Dokumentary film. Director and screenplay: Grzegorz Pacek, 2000.
First, a short lesson. The director instructs a group of unruly kids from a yard in Warsaw's Praga, a neighbourhood widely considered to be one of the "worst", on how to operate a camera. Then we see only pictures shot by the children themselves. They provide an irrefutable and shocking proof of bad education and even worse behaviour among the young yobbo-filmmakers. They show a world that inevitably drifts towards the social margin. In the end, the adolescent characters reveal the things they would like to change in their lives, their future plans, their dreams. "One can still see goodness in their eyes," claims the director in one of the interviews. The question is for how long? In a song accompanying the credits one of the boys sings "I'm bad... but such is my karma."
"My reaction to the film was extremely emotional. And I think that this kind of reception has been carefully devised by the author. Firstly, for quite a time (though the whole film is not longer than 30 minutes) we get a mixture of terror and amusement at the sight of a bunch of teenagers from a yard in one of the poorer areas of Warsaw's Praga. In the very end though, these ambiguous feelings give place to a sharp sensation in the throat that signifies one thing - an overwhelming compassion and a flash of understanding." (Tadeusz Lubelski, "Kino")
- Jestem zły / Such is my Karma. Polska, 2000.Director and screenplay: Grzegorz Pacek. Cinematography: Piotr Muszyński. Sound: Jacek Kuśmierczyk. Editing: Katarzyna Maciejko-Kowalczyk. Producer: Janusz Chodnikiewicz. Production: Telewizja Polska Program 1. Color, 29 min.
Awards:
- Grand Prix - Golden Hobby-Horse [Lajkonik] at the Cracow Film Festival, 2001;
- award of the public for best documentary at the Film Summer in Kazimierz Dolny, 2001;
- The Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Land Award at the "Dokument ART" in Neubrandenburg, 2001;
- the film was listed among the 10 best productions in the Current Affairs category at the Prix Europa in Berlin, 2001.
Source: the catalogue "Young Polish Cinema", published by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, June 2007