Archive of films Traffic Department / Drogówka

Poland
2013, 117 min

Section: Variety's Ten Euro Directors to Watch
Year: 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.


Synopsis

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.

About the director

Wojtek Smarzowski

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.

Contacts

Film It
Rozana 32, 02-569, Warsaw
Poland
Tel: +48 228 538 668
Fax: +48 228 521 516
E-mail: [email protected]
www: www.filmit.com.pl

About the film

Color, DCP

Section: Variety's Ten Euro Directors to Watch
   
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

Guests

Maria Letowska

Wojtek Smarzowski

Film Director


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