Still from "Argentinean Lesson", dir. Wojciech Staroń
The documentary film "Argentyńska lekcja" / "Argentinean Lesson" by Wojciech Staroń was awarded the Grand Prize of the Guangzhou International Documentary Film Festival. The festival took place between 5-9 December 2011. This is already the fourth major award for the film since its international premiere in October 2011
The film is a continuation of Wojciech Staroń's 1998 film "Siberian Lesson", a documentary about a young teacher who goes to live in the lake Baikal area to teach Polish to the descendants of Polish exiles. More than a decade later the director and his film character go to Argentina.
The film's visual aesthetics, its rhythm and composition parallel the narration of a work of fiction, while it shows a process of a slow integration of a eight-year-old boy into a new cultural environment. The main character is the director's son who comes to Argentina from Poland with his mother, a Polish teacher, and befriends an Argentinean girl. This friendship brings on another set of problems for the boy.
Alongside "Argentinean Lesson", three more Polish documentaries were presented in the Guangzhou IDFF competition: "Gry i zabawy dziecięce" / "Kids Play" by Maciej Adamek (produced by Koncept Media and TVP2), "Bronisław Huberman or Unification of Europe and the Violin" by Piotr Szalsza (produced by Media Kontakt and TVP Kultura) and "Dom" by Bogdan Lęcznar and Dorota Petrus.
"Argentinean Lesson" was produced by the Staroń Film and TVP1. The film was also awarded the Silver Dove at the 54th DOK Leipzig and the Best Director Prize at the 52nd Festival dei Popoli in Florence.
For more information about the festival see: www.gzdoc.com
Sources: TVP; www.stopklatka.pl