WAJDA STUDIO

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2 ABOUT THE FIILM The Performer Poland, 63, 2015 DIRECTED BY WRITTEN BY CINEMATOGRAPHY EDITING MUSIC SOUND PRODUCTION DESIGN COSTUME DESIGN MAKE-UP CASTING DIRECTOR PRODUCTION MANAGER CO-PRODUCERS EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS PRODUCERS CO-PRODUCTION CO-FINANCED BY PRODUCTION CAST Maciej Sobieszczański, Łukasz Ronduda Łukasz Ronduda, Maciej Sobieszczański Łukasz Gutt P.S.C. Rafał Listopad P.S.M., Mateusz Romaszkan Antoni Komasa-Łazarkiewicz Paulina Bocheńska Joanna Kaczyńska Marta Ostrowicz Olga Nejbauer Marta Kownacka Paweł Sosnowski Oskar Dawicki, Agata Buzek Coolkeyplay, Łukasz Ronduda, Maciej Sobieszczański, Łukasz Gutt, Zbigniew Adamkiewicz, Henryka Walichnowska, Krzysztof Tyszowiecki, Andrzej Jędrzejewski, Marek Rolka, Artur Wyrzykowski Zuzanna Król, Katarzyna Ślesicka, Joanna Szymańska Kuba Kosma, Wojciech Marczewski Telewizja Polska S.A., Kosma Films, Heliograf, FilmFactory, Artcore, Art Stations Foundation Polish Film Insitute Wajda Studio Oskar Dawicki, Agata Buzek, Andrzej Chyra, Zbigniew Warpechowski, Anda Rottenberg, Jakub Gierszał, Arkadiusz Jakubik, Katarzyna Zawadzka 2

3 SYNOPSIS An insight into the contemporary art world. Based on the life of one of the most original performance artist alive - Oskar Dawicki (playing himself).the main theme of his art is the search for an answer to the question of whether... Oskar Dawicki exists at all. The trade mark of his performances is his blue shining jacket. We meet Oskar at a turning point of his life, when he learns that his Mentor Zbigniew Warpechowski (himself ) is dying. Warpechowski was also mentoring the Dearest (Andrzej Chyra), Oskar s childhood friend and a rival, who devoted himself to more commercial art and became the most profitable Polish contemporary artist. Oskar has one more complicated relationship in his life: a love affair with his Art Dealer (Agata Buzek). Same as in previous works from Dawicki - the established norms of moral, spiritual and social order are challenged and put on trial. The Perfomer is the first-ever art exhibition in the form of a feature film: Oscar Dawicki s works are connected on the screen not only by time and space, but also by narrative, drama and emotion. The title is an unusual mix of performance art with acting, and a fusion of documentary film-making with a fictional storytelling. 3

4 THE MAIN CHARACTER - OSKAR DAWICKI Oskar Dawicki was educated as a painter, but he became interested in performance art while he was still studying. He remained faithful to it during the following years. In 2000, he broadened his scope of interest onto video works, photography, documentation and finally, objects and installations. All of his works have a post-conceptual character and emanate a slightly grotesque, ironic and even absurd aura. In his works, Dawicki joins a romantically-tragic component (highly saturated with his own existential dilemmas) with poetics and the critical dimension of conceptual art. The self-reflection about his own institutional status as a contemporary artist is tightly interwoven with reflection on his own identity, or rather on its transitoriness, conventionality, airiness and weakness. Discomfort, disagreement, complication - these are the terms on which this artist s imagination is built, while the non-productivity of art seems to be its most promising aspect to Dawicki. 4

5 PERFORMANCE ART Performance art is the most personal form of art, because its subject and the object is the artist himself his body, presence, gestures, movement. An important element of performance art is the artist s direct contact with the audience. A pioneer and icon of performance art in Poland and abroad is Zbigniew Warpechowski Oscar Dawicki s master, one of the characters in The Performer. Another important name in the history of this field is Marina Abramović, whose latest performance of The Artist is Present took place over a two-moth timeframe at the New York s MoMA. 5

