Still from Katarzyna Rosłaniec's "Baby Blues", photo: Łukasz Niewiadomski / Kino Świat
Rosłaniec portrays challenges faced by teenagers in a world driven by imitation and illusion. Her latest film’s protagonist is 17-year-old Natalia who wanted to have a baby to "have someone to love". Her role models Britney Spears and Nicole Richie have kids. Natalia roller-skates the sidewalks of Warsaw, pushing a pram in front, wearing a perfectly matched outfit. Together with the baby's father, Kuba, they try to raise Antoś. She can't count on her mother, who quickly disappears from her life, leaving Natalia, Kuba and Antoś alone in her apartment. She was 15 when she had Natalia, and she is no older than 30 when Antoś is born.
The film is praised for the "pleasingly raw" acting of amateurs Magdalena Berus and Nikodem Rozbicki, and for "attention to costumes, which are more carefully designed than a Lady Gaga appearance.", as Boyd van Hoeij writes for Variety. "Far more than just another in the long line of films about teen pregnancy", Robert Bell says in his review for Exclaim, the director "establishes a disturbingly realist vision of modern society, where teenage girls think nothing of offering up their bodies for the opportunity to work in low-end retail establishments or casually snort cocaine while holding an infant. [...] an unflattering quotidian where morality and self-respect are secondary to fleeting modes of validation."
Baby Blues is screened within the framework of the Rome Independent Film Festival on the 10th of April 2013 at 8:20 at the Nuovo Cinema Aquila, via l'Aquila 68.
For more information see: Polish Cultural Institute Rome
Sources: Polish Cultural Institute Rome, culture.pl
Editor: MJ, 09.04.2013