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Home arrow Culture arrow Film arrow Polish Film Festival, Los Angeles 2007
Polish Film Festival, Los Angeles 2007
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Written by Zbigniew Banas   
Sunday, 15 July 2007
It is easy to see why the annual Polish Film Festival in Los Angeles is such an attraction for Polish filmmakers. The magic term "Hollywood" carries plenty of magnetic appeal all over the world, and Polish actors and directors are no exception. Every year in April, they descend with hope, excitement, and a bit of trepidation to Southern California to showcase their productions. In the course of week-long screenings and meetings, fruitful discussions abound, sometimes resulting in production agreements or new career opportunities. The typically balmy weather makes the time pass quickly and enjoyably.

This year marked the eighth edition of the festival. It has by now definitely found its niche in Los Angeles, with the Gala Opening Night held at the prestigious auditorium of the Directors Guild of America on Sunset Boulevard, and the regular screenings at the nearby Laemmle Sunset 5 Theaters. The Opening Night always brings out the very best in Hollywood hospitality. The evening marks an infrequent chance for the many Polish-Americans who live scattered all over the Los Angeles area to gather together for a festive celebration. Some even come from as far away as San Diego, San Francisco, and Arizona. The large contingent of Poles working in the Hollywood film industry is particularly visible. This year's local attendees included the Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, director Jerzy Antczak and his wife, actress Jadwiga Baranska, actor and director Marek Probosz, and the rising star Alicja Bachleda-Curus, who plays the lead in the soon-to-be-released Sundance-acclaimed independent film "Trade".

Of course, some American movie celebrities joined in as well. Legendary director David Lynch was the main draw of the evening, as he received the Amicus Poloniae award for his long-standing dedication to the Polish artistic community. For the past several years, Lynch has been a fixture at the Camerimage Film Festival in Lodz. He has decided to invest in the World Art Center, soon to be constructed in Lodz, and he made his most recent film, "Inland Empire", as a co-production with the Camerimage group. Two of the Polish stars of the movie, Karolina Gruszka and Peter J. Lucas (Piotr Andrzejewski), came to the Hollywood screening that closed out the opening night festivities. There was a murmur in the auditorium that Leonardo DiCaprio was somewhere in the audience, but that hope proved to be short-lived. Actually, it was Leonardo's mother who came to celebrate Polish cinema. The ceremonial opening of the festival was handled by the First Lady of Poland, Madame Maria Kaczynska, who flew in for the occasion.  She then stayed for a few busy days in the Los Angeles area, meeting with local politicians and the Polish-American community. Among her many official duties, she also found the time to present the director of the Polish Film Festival in Los Angeles, Vladek Juszkiewicz, with one of Poland's highest awards, The Officer's Order of Merit.

The selection of Polish movies chosen for presentation in Los Angeles was truly eclectic. There were almost 20 feature films in the program, complemented by documentaries, shorts, student, and independent productions. Two sets of distinguished American jurors worked overtime to decide the winners in the various competitive categories. The Hollywood Eagle Award for the Best Feature went to "I am", a touching story about a runaway from a children's home, directed by Dorota Kedzierzawska. The Hollywood Eagle Documentary Award was given to Bozena Garus-Hockuba for "The Lilpop Sisters and Their Passions", a sweeping biographical journey chronicling the amorous lives of four sisters who came from a prominent pre-war Polish family. Among young filmmakers, Piotr Kajstura won the Mini Arts Award for his independently produced narrative short "When They Could Fly". Kajstura was one of several Polish directors present at the festival, who now live in the United States and turn their attention mostly to local subject matter. Well assimilated within the American cinema landscape, they generously shared their experiences with a sizeable group of Polish students from the Lóds and Silesia Film Schools. One of the young guests from Poland, Pawel Dyllus, a talented cinematographer from Katowice, was rewarded with a Kodak Prize for his imaginative visual work on the student production "Wild Duck Season".

Throughout the festival week, the entire student delegation found itself caught in a whirlwind of Hollywood bustle, visiting Sony Studios, Panavision, the American Film Institute, even getting to spend some time on the set of a commercial shoot, filmed by Oscar-nominated director of photography, Rodrigo Prieto. But perhaps the warmest welcome awaited them at the Kodak headquarters, where a number of Academy Award winners watched and critiqued their student-made films. The reaction of the seasoned pros toward the young Polish filmmakers was extremely supportive.  It seems that at least some of the upcoming cinematography could easily find work in Hollywood in the near future, if they so desired.

Meanwhile, most of the other actors and directors from Poland were spending their evenings at the Laemmle 5 Theaters, meeting with the audiences following each screening. Compared with the opening night, the crowds coming to the theater on a daily basis were significantly smaller. But that's a challenge that all such festivals face. The audience seemed to be equally divided between Polish immigrants and Los Angelenos of other ethnicities. For both groups, the most popular star was probably Piotr Adamczyk, well known for last year's presentation of "Karol: A Man Who Became Pope". This year, he followed with the sequel, "Karol. The Pope, the Man". Viewers of the film were eager to talk at length to the actor who played the Pope, and he gracefully fielded every question. Fans also mobbed Borys Szyc, a boy-wonder of the movie scene in Poland today, who is famous for his chameleon-like ability to create a diverse palette of characters. Director Michal Rosa and actress Kinga Preis came to Los Angeles with their acclaimed new film, "What the Sun Has Seen", most recently shown at the New Films/New Directors festival in New York.  Lovers of serious cinema enjoyed watching this well-crafted tale of three interwoven stories set in contemporary Silesia. Director Jacek Bromski, the President of the Association of Polish Filmmakers, brought an altogether different production, a Polish-Chinese costume melodrama "The Lovers of the Year of the Tiger". Much to his delight, the film received a much better reception in Tinseltown than during a lackluster theatrical run in Poland. Other notable directors who met with the audiences included Marek Koterski, Xawery Zulawski, Lukasz Karwowski, and Borys Lankosz.  The acting group also featured Edyta Jungowska, Aleksandra Niespielak, Maria Strzelecka, and Anna Romantowska. 

No film festival in Los Angeles would be complete without glamorous parties. It's been a tradition for the past few years that all guests from Poland are invited to a lunch hosted by Jola Czaderska-Hayek and her husband, Captain Ed Hayek, at their Belvedere estate. The Hollywood Hills house once belonged to Rudolph Valentino and offers magnificent views of the city. As a voting member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, Jola often rubs shoulders with the greatest stars, but always manages to find a soft spot for all things Polish. Needless to say, the group from the Old Continent found itself entirely at home - thousands of miles away from their real home. Another grand party followed the evening premiere of "A Reverend Father Tischner and His Highlanders' Philosophy", a tale of folk wisdom directed and produced by a zany duo from Krakow, Witold Beres and Artur "Baron" Wiecek. In what amounted to a whiff of surrealism, festival guests replete with a Polish highlander band, took over a mansion in Beverly Hills for a long night of revelry. With good food and drinks aplenty, Polish tunes blended perfectly with electronic strings and American dance music. Several days later, a closing night party was also impressively staged, but the emotions were more mixed, as the sense of bringing the festival to an end inevitably creeped in.

With the next edition only a year away, Juszkiewicz doesn't foresee any major changes on the horizon. He is just hoping that it'll be easier to get all the films he wants, in the right format and with English subtitles. The audiences, which were larger than last year, are apparently demanding to see more of a lighter, more optimistic Polish film fare. It's anybody's guess whether Polish directors will take these American preferences into consideration. After all, their home base is very much back in Poland. And for most of them, Hollywood becomes real only in the form of a week-long, dreamlike event.

PLUS Journal/ No33/2007
 
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