Documentary Films - Competition 2004 / Zlota 83 / Poland 2004
An old apartment block in the centre of Warsaw has to give way to a hotel, and its longstanding tenants have to move out. A community of people is being broken up, one which personifies a world and a way of life ruled by esprit de corps, tolerance and neighbourly openness. The blocked up windows and doors of their apartments testify to the uncompromising end of an epoch.
A hotel is scheduled to replace a pre-war apartment block in the middle of Warsaw, and the tenants of the shabby inner wing gradually move to other apartments. Mrs. Krysia embraces the tiled stove that has warmed her here for forty years. It is summer. Children still play in the dirty courtyard, women lean out of windows, but the building is rapidly being depopulated. The number of blocked up windows is increasing, as is the number of blocked up doors along the corridors. Mr. Mirek brags of his superior birth but no longer bothers to maintain his neglected den. He possesses the key to the toilet and is therefore sought out by the remaining neighbours. He films them as a souvenir to take with him. The veteran criminal Henryk talks into camera about his colourful past. Ella is fond of Henryk but the personable widow soon moves as well[cut:, with the help of the carefree married couple Krzysiek and Iwonka]. A beautiful apartment with a stucco ceiling is inhabited by the elderly “Baroness.”
The lonely well-groomed woman lives in a world of music. The first snow has fallen and Mr. Mirek’s furniture is carried out...
117 min / Color, 35 mm
World premiere
Director Ewa Borzecka
/ Screenplay Ewa Borzecka
/ Dir. of Photography Marcin Peresada
/ Music Janusz Grzywacz
/ Editor Agnieszka Bojanowska, Marek Wiezlen
/ Producer Barbara Lawska
/ Production WIR Film Studio, koprodukce / coproduction: TVP SA - Film Agency
/ Contact TVP SA, WIR Film Studio
Ewa Borzecka (b. 1960, Warsaw) graduated from Warsaw University where she studied journalism and political science. Following this she worked at TVP in Warsaw, and cooperated with the BBC and the Japanese HBC. She has won a number of important domestic and foreign awards for her documentary work. These includes: I Was Born As an Angel (1986), Sheriff Story (1987), Onna - Means Woman (1990), Women, Cats, Children (1996), Thirteen (1997), Arizona (1998), They (2000) and Women’s and Men’s Affairs (2001).
TVP SA
J.P. Woronicza 17, 00-999, Warsaw
Poland
Phone: +48 225 478 501, +48 225 476 203
Fax: +48 225 474 248
E-mail: [email protected]
WIR Film Studio
Chelmska 21, 00724, Warsaw
Poland
Phone: +48 22 841 6221
Fax: +48 22 841 6221
E-mail: [email protected]
Aleksandra Biernacka
Publicist
Ewa Borzecka
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