The pitching session also included two adaptations of Polish bestselling novels: a 20th Century classic Owl The Baker's Daughter to be direxted by a Polish theater legend Grzegorz Jarzyna and a new Polish bestseller Toaxemia written by Małgorzata Rejmer which will be brought to the screen by Julia Kolberger.
Below we present the second group of projects presented this year:
Wild Roses
Polish documentary and feature filmmaker Anna Jadowska is in development with a drama entitled Wild Roses about the life of Marta, a mother and wife who is struggling with the roles that society has placed upon her. After giving birth to her second child, she goes through a nervous breakdown and gets involved in an ambigious relationship with a very young boy. A series of simple but significant events help her get her life on track. Production planned for 2015. Wild Roses is produced by Alter Ego Pictures with a planned budget of 800,000 EUR. World sales are still open.
“The origin of this idea for a film comes from my own reflections on the essence of motherhood juxtaposed with the press releases on drastic relations – mother and child. The paradox of motherhood, social expectations imposed on mothers, the essence of motherhood-based love are the topics which I would like to deal with in this story,” said the director.
Production contact:
Alter Ego Pictures
Chełmska 21/422
+48 22 851 11 15
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.alteregopictures.pl
The Wounded Beast
Piotr Trzaskalski, director of a Polish box office hit Edi and My Father’s Bike, is in development with a drama entitled The Wounded Beast about a power play between a retired gangster and a call girl, both trying to take control of their lives. The ex-criminal and murder is battling Alzheimer’s and decides to take his own life before the illness makes him weak. He hires the girl to aid him in the last moments of his life, but her past catches up with her in the most unexpected moment. Production planned for 2015 with the intial shoot to be done in the Tatra mountains as the story is set in a mountain cabin in the woods. The production company is ADHD Warsaw and the planned budget is 1 m EUR. The producers plans to apply for public funding and the world sales are still open.
“A man that ruled the underworld of a city and struck fear into the hearts of men, is helpless against an illness that is attacking him from within. At least that is what it seems like – like many things in the film. The ex-gangster does something that puts him in charge of the situation. He decides to act rather than be passive. Things will go as he wishes and everyone benefits: she gets her life back, he gets his freedom. Nothing is as it seems – this is what the film is about; being yourself until the very end,” said the director
Production contact:
ADHD Warsaw
Woronicza 78/99
02-640 Warsaw, Poland
www.adhdwarsaw.pl
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Nano
Norwegian/Polish director and writer Piotr Ryczko is in preparation with a futuristic thriller entitled Nano, devoted to the ethical issues connected new technology and genetics. Ryczko plans to explore a scenario set in the near future when pharmaceutical companies dominated almost every aspect of a human life. His main characters are a married couple grieving over the loss of their only daughter. The man is a brilliant scientist who sets aside his career and is suddenly faced with the disappearance of his wife and the harsh reality of the business he is involved in. Production planned for 2016 with a budget of 1.4 m EUR, including 300,000 EUR financing from the Polish Film Institiute (PISF) already in place, and plans to develop the title as a Polish/Norwegian coproduction. The producer of the picture is Joanna Szymańska of the Shipsboy company. The world sales are still open.
“What if we had a cure for cancer? Nano seeks to touch upon the pharmaceutical industry, through the eyes of a brilliant scientist who is on the verge of this century’s invention. A technology which could potentially heal millions of dying lung-cancer patients. Are idealistic goals to deliver a cure for cancer too far flung in the current capitalistic regime? Are we doomed to failure, if our techno- logical advancements don’t fit into the vectors of the commercial market?” said the director.
Production contact:
Shipsboy
tel: +48 696 204 625
tel: +48 607 816 342
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.shipsboy.com
Dew
Renowned Bosnian screenwriter and director Denijal Hasanović, who has been an active filmmaker in Poland for the last decade, is in development with the drama Dew about a young Colombian woman named Catalina who struggles to find her identity as a writer. While she lives in France, she stumbles upon some trouble with her visa and is forced to travel to Sarajevo. Once in place she gets involved with solving the problems of Bosnian refugees stationed in there and finds her true calling. The film is a Polish-Serbian-Croatian coproduction produced by Skorpion Arte (www.skorpionarte.pl) in coproduction with TVP SA (www.tvp.pl), PRO. BA (B&H, www.pro.ba), MEDIA FOCUS (www.mediafocus.pl) and BASF CELJK with a budget of over 1.1 m EUR and 830,000 EUR in production financing already in place including a 2 m PLN granted by the Polish Film Institute (www.pisf.pl).
“Dew is a story of people from ‘different types of periphery,’ or like Imre Kertesz said about ‘the people without lot.’ Deprived of what is an intimate right of each of us, that is the right to decide about one’s fate, they live lives which do not belong to them. At the same time the key phrases that define them are: ‘totalitarian system,’ ‘war,’ ‘eradication’,” said the director.
Production contact:
Skorpion Arte
Chełmska 19/21
Warsaw, Poland
tel. +48 22 851 10 54
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.skorpionarte.pl
Owl, the Baker’s Daughter
Polish theather director Grzegorz Jarzyna is in development with a fusion drama and noir film entitled Owl, the Baker’s Daughter. The film is an adaptation of an unusual novel
written by Marek Hłasko, set in Poland in the 50’s, about a romance between Weronika and Adam who engage in a strange role play. Adam is replacing Weronika’s husband, who has been sentenced to life in prison and she hasn’t heard from him. When the incarcerated man turns out to be alive, the couple needs to break away from the illusion they created. The film is a joint project between Teamwork Production and Opus Film with production planned for 2015 and a planned budget of 1.6 m EUR with 1.12 m EUR of financing already in place. The producers are planning to apply for public funding. World sales are still open.
“As I am fascinated by the modern insight into human empathy in Marek Hłasko’s prose, I want to make a film with an expressive convention, departing from a narrowly taken realism. The time and the place of the action with its post-war emptiness and feeling of alienation create a perfect scene to show a human being in a situation of extreme desires and uncontrolled emotions. I will attempt to create very reserved, mysterious and understated protagonists who, by their ambiguous behaviour, will conduct a special game both with each other and with the audience,” said the director.
Production contact:
TeamWork Production
Lechonia 6/3
01-556 Warsaw, Poland
Opus Film
Łąkowa 29
90-554 Łódź, Poland
tel. +48 42 634 55 00
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.opusfilm.com
Toxaemia
Young Polish director and screenwriter Julia Kolberger will bring to the screen Toxaemia, one of the most highly praised Polish contemporary novels of the last decade written by Małgorzata Rejmer. The main character of the story is Ada, a young journalist who wants to make her success with a controversial interview with an 87-year-old war veteran. Once the older man falls in love with her and starts stalking her, the girls turns to an unliekly friend Adam, who is a professional writer of funeral speeches. Trapped between two men, Ada fails to recognize her true feelings and decides to bring the story to a tragic end. The dark comedy is in development with production planned for 2015/2016 and a budget of 1.2 m EUR. The film is produced by Filmprodukcja and the world sales are still open.
“Ever since I have read Małgorzata Rejmer’s novel Toxaemia, I have been haunted by its strong and vivid images, its dark, cruel humour, and its contradictions. I want to make a film based on Toxaemia because it has the potential to be a great metaphor of people in general – with its surreal disconnection from plain reality, and with the abstract, almost symbolic world it depicts, and on the other hand it is a very true, touching and deeply human novel.
Production contact:
Filmprodukcja sp. z o.o
Czerniakowska 73/79
00-718 Warsaw, Poland
tel. +48 22 227 77 77
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.filmprodukcja.com
