END OF THE WORLD. directed by MONIKA PAWLUCZUK. End Of The World, dir. Monika Pawluczuk

Transcription

1 END OF THE WORLD directed by MONIKA PAWLUCZUK

2 BASIC INFO LENGTH LANGUAGE FORMAT PRODUCTION CO-PRODUCTION PARTNERS SUPPORT YEAR OF PRODUCTION PRODUCER CO-PRODUCER PRESS & PR MANAGER 40 Polish with English subtitles HD Wajda Studio Telewizja Polska S.A., City of Lodz, West Pomeranian Film Fund Pomerania Film Trailer And More, Bydgoszcz Municipal Center for Culture Polish Film Institute, Poland 2015 Katarzyna Ślesicka, Wajda Studio, Monika Pawluczuk Katarzyna Grynienko, Wajda Studio,

3 ABOUT THE FILM THE END OF THE WORLD is an intimate, creative and very immensely visual documentary where couple of stories weave into one narrative during in one night. In a big city, many people are joined in one need - troubled by loneliness, they want to talk to someone. Some of them call an emergency number 112, even if it s not really necessary, others call the radio. This time the subject of the broadcast is the end of the world predicted by the Mayan calendar. The speaker asks the listeners what it actually means to each one of them. They talk about things that are tragic and painful, and sometimes small and funny. Their need to be heard, to communicate, to share their experience with someone else is evident and moving. The radio is a motif linking this night s events - we hear it in the ambulance, in a city s monitoring centre, where we observe the night life of the city presented on dozens of screens. The radio binds the elements of the film together in terms of structure and meaning: it is the source of the most important questions.

4 DIRECTOR S STATEMENT I wanted to make a film about a defining moment in a man s life. What is left and what becomes most important when one needs to pack up the lifeboat because the world is about to end. It was planned as a film-meditation, testing the focus on what is important. There was a lot of plot that we ended up cutting during editing because it was taking away from what I wanted to explore the most - the gradual sinking into the night and the human psyche. I put my stakes on the focus, not attractiveness. On an almost monk-style minimalism and a peculiar duel between my two heroes. I also put all my stakes on the purity of form - all of the stories are taking place within the sound. I will never forget the atmosphere of these December nights in At a first glance nothing special was happening - the end of the world, predicted by the Maya calendar, became a topic for the media, a classic news filler, but a sense of anxiety could be felt all around. I concisely chose not to relate this atmosphere in my film. It was just a pretext, a litmus paper for certain behaviors and emotions. Films always submerse into my life and vice versa. Allowing myself to go with the flow of the cleansing wave of the end of the world, I left in my life only what was the most important and let go of the everything futile. It was an important experience, worth of constant repetition.

5 PRODUCER S STATEMENT Wajda Studio puts great significance to the development of both projects and talents. Monika Pawluczuk is a Wajda School DOK PRO Programme graduate, class of Previous to End Of The World we developed and produced several documentary projects together, including Models and most importantly When I Am A Bird, a film highly recognized at international film festivals that went on to be the 3rd most awarded and screened Polish documentary of 2014 (survey by Cracow Film Foundation). We were accompanying the director in her creative journey and became very interested and open to the End Of The World project. It s starting point was and pretext for production was the cataclysm predicted by the Maya calendar, but it in reality it was created to explore lives the image of ordinary people, their individual crises and new beginnings. What is fresh and contemporary in this film is the formal solutions used in it. Very simple and radical, joint with a special feel of intimacy, almost tenderness in the way that the characters are shown, they result in a very moving effect - both emotionally and aesthetically. The film was made during the time span of two years. We started shooting by the end of 2012 and finished in the summer of Each break was used for editing and figuring out our concept. We received the support of the Polish Film Institute and the film is co-producers: d by Telewizja Polska (TVP 2), Western Pomeranian Film Fund and the City of Łódź, because it was the Radio Łódź that broadcasted the show about the end of the world that finally became the clasp for the entire film. The biggest lesson we came out with is two film commandments : less is more and kill your darlings. Even as we were shooting, we reduced our initial ideas to get to the essence of meanings and form. During the editing process we reached a level of carving out the form and in the final stages of production we decided to cut out an entire plot. For me as a producer this was a great educational experience - to accompany the director during the creative journey while she is constantly searching for the best way to express herself. End Of The World is a formally simple but at the same time very emotional cinema that doesn t leave much room for distance as it pulls the viewer inside the reality shown on the screen. It challenges the major, richly made productions. It shows that the essence of cinema is the emotion and experience, and that actually doesn t need any fireworks. All you need is for walls, a taxi cab, a conversation. I hope that, similar to Taxi by Jafar Panahi was awarded recognized with the Golden Bear by the jury at the IFF Berlin, End Of The World will be recognized at the documentary film festivals all over the world. The premiere at the prestigious Hot Docs film festival in Canada is a wonderful start for this film.

