Still from Roman Polanski's "Carnage", photo: Kino Swiat
Aiming to take its visitors Back to the Roots, the CinEast Festival presents a number of documentaries, animations, features and coproductions from Central and Eastern Europe. Grzegorz Jaroszuk's Frozen Stories takes home the Public Award.
The Luxembourg CinEast Festival brings together cinema from Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romanian and for the first time since its five years of functioning, screenings from Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia and Slovenia.
Wojciech Smarzowski's award winning post-war drama set in the Mazury countryside, Rose, a love filled tale commenting on the impact and consequences of the mixing of Polish and German cultures during the war and the brutal reality of WWII, competes in CinEast's Main Competition against seven other runners up.
While in Grzegorz Jaroszuk's Frozen Stories a young man and woman, the worst employees of the supermarket they work go on a popular game show and attempt to find a new purpose in life in the span of two days. They receive unexpected help from a popular game show, a boy arrives late for his aunt's funeral to a secluded Polish village and is forced to stay their overnight in Igor Chojna's Through Glass. The last Polish medium length feature is Kordian Kądziela Boo! which takes a look at the sad life of a forty year old man who has to struggle to find a reason to get up every morning. Loosely based on Franz Kafka's The Trial, the film shows Josef working in a small trailer on a parking lot and sleeping in a three meter room in his mother's flat.
The Short documentary films marathon presents two Polish positions: Krzysztof Kadłubowski's 2010 symbolic 7 minute film showing soldiers rehearsing with imaginary coffins for the military ceremony organised for the arrival of the body of the President of the Polish Republic who, along with his wife and 95 other passengers tragically died on April 10th, 2010 in Russia - Returns and Olo Pawluczuk's 2012 short film The Strongwoman - a confession about the perceptions of beauty by Poland's triple national bodybuilding champion and world team champion in the 90s.
In the Short animated films marathon Maciej Majewski uses his experience of working in the UK when the EU borders opened to labourers from Eastern Europe in his 2012 Dog's Odyssey 2006, Tomasz Stanko's music score makes the objects in a room take a life of their own as part of Przemysław Adamski and Katarzyna Kijek 2011 short award winning Noise.
In Crulic The Path to Beyond, a Polish-Romanian coproduction, Anca Damian, the Romanian director documents the heart-rending physical and mental demise of the victim of an unjust trial. The film blends various animation techniques and adds a dreamlike dimension to the real events that took place in 2007/2008 in Poland. Among the coproductions, CinEast further screens Lithuania's submission for the 2012 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar - Kristijonas Vildžiūnas' Back to Your Arms. The film is set in 1961, during the thaw before the erection of the Berlin Wall. A father and daughter try to meet in the German capital after seventeen years of separation. tangled loyalties, dark secrets and state-fostered paranoia, Back to Your Arms was named best film and Vildziunas won the best director award at the Lithuanian film and TV industry's Silver Crane Awards. In Marek Najbrt's Polski Film, the award winning director unites four famous Czech actors and has them play the seemingly easiest roles of their lives - themselves.
When Max and Albert agree to participate in a dangerous experiment which involves them being hibernated they wake up in 2044 only to learn that following a nuclear war all male genes were killed and they are the last two surviving men on the face of the Earth. Juliusz Machulski's cult science fiction comedy Sexmission from 1983 screens in the FunnyEast section. Cinefocus presents the achievements of five artists, one of whom is the Polish actor Robert Więckiewicz and plays two films, Greg Zglinski's Courage and Marek Koterski's Man, Chicks Are Just Different in which the actor stars. Courage epitomises how one’s whole life can change in a second because of momentary lack of courage and the Man, Chicks Are Just Different is a hint at the efforts of two men who constantly complain about women to take a look at themselves.
CinEast is organised in Luxembourg since 2008 by the polska.lu association and aims to promote and integrate. The event includes several accompanying acts - concerts, exhibitions, culinary evenings, meetings with artists.
Selected events:
Wednesday, October 17th - Performance by the SzaZa duet (multi-instrumentalists Paweł Szamburski and Patryk Zakrocki improvising to a series of Roman Polański shorts)
Sunday, October 27th - Reggae and folk concert by the Polish-British-Jamaican collective Twinkle Brothers & Trebunie Tutki
Throughout October - Back to the Roots Exhibition of the works of six artists from Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Polish artists: Joanna Chudy, Michał Zieliński, Wojciech Gepner and Kasia Stanny.
Polish positions in the Festival programme:
Main Competition:
Wojciech Smarzowski - Rose
Short Documentaries:
Krzysztof Kadłubowski - Returns
Olo Pawluczuk - The Strongwoman
Short Animations:
Maciej Majewski - Dog's Odyssey 2006
Przemysław Adamski, Katarzyna Kijek - Noise
Grzegorz Koncewicz - The Razor
Medium length Features:
Grzegorz Jaroszuk - Frozen Stories
Kordian Kądziela - Boo!
Igor Chojny - Through Glass
Coproductions:
Anca Damian - Crulic The Path to Beyond
Roman Polański - Carnage
Kristijonas Vildžiūnas - Back to Your Arms
Marek Najbrt - Polski film
Kids Show section:
Bolek i Lolek
Reksio
FunnyEast section:
Juliusz Machulski - Sexmission
Cinefocus:
Marek Koterski - Man, Chicks are Just Different
Greg Zglinski - Courage
Others:
Lech Majewski - Angelus
Przemyslaw Wojcieszek - Secret
Malgorzata Szumowska - Elles
Bartek Konopka - Fear of Falling
Rafael Lewandowski - The Mole
Mitji Okorna - Letters to St.Nicholas
Sources: CinEst Festival, culture.pl, NoweHoryzonty Film Festival, TheWrap, CineEuropa, Polish Shorts
Thumbnail credit: Still from Lech Majewski's Angelus, photo: CinEast Festival
Editor: Marta Jazowska