Still from Jan Czarlewski's "The Ambassador & Me"
The Vienna Independent Shorts Festival awards Jan Czarlewski’s very personal film about his father the Polish Ambassador the Belgium and Marta Pajek sweeps the audience award for Sleepingcord
To the backdrop of a relationship between father and son full of misunderstandings, The Ambassador & Me captures the essence of diplomacy - hiding emotions and communicating from the level of the intellect. Provocative and cheeky despite the efforts of his father to redirect the film towards a more conventional form of documentary, Jan Czarlewski pushes his button to get him out of his comfort zone only to discover that he is no longer the main character in the shots. Brought up in a world where the etiquette eventually becomes a repetitive task, thanks to the camera, the filmmaker starts to understand how much his father’s lifelong commitment to international mediation has influenced him. What started off to be a film about work, became a confrontation with personal habits and mechanisms. The 16 minute short in French and Polish was produced in Switzerland in 2011 and on top of the Vienna Kurzfilmpreis 2012 has already won the Pardino d’oro for the Best Swiss Short Film at Locarno Film Festival and the Grand Jury Prize for European Student Film (Special EFA mention) at Premier Plans Festival.
The Festival’s audience award went to Marta Pajek’s 2011 animation Sleepingcord. A remarkable, surprising and disturbing journey through a number of worlds – both real and invented, the film's titular "dream umbilical cord", first appears as a knot in the story's twisting narrative. This quickly expands into a number of spirals, initially abstract, and after a while, turns into human and animal shapes. With the Sleepingcord seemingly serving as a mysterious transmission channel, the animation symbolizes the separation of worlds – physical and spiritual.
Jan Czarlewski – Born in Paris in 1988 to Polish parents. He graduated in film and television from the Sorbonne Nouvelle. He is currently studying at the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne (ECAL) in the film department.
Marta Pajek – Director of animated films, graphic designer, painter, video artist. Born in Kielce in 1982, she graduated form the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts. She made two highly acclaimed student shorts Po jabłkach (2004) and Za ścianą (2005).
Sources: Vienna Independent Shorts Festival, Film Annex
Thumbnail credit: Critics Locarno Academy
Author: Marta Jazowska