Still from Dorota Kedzierzawska's "Tomorrow Will be Better", photo: Kid Film
A moving picture about the escape from Russia of three homeless boys, a Polish-Japanese production with startling imagery by cinematographer Artur Reinhart, Dorota Kedzierzawska's film is screened in Japan.
Three boys, Pietia, Wasia and Liapa, live in the bowels of a railway station in a Russian city. In a search for a better life, they cross physical and metaphorical boundaries. They cross over from Russia to Poland and test their strength of will and endurance. Tomorrow Will be Better is a Polish-Japanese co-production based on a real-life story. The heroes cling to the hope that anything is better than the present. Dorota Kedzierzawska comments,
What really captivated me in the story of the little fugitives was their extraordinary willingness to break out of their lack of life, lack of existence. The stunning thing about it is their hunger for a better and more humane life, although nobody knows if they would ever find themselves in it… Where did these young, homeless, ragged and hungry boys get such determination? How much courage and strength did it cost them? Aren't they the great little heroes of the wicked times we live in?
Apart from one role, all the characters in the film are played by amateurs and first-time actors. Speaking about the assembly of the cast, the director emphasised that the children, who play a major role in the film had to speak Russian perfectly. "We managed to find the eldest boy, Akhmed, among the many children living in Polish refugee camps. He is a Chechen, with a bit of a stutter – just as Liapa, the boy he played. The two young boys are brothers both on and off screen. We found them, in Dnipropetrovsk in Ukraine after a long search", she reminisces.
For more information on the screenings in Japan, see: Pioniwa
Sources: PISF, culture.pl
Editor: marta Jazowska