IMAGINE by Andrzej Jakimowski – which premiered in Toronto last year and was winner of best director and Audience Award at the Warsaw international Film festival amongst many others has been chosen as the Polish representative at the European Film Awards.

 

Further now to its release in Poland in by Kino Swiat in April of this year, IMAGINE will be released by KMBO wide in France on October 23rd.  Meanwhile further sales have been made following the deals with Kino Świat and KMBO,   to Russia - P&I Films Distributions, Turkey – Calinos, and Germany via Neue Visionen.  A deal is in the offing for the US and Canada and this will be announced later in October.

Boasting a healthy €2.05 million budget the producers secured top British and German actors Edward Hogg and Alexandra Maria Lara to join the cast of largely blind children the much bruited third feature and first English language film from Polish-born Jakimowski, for a shoot that took in the Portuguese capital Lisbon and a major location in a Convent School orphanage in Evora. Other cast includes: young blind French actor Melchior Derouet (as Serrano), and Francis Frappat (Doctor).

 

The film, written by Jakimowski, tells the story of Ian (Hogg), a charismatic (and blind) spatial orientation instructor, who arrives at a top notch Lisbon ophthalmological clinic where he is in charge of sessions with blind patients. As a new teacher he uses unconventional methods, and during his spatial orientation sessions Ian quickly wins the trust of his students; a small group of children and teenagers of various nationalities. Among his students, a young woman called Eva (Lara) is especially withdrawn and secluded. Ian concentrates his efforts to make her overcome her shyness. He brings her outside the clinic without any permission to help her rediscover the pleasures of life.

 

"For Ian, the mind and imagination rather than sensory perception allow him and his patients to move around and live actively." Says Jakimowski," but in the end his methods - although successful - prove to be too challenging."

 

Film and Music Entertainment in London have brought together a posse of young blind actors ranging in age from nine and sixteen.

 

"Jakimowski is one of those rare European film makers," says UK producer, Mike Downey, "whose films have the ability to travel and communicate whatever the language. In this, Jakimowski’s first English language outing he has created in the roles of Ian and Eva challenging roles for both leads, which will be a great showcase for the talent of these two amazing leads. They are real gems of parts."

IMAGINE  is a Poland-France-Portugal co-production between ZAiR (Warsaw), KMBO (Paris), Filmes do Tejo II Multimedia (Lisbon) and is funded by the Polish Film Institute, the Centre National de la Cinematographie (CNC), the Institito Do Cinema E Do Audiovisual (ICA), Canal + Cyfrowy, Can do Films and Wytwornia Filmow Dokumentalnych i Fabularnych. Mike Downey of Film and Music Entertainment co-produces.

 

"The subject of spatial orientation by blind people is fascinating." Says director Andrzej Jakimowski, "The remarkable and rarely used technique of "echolocation" used by Ian is only one element of this phenomenon. In fact he pays much more attention to imagination than any sensory perception. This is the outcome of several months’ research into spatial orientation techniques used by blind people - and more broadly by research into the reality of blind people’s lives. I find some of their methods poetic and absolutely cinematic at the same time."

 

Jakimowski’s most recent feature, Tricks was the Polish Academy award nomination in 2009 and has picked up major awards at Venice, Tokyo, Sao Paolo, Miami and Thessaloniki film festivals. Released in all major international territories the film has performed solidly at the international box office.

For Further Information Please contact:

 

Tanja Lunardelli at Film and Music Entertainment (53 Great Portland Street, London W1W 7LG, Tel: + 44 207 255 1834, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)