Jakub Gierszal in Jan Komasa's "Suicide Room", photo: .ITI Cinema
Actor Jakub Gierszał's talent has been noted by viewers and reviewers - "His ability to draw you into a story is unparalleled", says one awards jury - and in Ireland he receives the Angela Award at the European Film Festival Subtitle.
Gierszał's first lead role, as Dominik, lured into a virtual reality in Jan Komasa’s Sala Samobójców / Suicide Room, has been aptly rewarded. The actor receives the Angela Award in November 2012 at the European Film Festival Subtitle in Kilkenny, Ireland, for a "big breakthrough performance from Polish rising star Jakub Gierszał", as the festival programmers write. His performance has been lauded in Poland, where he received the Zbigniew Cylbuski Award. The Award is named for the star of classic Polish film including Andrzej Wajda’s Ashes and Diamonds (1958), the award has been given to young actors since 1969.
As Dominik, Gierszał played a teenager living a seemingly perfect life. His parents are well off, he is popular at school, his final exams are approaching. But inner restlessness drives him to the Internet, and a report on self-mutilation. He gets in touch with the report's author and ends up in a mysterious corner of the network, known as the Suicide Room. The community there, hidden behind their avatars, discuss their readiness to commit suicide, a willingness Dominik does not share, but his fascination with Sylvia, the creator of the Web report, leads him to join. Immersed in the virtual world, he refuses to leave his room for ten days and psychiatrists take action. His parents, engrossed in their own affairs, are not aware of the dangers surrounding him, and feel that a few pill subscriptions should do the job.
The Polish Film Academy awarded Gierszał the Golden Eagle for Best Polish Actor in 2011, and he received a Golden Duck, the oldest Polish cinema prize, assigned by Film magazine. To top it off, the European Film Promotion organisation named him one of Europe’s Best Young Actors 2012, with the title Shooting Star 2012. "From the moment you see him, it is clear that Gierszał was born to be on the big screen", the jury commented. "Revealing a kaleidoscope of emotions, his ability to draw you into a story is unparalleled. He is touching, believable, sensitive - a pure and unique talent."
Known for his skill in balancing hysteria and emotional truth and referred to as the Polish James Dean, Gierszał was born in 1988 and spent part of his childhood in Hamburg. A student at the National Theatre Academy of Kraków, he made his screen debut in 2009 as Kazik in Jacek Borcuch’s film Wszystko, co kocham / All That I Love. Kazik is one of the boys in a Polish punk band called WCK in the politically turbulent early1980s, and when communist authorities decide to cancel their concert, blaming their obscene lyrics, their performance becomes the biggest protest since the outbreak of Solidarity. Gierszał then appeared in Piotr Mularuk’s Yuma as Zyga, disillusioned after the fall of communism when the promised land never comes to his hometown. Across the German border people seem to have it all, so Zyga takes matters in his own hands and hands out stolen Adidas trainers and RayBans to his peers.
Jakub Gierszał appreas in another Borcuch movie, Nieulotne / Lasting, Borcuch's and Poland's film to be qualified for the Sundance Film Festival. Acitng alongside Magdalena Berus and Spanish actors Angela Molina and Juanjo Ballesta, Gierszal plays twenty-year-old Michał who meets and falls in love with Karina (Magdalena Berus) in Valencia, Spain, while on a summer job. Their holiday romance is interupted when provoked into a fight, Michał kills a man.
Sources: based on the article by Bartek Staszczyszyn for culture.pl, news.pl, Film New Europe, Shooting Stars
Author: Marta Jazowska