Rezerwat

This film was shown in Romania as part of the European Film Festival week. This story of everyday life in Praga, a near-slum district in Warsaw, is true, honest and very powerful. The photographer seems to be the only "normal" person in a scenario populated by street urchins who are expert thieves, a bunch of vodka-swilling but friendly drunks, a hairdresser who runs a brothel and is regularly beaten up by her lover, a violent criminal on parole, an ex-cop, a newsagent who knows all the local gossip, a head-butting bouncer, and three camera-snapping Japanese tourists who seek out the low life with great enthusiasm. The photographer has to make moral compromises right through the film, and turns on the smooth businessmen who employ him. Overwhelming and highly recommended.

This film is cinema as it best. Solid story, great characters, tight direction...all forces working for one goal...tell a good story. All in this film is so believable as the depiction of a poor neighborhood in Warsaw is depicted with extreme good sense, passion and humanity. Marcin Kwasny shows here enormous potential as actor and I believe that he will be one of the great Polish actors of this new generation. The perfect characterization of Prague neighborhood and the fact that he is co-writer makes me think that the actor/screenwriter has a true knowledge of what that place is all about. "Truth" is what breathes in every pore of this film and that is what makes him so special and unique. It's a movie to write a lot about it...just pick it up, and let the ride begin :) One last comment to the brave actress Sonia. She is amazing!!!

The movie is based on real experience of the main actor. Young photographer, kicked out by his girlfriend is forced to move in to a ruined house in Praga district of Warsaw. Of course he is shocked since the life there differs from the posh center of the Polish capital. The owner of the flat asks him to prepare photos documenting the house and its neighborhood to claim funds for its renovation. He starts his assignment and takes photos of the house and the people living there, their drinking, quarrels, kids playing football, house falling apart etc. He of course faces some problems, especially with a little hooligan who steals his camera. The plot gets complicated when the boy gets hit by a car and when it appears that the owner does not want to renovate the house but demolish it. The movie shows such things which one normally does not see while visiting Warsaw, true "rezerwat". People are living in a rally bad conditions, but they have something that others do not have - feeling of community and belonging somewhere.