6 ABOUT THE DIRECTOR Monika Pawluczuk - a documentary filmmaker most recognized for When I Am A Bird (2013), Models (2007) and It s You Who Should Change (2007). Before embarking on her film making career she worked as a film and television journalist, show host, director and producer. Together with Katarzyna Miller, she has written a book How to Be a Woman and Not Go Crazy, translated into several languages. She is a graduate of the American Studies Center and Journalism Center the University of Warsaw as well as the DOK PRO Documentary Programme at Wajda School. AWARDS When I Am A Bird Szczecin (Szczecin European Film Festival) 2IInd Polish Film Competition Prize When I Am A Bird Prague ( International Debut and Student Film Festival) Special Mention When I Am A Bird Paris (Festiwal Signes de Nuit) Signs Award in the Full Feature Documentary Category When I Am A Bird Lubljana (Festival of Migrant Film) Special Mention When I Am A Bird Łódź, Media Festival Man in Danger, Special Award of The President of Polish Filmmakers Association Łódź Models Koszalin (The European Film Festival Integration You and Me ) Special Mention

7 ABOUT THE PRODUCER Executive Director and Board Member of Wajda School Foundation and Wajda Studio ( ). Producer, executive producer or co-producer of the Studio s documentary films: festival-awarded documentaries such as When I Am a Bird by Monika Pawluczuk, Loosing Sonia by Radka Franczak or North from Kalabria by Marcin Sauter, fiction feature length projects such as Sanctuary by Norah McGettigan (Polish Irish coproduction), Christening (co-producer) by Marcin Wrona, and many successful shorts. Katarzyna s recent projects include documentary medium-length film End of the world by Monika Pawluczuk, feature documentary K2. Touching the Sky by Eliza Kubarska, produced for HBO, Demon, a fiction film by Marcin Wrona (as co-producer) and Performer by Łukasz Ronduda and Maciej Sobieszczanski (as executive producer), premiered at the 44th IFF in Rotterdam and winning the prestigious THINK: FILM AWARD at the 65th IFF in Berlin. Katarzyna runs also (with Andrzej Mellin) the Creative Producers Programme at Wajda School, a year-round training for up and coming film professionals, and DocLab Poland at Władysław Ślesicki Foundation, a consulting and pitching programme for documentary projects in development and rough cut stage. Both programs, addressed to emerging producers and directors, are aiming to make a difference in a way of film making of tomorrow.

8 PRODUCTION COMPANY WAJDA STUDIO, a production outlet based in Warsaw, Poland, was founded in 2001 by two 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 makes a difference through artistic supervision 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 twice been awarded the Best Documentary and Short Films Producer prize at the Krakow Film Festival, in 2008 and The Wajda Studio is the co-producer of the film Christening by Marcin Wrona (international film premiere at the IFF in Toronto 2010). In autumn 2012, cinemas in Poland screened the latest feature from the Studio an Irish-Polish co-production directed by Norah McGettigan entitled Sanctuary. In 2013 Wajda Studio produced Joanna, a documentary directed by Aneta Kopacz, that went on the be on the most awarded Polish documentaries of the decade and got nominated for an Academy Award Oscar in the Best Short Subject Category. In 2015 the newest Wajda Studio Performer, an ambitious visual experiment directed by Maciej Sobieszczański and Łukasz Ronduda premiered at the 44th IFF in Rotterdam and went on to winning the prestigious THINK: FILM AWARD at the 65th IFF in Berlin. More at:

9 CREDITS 2015, Poland, 40 Directing Screenplay Cinematography Editing Sound Mix Music Producer Co-producer Production Co-production Partners Support Monika Pawluczuk Monika Pawluczuk Małgorzata Szyłak, Szymon Lenkowski, Jakub Giza, Michał Dymek Agnieszka Glińska, Marcin Latanik Radosław Ochnio Mikołaj Trzaska Katarzyna Ślesicka Monika Pawluczuk Wajda Studio Telewizja Polska S.a., City Of Lodz, West Pomeranian Film Fund Pomerania Film Trailer & More, Municipal Cultural Centre Bydgoszcz Polish Film Institute

10 CONTACT END OF THE WORLD contact at Wajda Studio: PRESS & PR MANAGER Katarzyna Grynienko, Wajda Studio, MORE INFO Facebook Twitter Info & Press kit