In an old summerhouse on Chiloé Island, family, friends and local inhabitants gather for a dinner party. The only one missing is Jaime, the hostess’s oldest son. They decide to start dinner without him. On this hot summer day, they go back to their homes thinking about Jaime - but oblivious to the tragedy about to befall them.
Inspired by Wisława Szymborska’s poem Wypadek Drogowy / Road Accident, to talk about how difficult it is to appreciate the present, director Kasia Klimkiewicz says, "the melancholy and humanism that the poem exudes touched me deeply, I felt that I am alive and I experienced true appreciation of the fact that I am not suffering". Klimkiewicz and Dominga Sotomayor’s 30-minute film in Spanish and English, The Time Before, shows "how essential everything we have is", the Polish director says, "and how quickly we can lose all of that. Real tragedies befall us unexpectedly. That’s why it’s so important to appreciate every moment spent with a close one, because we can’t influence what will happen in the future."
Klimkiewicz and Sotomayor started work on the project during the CPH: DOX festival in Copenhagen, within the framework of a project that unites over 20 filmamkers from different countries and continents. The action takes place on Chiloé Island, off the coast of Chile, where Sotomayor grew up. Filming begins in March 2013, with the project budget of 35,000 euro. Through the crowdfunding website www.wspieramkulture.pl, the filmmakers are seeking to raise 4,300 euro.
Katarzyna Klimkiewicz, whose debut feature Flying Blind premiered at the 2012 Edinburgh Film Festival, is part of a new generation of Polish filmmakers who build their authenticity and derive their sensitivity from childhood experiences in communist Poland, but break with the tendency to revive and reassess the past. Her short film Hanoi-Warszawa from 2009 received awards in 2010 including the European Film Award and the Cottbus Eastern European Film Award. Dominga Sotomayor is a Chilean director whose film Thursday till Sunday received awards at the Rotterdam and T-Mobile New Horizons Wrocław festivals.
Designed to raise money for specific cultural projects, the website wspieramkulture.pl was launched in December 2012. It has 15 artistic categories: design, film, photography, comics, fashion, music, writing, visual arts, dance, theater and performance art. Another current project raising funds on the site is Marta Dzido and Piotr Śliwowski’s documentary about the untold stories of the women behind the Solidarity trade union, Solidarity According to Women.
The website has an "all or nothing clause" whereby funders' money is returned if a project doesn't receive the required amount within 60 days of registration. Wspieramkulture.pl is Poland's only crowdfunding website devoted entirely to culture and has successfully provided financing for projects including Aneta Kopacz's documentary about a cancer patient who starts a blog to transmit her thoughts to her 5-year-old son months before her death, titled Chustka / Handkerchief.
For more information on the project and to lend support to the film see: wspieramkulture.pl
Author: Marta Jazowska
Sources: production kit, wspieramkulture.pl