Wojtek Smarzowski will receive the Golden Angel of Tofifest for artistic insolence
He is the embodiment of the notion of “rebellion”. His each successive film is a shock to audiences, and at the same a masterpiece of cinema. Wojciech Smarzowski is a film director that will leave nobody indifferent. And this is why he will receive a special Golden Angel for artistic insolence at the 14th edition of the Tofifest International Film Festival.
The only thing that best describes the director of The Wedding (2004), The Dark House (2009), Rose (2011), Traffic Department (2012), The Mighty Angel (2014), and Wolyn/Hatred (2016) is “a very rebellious film director”! More than that, he is a genius of Polish cinema, without any doubt. And that is the very reason that Kafka Jaworska, director of Tofifest, has decided to award him the most important festival prize, i.e. the Golden Angel for artistic insolence.
Wojciech Smarzowski is not a person, who likes to boast about what he does. He is not always an easy interlocutor, or likes to speak at length about his inspirations, because he speaks through his films, as he said at Tofifest, two years ago.
He sees a film as a task from the realm of life and death: “Doing something just for the sake of doing it? It’s a waste of time. I make money somewhere else and I treat each film, as if it would be my last one,” he explained to Tadeusz Sobolewski from “Gazeta Wyborcza” daily.
His cinema breaks conventions, mixes styles and orders of things, and strips people naked, in a manner that is far from humanism. His films are disturbingly open. When you have seen any of his films, you will not find easy answers, and nothing will be black and white, so to speak.
His first step was The Wedding
His first success came with The Wedding. The film won four awards at the Gdynia Film Festival, four Eagle Awards, as well as one award in Cottbus and one in Locarno. His successive film, Rose, brought him a true avalanche of awards. The film is a story about two people hurt by war – it won as many as six Golden Lions at the Gdynia Film Festival, as well as won the Grand Prix at the Warsaw Film Festival, and dominated the Ceremony of Polish Film Awards: Eagles (the film received seven awards).
In Traffic Department, which is considered as “taking a break from tough subjects”, the director delivered a perfect vivisection of the community of police officers. Then, he returned with The Mighty Angel, which was an adaptation of a novel by Jerzy Pilch, and won the Silver Lion Award, an award for best soundtrack (awarded to Mikolaj Trzaska), and for best editing (awarded to Pawel Laskowski).
Hatred
This year, he has released his latest film, Hatred, which portrays massacres of Poles in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. It is a grand and brilliant piece of cinema, and definitely the best historic film that has been made since 1989. It is dedicated to the ethnic cleansing operation committed by Ukrainian nationalists (Ukrainian Insurgent Army – UPA) on the Polish people living in Volhynia and Eastern Galicia. The film will certainly have its permanent place in the history of Polish cinema.
Wojciech Smarzowski will receive the Golden Angel for artistic insolence on 15th October, 2016 (Saturday), during the Opening Ceremony of the Tofifest International Film Festival 2016, at the Cultural and Congress Centre Jordanki. One day later, on 16th October (Sunday), there will be a meeting with the director, held at the Academic Centre of Culture and Art “Od Nowa”, at 1:00 p.m. Admission to the meeting is free.
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