News

Delivery by Christmas (Jeszcze przed swietami) is a comedy movie starring Monika Frajczyk and directed by Aleksandra Kulakowska and Maciej Prykowski.

A comedy that fuses social realism with the Christmas spirit, in this story of a corporate mix-up.

Premise

Marysia’s career as a courier is on line as a spiteful coworker sabotages her deliveries. Thankfully, a helpful customer comes to the rescue.

Movie Review

Very paced and different to the customary Christmas numbers we are used to see. A genuinely Polish, European movie that distances itself from Hollywood, as you will see in the characterizations, which are more realistic and natural. But, that does not stand in the way for the “magic” that is so characteristic of Christmas rom-coms.

With some deadpan schticks pulled off by good performers it lightens the mood of the film. A comedy that pokes fun at everything quotidian.

This is not a formulaic Christmas movie,...

A first trailer has been unveiled for Toronto selection “Salt Lake,” Kasia Rosłaniec’s exploration of late-life desire and emancipation.

In the film, 64-year-old Helena announces her intention to pursue sexual experiences with other men – much to the shock of her husband of 40 years. The cast includes Katarzyna Butowtt, Krzysztof Stelmaszyk, Adam Ferency, Dorota Kolak, Dagmara Krasowska, Judyta Paradzińska and Jacek Poniedziałek.

The film will screen at Toronto as part of Industry Selects – 10 titles chosen by festival programmers for their sales potential. It is produced by Warsaw-based Mañana in co-production with Common Ground Pictures from Gothenburg, Sweden, the partners behind “United States of Love,” which won a Silver Bear at Berlin in 2016. The project was presented at the Berlinale coproduction market 2020, received a Creative Europe – Media development grant and Polish Film Institute production support. “Salt Lake” will be released in Poland in spring 2023.

Rosłaniec’s feature debut was “Mall Girls,...

Spoiler Alert: Do not read if you intend to watch the film.

Berlinale Silver Bear winner Tomasz Wasilewski isn’t afraid of the subject of his latest film “Fools,” even though he focuses on an incestuous relationship between a mother and a son, played by Dorota Kolak and Łukasz Simlat.

“It was never my intention to shock anyone. I just wanted to tell the story of the hardest love of all,” the Polish director tells Variety.

“Fools,” produced by Extreme Emotions and lensed by Romanian Dp Oleg Mutu, is set to premiere in Karlovy Vary Film Festival’s new section Proxima. New Europe Film Sales is handling the sales.

“I was wondering what would happen if someone close to me came to me now, saying they were in a similar relationship. I guess, and I can only guess, that at this point in my life, it wouldn’t be a problem,...

Polish filmmaker’s latest work world premieres at Karlovy Vary.

Fools is the latest feature from Polish filmmaker Tomasz Wasilewski whose previous films include Floating Skyscrapers and United States Of Love, which won the Silver Bear for best script at the 2016 Berlinale.

Fools is debuting in the Proxima competition at Karlovy Vary, and centres around a couple, played by Dorota Kolak and Lukasz Simlat, who live a contentedly secluded lifestyle in a house by the coast. But when the woman brings her sick son to come and live with them, the façade of their relationship begins to crumble around them...

Tomasz Wasilewski’s “Fools” (Głupcy) has debuted its trailer ahead of its world premiere at Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Proxima Competition. World sales are being handled by Jan Naszewski’s New Europe Film Sales.

Wasilewski won the best script award for “United States of Love” at the Berlin Film Festival in 2016, and the East of West Award at Karlovy Vary in 2013 for “Floating Skyscrapers.”

“Fools” follows Marlena and Tomasz, hidden away from the world in a small seaside town, who have been in a happy relationship for many years. Their intricately woven everyday life slowly begins to unravel when, against Tomasz’s wishes, Marlena allows her sick son to move in with them. As the past comes back to them in full force they will have to redefine their love, choices and life.

Karlovy Vary’s Lenka Tyrpáková commented: “After the triumph of his previous film ‘United States of Love,...

