“One day, Andrzej Wajda brought me a newspaper clipping about the Polish Post's Department of Undelivered Mail in Koluszki, which receives around seventy thousand letters annually, several thousand of which are addressed to God. I was very intrigued by that," as Marcel Łoziński explained the genesis of his film during the press conference coinciding with its premiere at the 2009 Kraków Film Festival, where Poste Restante received the Silver Dragon award in the international competition.
That is how this entrancing documentary parable, dedicated to Katarzyna Maciejko-Kowalczyk, emerged. Maciejko-Kowalczyk was a magnificent film editor and Łoziński's close collaborator, who passed away on 5th February, 2008. She didn't manage to support the director in the making of this film.
Marcel Łoziński's documentary on one hand resembles an educational video about the postal service, and on the other – an oneiric fairy tale, filled with mystery and tension. Among letters that lack address, or those whose destination is unclear (“to my dad,” “to my parents,” “to Kasia,” “to good people”), or addressees are nonexistent, the Undelivered Mail Department also received a letter with a calligraphed child's writing saying: “God. Heaven.”
These letters are opened and carefully analyzed by the staff at the Undelivered Mail Department in Koluszki. Unless they contain information about the possible addressee, they become recycled and turned anew into paper, which might again be used for a letter…
A story of a letter told with as a blend of irony and faith could contain a story of a man. Poste Restante is constructed in the same way as Hans Christian Andersen's metaphysical tales, which follow the fate of an object that has its own life and hopes, later disintegrates or gets trashed, but doesn't completely die – instead, it transforms, and lives on in a different form and with a different function. This film was intended as such a life after life for this letter to God
– Tadeusz Sobolewski wrote in Gazeta Wyborcza (Łoziński pisze list do ludzi / Łoziński Writes a Letter to Us, 2008, no 292, p. 17).
This film is about the need that all of us have: to be heard by anyone.
– Marcel Łoziński stated on Ryszard Jaźwiński's Polish Radio Three programme Trójkowo filmowo.
Then he added:
This phenomenon inspired me to write my own letter. I addressed it to my dear friend Katarzyna Maciejko-Kowalczyk, who died suddenly in 2008.