Still-frame from "Sanctuary", directed by Norah McGettigan. Source: Wajda Studio
Jan, a once successful plastic surgeon based in Warsaw is now a lobbyist, he travels around the world to speak at conferences about the damages that plastic surgery causes. He lives in his own little world and is estranged from his daughter and wife, even though the couple shares a home. One day he returns from a business trip to find his wife dead in the garden. He finds he cannot escape from the guilt over the failures in their relationship, nor can he cope with the latent emotions he begins to feel for his wife and family.
"When my uncle lost his wife he asked his mother how to clean the oven. To his surprise, he found out that the oven cleans itself. That memory became my entry point. I wanted to capture the feeling of losing someone which surfaces in the most menial elements of everyday life" the director says about her film.
According to the Galway Film Fleadh catalogue, McGettigan's debut "effortlessly evokes the twin perils of heartbreak and hope that inevitably follow great loss. At once personal and profound, art-house yet everyday, Norah McGettigan has crafted an elegiac, challenging yet beautiful film that belies her status as a first-time film maker".
Norah McGettigan (born 1976) is an Irish director who relocated to Poland after receiving a degree from the University of Ulster in Theatre. She began studying at the Directing Department at the renowned Łódź Film School. By the time she graduated two of her films qualified for the student competition at Cannes. She also received the school's Roman Polański award for Best Directing Student in 2003. Her 2005 feature short A Song for Rebecca won a smattering of awards, including Best European Short Film at the Créteil International Woman’s Film Festival in 2006 and Best Cinematography at the Poitiers Film Festival. A Song for Rebecca also deals with mourning after the death of loved one as the protagonist travels to her hometown for the funeral of a friend who'd recently committed suicide.
McGettigan's other works include the short The Water Fight (2003) and the television film What's It Like to Be My Mother (2007). The latter won Special Prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival 2008 and Special Mention at the Gdynia Polish Film Festival 2008.
Sanctuary is her first feature film, produced by Poland's Wajda Studio, affiliated with the Wajda Film School and Ireland's Venom production company. The film was co-financed by the Irish Film Board and the Polish Film Institute. It was shot on location in Poland and Ireland. Sanctuary’s script was developed in the frame of EKRAN - the Media supported programme based on creative pre-production process and run by Wajda Studio and Wajda School. Sanctuary is the first international co-production undertaken by the Studio. It is the feature debut Norah McGettigan's feature debut, with European distribution of the film scheduled for autumn 2012.
The film comes to Polish cinemas on October 26th 2012.
Sanctuary
2012 Film directed by Norah McGettigan. Writers: Norah McGettigan, Gabriel Vargas. Starring: Augustyn Frank Cero, Anne-Marie Duff. Produced by Wajda Studio (Poland) and Venom (Ireland).
Author: Agnieszka Le Nart
Source: IMDB, Film Polski