Still from "It Looks Pretty From a Distance", photo: www.crossingeurope.at
Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal’s film It Looks Pretty From a Distance is in the main competition, up against 11 other pictures from around Europe. The Polish-Romanian co-production Crulic - The Path To Beyond features in the festival’s Tribute section
It Looks Pretty From a Distance is the renowned visual artists' and painters' Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal debut film. The film had its international premiere at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam 2012. Set in the Polish countryside, the motion picture explores the dark and disruptive sides of the safe and monotonous lives of the villagers. Sparked off by unbearable heat, everything gradually gives in to physical and moral decay and aggression, hatred, and fear begin to break through the seemingly indifferent and still surface. The story line centres around Paweł who lives with his old, ailing mother, and collects scrap metal for a living. Wishing to start a new life with his fiancée, he places his mother in a day-care facility. When Paweł suddenly vanishes without a trace, neighbours begin to steal things from his deserted farm house and upon his unexpected return, won't allow him to return to his home. According to Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal, the film alludes to the social dimension of Polish-Jewish relations in reference to the reclaiming of Polish lands since the German occupation.
The Tribute section of the festival, this year entirely devoted to the work of Romanian director Anca Damian, also features Crulic - The Path To Beyond (aka Road to the Other Side). Damian's film was produced by Poland's Arkadiusz Wojnarowski, based on real events that took place between 2007 and 2008 in Kraków. The film depicts the life story of Claudiu Crulic, a 33-year old Romanian falsely arrested for robbing a Polish politician who died in a Polish prison after going on hunger strike to draw attention to his case. Combining techniques of animation, fiction and documentary, with its beautiful hand drawings, collages, stop-motions and cut-out animation techniques, the film is striking and memorable.
The festival's It's Animated! section, banking on a rising global interest in animated films like Marianne Satrapi’s Persepolis and Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir, features three Polish animations: Przemysław Adamski’s Noise, Urszula Palusińska’s Coś w tym gatunku/ Bits and Pieces and Ewa Borysewicz’s Kto by pomyślał/ Who Would Have Thought? The noises seeping into the protagonist's flat in Noise take on a life of their own as they interact with images and people, creating a world on the boundary of reality and imagination. Bits and Pieces deals with the issue of diversity, playfully invoking conventions found in educational films.
Still from "Behind the Iron Gate", source:
www.crossingeurope.at
Heidrun Holzfeind’s Za Żelazną Bramą/ Behind the Iron Gate, a film inspired by the Austrian author’s stay in Poland, is also on the programme as part of the OK Artist in Residence section. It portrays the everyday life in the communist era housing estate Za Żelazną Bramą built between 1965-1972 in the center of Warsaw on the ruins of the Small Ghetto. The film is based on interviews held by the artist with the inhabitants of the blocks, audio recordings from the estate, and shots from movies and series from the 70ties featuring the Żelazna Brama. It shows an architect discussing the influence of communist bureaucracy and housing norms, tenants and shopkeepers talking about the functionality of the block architecture, social relations in the blocks – in particular prejudices against Vietnamese and Jewish communities. It depicts how life and business has changed during the past decades – from communist rule to the arrival of capitalism.
The Crossing Europe Film Festival has been held in Linz since 2004, presenting the best of European idiosyncratic, contemporary and socio-political cinema. This year the festival includes 146 selected feature films, documentaries and short films from 43 different countries – of which 96 are premieres (including 22 world premieres).
Editor: Marta Jazowska
Source: www.crossingeurope.at, www.heidrunholzfeind.com