Variety's Ten Euro Directors to Watch 2013 / Drogówka / Poland 2013
This gritty, gripping, intelligently-made crime thriller, takes place on the mean streets of contemporary Warsaw and exposes the corruption endemic to the police – and society at large. It focuses on seven police officers whose lives change after one of their number dies in mysterious circumstances.
This gritty, gripping, intelligently-made crime thriller, takes place on the mean streets of contemporary Warsaw and exposes the corruption endemic to the police – and society at large. Helmer-scribe Smarzowski focuses on seven police officers, members of the eponymous division, who are friends as well as colleagues, and whose lives change after one of their number dies in mysterious circumstances. As much a social critique as a genre piece, the pic has already passed the million admissions mark in Poland. As in Smarzowski’s earlier features, the multi-layered narrative takes place in a nihilistic world where human venality and immorality are the order of the day. One can even see each of the policemen as representing one of the seven deadly sins, although the script never overplays this aspect. Personifying pride is chief protagonist Sgt. Krol (Bartłomiej Topa), a cocky, independent-minded cop who is having an affair with his partner.
117 min / Color, DCP
Director Wojtek Smarzowski
/ Screenplay Wojtek Smarzowski
/ Dir. of Photography Piotr Sobociński Jr.
/ Music Mikołaj Trzaska
/ Editor Paweł Laskowski
/ Producer Dariusz Pietrykowski, Andrzej Połeć, Feliks Pastusiak
/ Production Film it
/ Cast Bartłomiej Topa, Arkadiusz Jakubik, Jacek Braciak
/ Contact Film It
Wojtek Smarzowski (b. 1963, Korczyna, Poland) studied film science at Jagiellonian University in Kraków before graduating in 1990 in camerawork from the National Film School in Łódź (PWSFTviT). He has shot commercials, music videos, TV programs (i.e. the popular series "Na Wspólnej,” 2003-05), and documentaries. With regard to dramatic theater releases, he debuted with the black comedy The Wedding (Wesele, 2004), screened in KVIFF’s East of the West competition where a later film also competed: The Dark House (Dom zly, 2009), a detective story bathed in the dark ambience of the communist 1980s. With the exception of Rosie (Róza, 2011), the story of a Polish soldier and a German widow set at the end of the war, he penned all his scripts, including his latest, the crime drama Traffic Department. In Poland he is respected as a creator with an unapologetically masculine view of troubling social and personal issues.
Film It
Rozana 32, 02-569, Warsaw
Poland
Phone: +48 228 538 668
Fax: +48 228 521 516
E-mail: [email protected]
Maria Letowska
Wojtek Smarzowski
Film Director
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