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POLSKI
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15. 09. 2015. Department
Direction

It’s a great success – the films based on our students’ screenplays “Intruz” & “Nowy Świat” have been selected for the Gdynia Film Festival.

Both screenplays had been written by the students of screenwriting at the Lodz Film School and had come a long way to finally reach the screen. Already this September the audience of the most important Polish Film Festival in Gdynia will have an opportunity to see the films based on the screenplays written in Lodz.

The film „Intruz” is an international coproduction made possible by the film’s director and our school’s graduate Magnus von Horn, and a film producer Mariusz Włodarski, also a graduate of our school. The full length film debut of Magnus’ was already very successful having been screened within the prestigious Quinzaine des Réalisateurs section of the Cannes Festival which also screened the first films of such film-makers as Michael Haneke, Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee and Ken Loach. As far as Polish films screened in this section are concerned the list comprises the following titles "Four Nights with Anna" by Jerzy Skolimowski, "Code Blue" by Urszula Antoniak, "Portret z pamięci" by Marcin Bortkiewicz and "Fragments" by Lodz Film School graduate, Agnieszka Woszczyńska.

Not many know that the film „Intruz” originated within the teaching programme ran at the Lodz Film School. - In January 2010, the film project of Magnus von Horn and Mariusz Włodarski originated at the Lodz Film School within the frame of an international programme supported by PISF "Passion to Market" ran for graduates of three European Film Schools - The National Film and Tv School from the UK, La Femis from France and our school – says Andrzej Mellin, the head of screenwriting faculty. The programme consisting of three workshops organized in Beaconsfield, Lodz and Paris continued over a period of one year, during which numerous drafts of the screenplay of Intruz appeared as well as a trailer of the film was made. Then came the time for participation in Film Markets at the Berlin and Cannes Festivals. “Intruz” is a story of a 17-year-old Swedish teenager who leaves a reformatory and is trying to start a new life. Soon, however, he gets confronted with the past he’d rather forget about.

„Nowy świat” is the other film to be screened in Gdynia whose screenplay was written by three Lodz Film School screenwriting students: Monika Dembińska (3rd year), Izabela Aleksandrowicz (4th year) and Maksymilian Nowicki (4th year) under the artistic supervision of Grzegorz Łoszewski, a school lecturer.

- The idea of the project initiated by Grzegorz Łoszewski was developed during the second year screenwriting classes. Together with Monika we were supposed to develop ideas for 30-minute–long films which shared a common theme of young immigrants in Poland. Initially there were stories written about Ukrainians and Byelorussians, and a year later Iza joined us with her project about an Afghan. – says Maksymilian Nowicki. "Nowy Świat" was directed by Elżbieta Benkowska ( "Olena"), Łukasz Ostalski ("Matka") and Michał Wawrzecki. Here’s what the screenwriters have written themselves: "In search of a better life, fleeing from bad things, we follow the lives of three young characters from Byelorussia, Ukraine and Afghanistan for whom Poland has become the “New World” from the title. Cinematographers who worked on the project are: Piotr Pawlus, Sławomir Witek and Cezary Stolecki.

The films with our students screenplays will compete among others with a film „Panie Dulskie” written and directed by Filip Bajon, Lodz Film School Direction Dean; a film „Hiszpanka” written and directed by Łukasz Barczyk, a direction lecturer, and a film „Body/Ciało” directed by our graduate Małgorzata Szumowska, based on a screenplay written by the director herself and Michał Englert.

The Film Festival in Gdynia will take place from 14th to 19th September.

photo 1. still from the set of the film "Nowy Świat";
photo by Paweł Wyszomirski photo
2. still from the film "Intruz"