Still from Grzegorz Zariczny's "The Whistle", photo: Studio Munka
Grzegorz Zariczny’s documentary The Whistle wins the Best Short Film Award at the Slovak Febio Fest Festival.
"We managed to make a very honest story about a young man who tries to make something of his life", filmmaker Grzegorz Zariczny said in an interview for Trójka radio. The protagonist of Gwizdek / The Whistle is thirtysomething Marcin from a small town near Kraków. He is in no hurry to enter adult life. His reluctance meets with his mother’s disapproval. She expects him to make decisions and take action, specifically to find a better job and a wife. Marcin is trying to make it as a football referee. Every week at amateur matches he has to listen to rough comments and opinions about his work from players and fans. Zariczny tells Lech Moliński in an interview for the Portal Filmowy website,
I wanted to talk about someone normal. It seems to be the norm that there are movies about doctors, lawyers, very educated people, and so few about normal people. […] I also want to give something to the protagonists, similarly to [the work of director] Jacek Bławut. […]. I didn’t want the director or the film crew to be the most important figures of the film, because that leaves the protagonist at the far end.
On top of the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival 2013, The Whistle was awarded at the T-Mobile New Horizons Festival.
Showcasing short films, documentaries and features for twenty years, the Febio Fest festival is Slovakia’s largest film festival. Following one week in Bratislava, the festival moves to others Slovak cities. The short film section was incorporated into the programme for the first time this year and presented five films from each one of the Visegrád Group countries. Among the Polish films were the winning Whistle, Zbigniew Czapla’s Paper Box, Paweł Dębski’s Lumberjack - a confrontation between the innocence of a little boy and the suddenly changed father whose inexplicable behaviour scares and petrifies the child, Aleksandra Terpińska’s All Souls' Day - showing Lena's attempt to recontact her long lost father, and Tato Kotetishvili’s Watermelon - a Polish-Georgian production, a day in the life of a watermelon vendor in a remote area of Georgia. Febio Fest took place between the 15th and 21st of March 2013.
Sources: Polish article for culture.pl written by BS
Editor: MJ, 28.03.2013