During the Docs To Go pitch held entirely online, the teams talked about their ideas via Zoom and YouTube and presented materials and trailers, seeking final funding, distributors and sales.
WORKCENTER (Poland)
Directed by Aniela Gabryel
Aniela Gabryel and her crew are the first filmmakers admitted to the closed world of Workcenter, an unusual theatre group that was initiated by Jerzy Grotowski and who have been working in the village of Pontedera for years under the direction of director Thomas Richards. Workcenter members give up modern technology, temporariness and rush. The performances are perfected away from the eyes of the media and the mainstream of the theatre world. This is a second feature documentary for Aniela Gabryel. The film is produced by Agnieszka Dziedziec and her company Koi Studio. Workcenter is currently in post-production with plans of completion in the middle of 2020. The producers are looking for partners to close the financing gap for this project.
“Each of the characters struggles not only with professional but also personal challenges. Each is followed by a different story, different problems and a different approach to work in such an isolated group. (...) They are a mosaic of different, extreme personalities, but they have one thing in common: the desire to break human limitations and to find transcendence and freedom at work,” Gabryel explained during the presentation.
@MIRIAMFROMPOLAND
Directed by Piotr Szczepański
Piotr Szczepański is working on a new character driven documentary project. Miriam Synger is the mother of a schoolmate of his own child. She is a strong, independent woman, an orthodox Jew who does not want to see only a "great cemetery" in Poland. She returned to her roots as a 20-year-old, changed her lifestyle and name, and joined the Jewish Orthodox Religious Community. She is raising five children and runs the Szalom.tv channel on the Internet, dedicated to Jewish culture and religion in Poland. The film is produced by Anna Pachnicka through Anagram Film. The shoot will last till the end of 2020 with plans for a premiere in the first half of 2021. The producers are looking for 30,000 EUR to close the budget gap on this 75-minute project.
"I accompanied her for two years. We tried to maintain the spirit and style of Direct Cinema, which is a technique that works for me, as eventually the true image comes before my camera. The film aims to bring closer the challenges Miriam faces as a Jewish woman and to penetrate the world of orthodox Jews in contemporary Poland,” Szczepański said during the presentation.
ESCAPE TO THE SILVER GLOBE (Poland)
Directed by Jakub Mikurda
Andrzej Żuławski’s On the Silver Globe (1977/1987) could have been one of the greatest sci-fi masterworks of all time – wildly ambitious, visually extravagant, fueled by Żuławski’s mad genius. The hyperkinetic, frenzied answer to Kubrick’s 2001 and Tarkovsky’s Solaris, On the Silver Globe was planned as the biggest blockbuster of Polish cinema, with a budget of over a million dollars. So why was it suddenly shut down just four weeks before its completion?
“This is not only a story about the film, but also about the life of the artist Andrzej Żuławski, about the crew and a certain place: a special moment in Polish history, with strikes in Ursus and Radom, a cinema of moral anxiety and the beginnings of the Solidarity in the background," director Kuba Mikurda said during the presentation.
The film is produced by Daria Maślona through Silver Frame. The production was launched at the end of 2018. The planned budget is EUR 280,000 and the production received support from the Polish Film Institute. The Polish distributor is Against Gravity and the producers are looking for pre-sales, sales agents and international distribution.