6 PROJECT HISTORY - CINEMA MEETS ART The Performer is a result of a close co-operation between film makers and artists specializing in visual and performance art. This is the first deep and open co- operation between representatives of these branches of art. It gives an opportunity to develop new models of co-operation and to seek forms of mutual agreement. It is also a unique opportunity to test the means of expression characteristic of the visual arts trough film. The Performer is not a combination of a conventional feature film with an artistic and experimental one it is a new, unknown quality in Polish cinema. The project s co-creator is Łukasz Gutt, an excellent cinematographer, graduate of the Katowice Film School and also an artist from the field of visual arts. Because of his status in the field of cinema and contemporary art, Gutt is fully involved in the project and has become one of its key developers. The Performer is also a unique phenomenon in the field of visual arts. The project, developed by Maciej Sobieszczański and Łukasz Ronduda, will be the first art exhibition in the world in the form of a feature film: Oscar Dawicki s works are connected on the screen not only by time and space, but also by narrative, drama and emotion. 6

7 THE CREATIVE TEAM Maciej Sobieszczański Film director, screenwriter and playwright. Expert of the Polish Film Institute. Lecturer of the Development Lab feature film programme and of the new Screenwriting Programme of Wajda School entitled SCRIPT, he is also a lecturer at the Screenwriting Department at the National Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź. Finalist of the Hartley - Merrill (now SCRIPT PRO) competition. He is the author of a script for The Simple Story About Love, for which its director Arkadiusz Jakubik was awarded the Grand Prix at Gdynia FF. The film was recognized as one of the best titles of 2011 in Poland. In the same year, Sobieszczański debuted as a director of Birthday, the adaptation of Etgar Keret s short story The Champion of the World. The short feature film was screened at many festivals, including the Gdynia FF, Warsaw Film Festival and the Etiuda&Anima festival in Krakow. Łukasz Ronduda Curator, writer, scriptwriter and film director. In his artistic pursuits, he focuses on the interface between contemporary art and cinema. Curator of the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Researcher and expert on experimental film. Graduate of the Wajda School programmes for directors and scriptwriters. Producer of various films by the most notable Polish artists. Initiator of the film award for production of a feature film for a visual artist, awarded by the Polish Film Institute and MoMA in Warsaw. Author of the novel Half Empty (Lampa i Iskra Boża, Warsaw 2011) whose main hero is Oskar Dawicki. Publisher of several books, such as Polish new wave, history of the phenomenon that never existed 1,2,3... Avantgarde. Film/ Art between Experiment and the Archive Polish Art of the 70s; Star City. Future under communism; Oskar Hansen, Open Form Architecture, Art and Pedagogy; KwieKulik. Author of a number of exhibitions in some of the most prestigious locations around the world, including London s Tate Modern, Anthology Film Archives of New York, Whitechapel Art Gallery in London, the MACBA in Barcelona. He has recently been the curator of such important exhibitions as New National Art (MoMA, Warsaw, 2012), As You Can See. Polish Art Today (MoMA, Warsaw 2014), Oskar Hansen. Open Form in Architecture, Art and Didactic (MACBA, Barcelona, 2014; Seralves, Porto, 2015). 7