French distributor Arp has acquired the rights to “Fools,” an upcoming drama by Berlinale Silver Bear winner Tomasz Wasilewski (“United States of Love”). Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales brokered the deal.

“Fools” is the story of Marlena and Tomasz, who are hidden away from the world in a small seaside town and have been in a happy relationship for many years. But when Marlena allows her son to move in with them against Tomasz’s will, the past comes back to haunt them, and their intricately woven everyday life slowly begins to come apart.

“We were extremely impressed by the powerful way the director brings us along with him on such a powerful journey,” said Arp’s Michele Halberstadt. “The film is beautifully composed, and the lead actress is just mesmerizing. It is the kind of film that commands you to watch it. Tough at times,...

Fools

Poland’s Tomasz Wasilewski should be ready with his fourth feature Fools in 2021, a Polish-German-Romanian co-production produced by Ewa Puszczyńska and Ada Solomon. Dorota Kolak and Lukasz Simlat star in the lead roles, while New Romanian Wave stalwart Oleg Muntu serves as cinematographer. Katarzyna Herman, who starred in the director’s first two features is also in the cast.…...

Jan Naszewski’s Warsaw-based sales outlet New Europe Film Sales has picked up world sales rights for the upcoming drama “Fools,” by Berlinale Silver Bear winner Tomasz Wasilewski (“United States of Love”), produced by Ewa Puszczynska, the producer behind Pawel Pawlikowski’s Oscar-winner “Ida” and nominee “Cold War.”

Leading Polish actors Dorota Kolak and Lukasz Simlat star in a film about the difficult relationship between a mother and son, and how their choices have dramatic consequences.

Puszczynska is producing for her company Extreme Emotions, in co-production with Ada Solomon at Romania’s Hi-Film and Jamila Wenske of Germany’s One Two Films, and in association with Nem Corp. Romanian DoP Oleg Mutu returns after his previous collaboration with Wasilewski on “United States of Love,” which New Europe sold to over 30 territories.

New Europe’s Cannes line-up includes the Critics’ Week selection “A White, White Day,” by Hlynur Palmason, which sold...

Four women living in Poland as the Soviet empire falls are oppressed by joyless sex and yearning in Tomasz Wasilewski’s unnervingly sad and icy film

Tomasz Wasilewski brings an icy compositional control to this piercingly sad, strange and unnerving film, about a quartet of lives immersed in toxic obsession and thwarted erotic yearning. It concludes on a stab of what I can only describe as horror and despair. This film is not here to make you feel good. But it has a soap-operatic watchability. Poland in 1990 is the setting, just as the Soviet empire is collapsing. But so far from experiencing a liberation, the characters are only further oppressed by inner desperation, and the title is not entirely ironic. They are in fact “united” by very similar symptoms. There is a kind of eroticised sickness in the air, a compulsive, joyless need for sex. Agata (Julia Kijowska) has a...

Certain Women: Wasilewski Explores Enlightenment and Despair

It was 1990, and the climate was changing. Or so begins Polish director Tomas Wasilewski’s third feature, United States of Love, which chooses to focus on four somewhat related women from the same apartment complex during significant political changes during the dissolution of the Soviet bloc. Accompanying their growing sense of freedom is a nagging element of dissatisfaction as they attempt to pursue fantasies and desires, often resulting in a disquieting mix of euphoria and despair. Arrestingly photographed in flat, sterile palettes with intermittent splotches of vibrant color, theirs is a universe just experiencing the tingle of life following deadening paralysis, with emotions like reawakened limbs still struggling to obtain an originally appointed purpose. Coldly observational, the film is sometimes curiously unsympathetic in its depiction of women experiencing glancing notions of freedom but hopelessly realized they’re still chained to incredibly limiting options.

It’s the dawn of a new era in ’90s Poland. The Wall is no more; ideas, news, and commodities from the West are coming in hard and fast, along with messages from family members working in West Germany, taped-over pornos on VHS. Yet those vague promises of freedom also reveal a disquieting undercurrent and the sense that, whatever the future may bring, there’s a harsh present that still needs to be reckoned with.

