczak. The ageing woman, burdened with a tyrannical father, offers her services to the self-centred Miron. She copies down his texts from a tape recorder, organises his schedule and his trips. He is fascinated by her pragmatism and her way of perceiving the world she cannot see with her eyes. Depressed by his sense of the pettiness of the time, and also by his different sexual orientation, and obsessed by the power and beauty of words, Miron urges Jadwiga to write herself. He becomes a merciless critic of her poetry but, in fact, it is later the blind woman who, in her “Diary for Two”, conveys with unusual tact the regenerative meaning of a life completely given up to art. The film, dominated by the performance of actress Krystyna Janda, is based on this testimony to the spiritual harmony of psychologically ill-assorted individuals.

About the director

Andrzej Barański (b. 1941, Pińczów, Poland) studied direction at the PWSFTViT in Lodz (1973). He made 30 short films that won various prizes at film festivals, and which concentrate on the fates of ordinary people, seeing moral laws and values as the only means of self-preservation in the face of life’s tribulations. Exploration of human potential and human defeat as people try to retain their loyalty to these principles also forms the main theme of his feature films, such as At Home (W domu,1975), Free Moments (Wolne chwile, 1979), A Provincial Woman (Kobieta z prowincji, 1984), Taboo (Tabu, 1987), The Peddlar (Kramarz, 1990), On the River That Isn’t There (Nad rzeką, której nie ma, 1991), Bachelor Life in a Foreign Country (Kawalerskie źycie na obczyźnie, 1992), Two Moons (Dwa ksieźyce, 1993), Horror at Merry Marsh (Horror w Wesołych Bagniskach, 1992), The Day of the Big Fish (Dzień wielkiej ryby, 1996), and All the Saints (Wszyscy święci, 2002).

Contacts

TVP SA
J.P. Woronicza 17, 00-999, Warsaw
Poland
Tel: +48 225 478 501, +48 225 476 203
Fax: +48 225 474 248
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.international.tvp.pl

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About the film

Color, 35 mm
International premiere

Section:	Official Selection - Competition

Director:	Andrzej Barański
Screenplay:	Andrzej Barański
Dir. of Photography:	Dariusz Kuc
Editor:	Wanda Zeman
Producer:	Paweł Rakowski, Krzysztof Gierat
Production:	TVP SA – Film Agency
Cast:	Krystyna Janda, Andrzej Hudziak
Contact:	TVP SA