8 THE CREATIVE TEAM Łukasz Gutt P.S.C. Cinematographer, artist in the field of visual arts. Graduate of the Cinematography Department of the Kieślowski Film and Television Department at the University of Silesia in Katowice. In 2006, he participated in Wajda School s EKRAN Programme. His debut as a DoP was My Name is Ki by Leszek Dawid (2011), for which he received numerous awards including a nomination for the grand prize at the Polish Film Competition and the Cinematographers Debuts Competition at Camerimage in During the same edition of the Festival, in the Short Films Competition he competed as a cinematographer in the documentary - What Happened on the Pam Island. Other awards won by Gutt for his work on My Name is Ki were the nomination for the Andrzej Munk Award and the Golden Duck Prize awarded by the readers of the Film monthly. Gutt is also the cinematographer for From the North of Calabria by Marcin Sauter (2009), and recently he worked with Jan Kidawa-Błoński on a film entitled You ll Never Know. In 2010, with Paweł Ferdek he directed the documentary Scrap Odyssey. Gutt presented his artistic works in the best art galleries and museums at home and abroad, including the Kunsthalle Basel, Foksal Gallery Foundation and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. His projects (for example, the Minstrel Show, carried out jointly with Anna Niesterowicz) maintain the spirit of the Hansenian open form, represented by his father Wiktor Gutt. Thus, the works of Łukasz Gutt follow one of the most important traditions of Polish contemporary art. Joanna Kaczyńska A set and costume designer, Joanna Kaczynśka is a graduate of the Fashion Design Department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She works for both film and theatre. she received a nomination in 2010 for the Eagle Polish Film Award. She received a nomination in 2010 for the Eagle Polish Film Award for production design of Snow White and Russian Red by Xawery Żuławski. She also worked as production designer on Essential Killing by Jerzy Skolimowski, Women s Day by Maria Sadowska, Letters to M. by Mitya Okorn, The Miracle Seller by Jarosław Szoda and Bolesław Pawica and on the television series directed by Xawery Żuławski: Krew z krwi and Aida. She is also the costume designer for the film Unmoved Mover by Łukasz Barczyk and Four Nights with Anna by Jerzy Skolimowski. She is the set designer for numerous theatre plays. She works permanently with the director Agnieszka Olsten, including Nora and Othello (The National Theatre in Warsaw) and Samsara Disco and Lynching (Polish Theatre in Wrocław). She also designed the sets for Macbeth directed by Redbad Klijnstra (the Słowacki Theatre in Kraków). 8

9 WAJDA STUDIO WAJDA STUDIO, a production outlet based in Warsaw, Poland, was founded in 2001 by two film directors, some of the most acclaimed Polish artists - Andrzej Wajda, winner of an Oscar for Lifetime Achievement, and Wojciech Marczewski, an outstanding director and educator. Wajda Studio is focused on art house films and international co-productions. The Studio stands out by providing the filmmakers with artistic guidance from the best Polish and European artists. The Studio pays special attention to the promotion and distribution of its projects. Among the achievements of the Wajda Studio, there are more than 70 documentary and feature films, and over 200 shorts as well as screenings and awards at major festivals including Berlinale, San Sebastian, Karlovy Vary, Hot Docs, IDFA and DOK Leipzig and a nomination for the European Film Award. The Studio (formerly known as the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing) has been awarded the Best Documentary and Short Films Producer prize twice at the Krakow Film Festival, in 2008 and The Wajda Studio is the co-producer of the feature films: Christening by Marcin Wrona (international film premiere at the IFF in Toronto 2010) and an Irish-Polish Sanctuary by Norah McGettigan. The Performer is the first feature project where Wajda Studio is the leading producer. ART STATIONS FOUNDATION ART STATIONS FOUNDATION by Grażyna Kulczyk is a signature project initiated by its namesake, renowned businesswoman and art collector. The Foundation s activities are focused on two key programmes: exhibitions and live performances. The starting point for the exhibitions presented in the Art Stations gallery are works from the Grażyna Kulczyk Collection, which over the years has inspired various innovative curatorial strategies. The performance program is carried out under the name Old Brewery, New Dance in the Studio Słodownia +3. It promotes innovative trends in the art of dance, and includes actions to support the development of Polish choreography. A common denominator in all the Foundation s projects is education. Art Stations Foundation is located in the heart of the Old Brewery, which is the embodiment of the Idea of 50/50 Grażyny Kulczyk s innovative philosophy for combining art and business. 9

10 CONTACT PRODUCTION Wajda Studio Sp. z o.o. FESTIVAL & SALES Joanna Solecka jsolecka@wajdastudio.pl