This is especially apparent in the isolated town that Tomasz Wasilewski picks as the setting of his austerely accomplished third feature United States of Love — removed from the city and shot grey-on-grey against miles of wintry landscapes, these apartment complexes feel like a world of their own. A world that those seeking change, consciously or otherwise, will also find capable of oppressively folding onto itself.

Perfectly summed up by the local priest (“Lord, I bring to you my narrow borders.

As if new films from the Coens and Jeff Nichols weren’t enough, the 2016 Berlin Film Festival has further expanded their line-up, adding some of our most-anticipated films of the year. Mia Hansen-Løve, following up her incredible, sadly overlooked drama Eden, will premiere the Isabelle Huppert-led Things to Come, while Thomas Vinterberg, Lav Diaz, André Téchiné, and many more will stop by with their new features. Check out the new additions below, followed by some previously announced films, notably John Michael McDonagh‘s War on Everyone.

Competition

Cartas da guerra (Letters from War)

Portugal

By Ivo M. Ferreira (Na Escama do Dragão)

With Miguel Nunes, Margarida Vila-Nova

World premiere

Ejhdeha Vared Mishavad! (A Dragon Arrives!)

Iran

By Mani Haghighi (Modest Reception, Men at Work)

With Amir Jadidi, Homayoun Ghanizadeh, Ehsan Goudarzi, Kiana Tajammol

International premiere

Fuocoammare (Fire at Sea) – documentary

Italy / France

By Gianfranco Rosi (Sacro Gra, El Sicario...

New titles from Thomas Vinterberg, Mia Hansen-Løve, Danis Tanovic, Lav Diaz and Gianfranco Rosi among line-up.Scroll down for full list

Berlin International Film Festival (Feb 11-21) has added nine titles to its Competition line-up, bringing the current total to 14 (the full Competition programme will be announced soon, according to the fest).

The new additions include The Commune, marking the first time Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (The Hunt, Far From The Madding Crowd) has been in Competition at Berlin since Submarino in 2010. The film centres on a Danish commune in the 1970s and will be released in Denmark this weekend (Jan 14).

French director Mia Hansen-Løve (Eden) has been selected with her drama Things to Come, starring Isabelle Huppert as a woman embarking on a new life after her husband leaves her for another woman. The film will world premiere at Berlin.

Another world premiere will be documentary Fire at Sea, capturing life on...

The Santa Barbara International Film Festival has unveiled its 2015 line-up which includes films representing 54 countries, 23 world premieres and 53 U.S. premieres. The U.S. premiere of Niki Caro’s McFarland USA will close out the 30th fest. Based on the 1987 true story and starring Kevin Costner and Maria Bello, the film follows novice runners from McFarland, an economically challenged town in California’s farm-rich Central Valley, as they give their all to build a cross-country team under the direction of Coach Jim White (Costner), a newcomer to their predominantly Latino high school. The unlikely band of runners overcomes the odds to forge not only a championship cross-country team but an enduring legacy as well.

The festival runs from January 27-February 7.

Below is the list of World and U.S. Premiere films followed by the list of titles by sidebar categories.

World Premieres

A Better You, USA

Directed by Matt Walsh

Cast: Brian Huskey,...

A self-acknowledged "showcase for Academy Award frontrunners," the Santa Barbara International Film Festival is often overlooked for the actual films that earn it festival status. An amalgamation of international discoveries and ’merica’s circuit highlights, the Sbiff curates a week of best-of-the-best to pair with their star-praising. The 2015 edition offers another expansive selection, bookended by two films that aren’t on any radars just yet. Sbiff will open with "Desert Dancer," producer Richard Raymond’s directorial debut. Starring Reece Ritchie and Frieda Pinto, the drama follows a group of friends who wave off the harsh political climate of Iran’s 2009 presidential election in favor of forming a dance team, picking up moves from Michael Jackson, Gene Kelly and Rudolf Nureyev thanks to the magic of YouTube. The festival will close with "McFarland, USA," starring Kevin Costner and Maria Bello. Telling the 1987 true story of a Latino high school’s underdog cross-country team,...