Two Polish feature films – The Last Family by Jan P. Matuszyński and United States of Love by Tomasz Wasilewski – are to compete in the International Feature Competition. The former is an unsettling and wryly subversive portrait of Polish surrealist painter Zdzisław Beksiński, his wife, and their neurotic DJ son. The Last Family is like no biopic you’ve seen before. Less interested in Beksiński’s surrealist art and more in his combustible family dynamics, the film patiently traverses the years from 1977 to 2005 as the parents try to cope with their unhinged son against a backdrop of funerals, near-death experiences, and changing trends in pop music.
Wasilewski’s debut film won the most important award of the 41st Gdynia Film Festival – the Golden Lions – and Andrzej Seweryn's performance won him the Best Actor Award at the 69th Locarno International Film Festival.
The second Polish film competing for the prize of the International Competition is United States of Love directed by Tomasz Wasilewski. As the Soviet bloc dissolves, four women in 1990s Poland attempt to find their place in a rapidly changing society. Despite the promise of unification, these women are lonely and adrift in lives of lost affections and unrequited, obsessive love. In this sensitive drama, impassioned performances and frosty cinematography portray a landscape where love seems to always be just out of reach. Behind the camera stood Oleg Mutu, the Romanian cinematographer responsible for movies such as Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.
Tomasz Wasilewski’s film won the prize for the best script at the Berlin International Film Festival in February 2016. It was also a big winner at the 41st Gdynia Film Festival, where it was awarded five times.
Afterimage in the Special Presentation section
Andrzej Wajda’s Afterimage will be screened out of competition. The film is based on the real-life story of Władysław Strzemiński, an artist who battled the politically-motivated socialist realist movement and suffered terrible consequences for his artistic choices. It is set in Lódź between 1948 and 1952 and covers the last years of the artist’s life. The film's screening will have extra poignancy due to the fact that Wajda passed away on 10th October, just three days before the festival's start.