CAMERIMAGE 2016 SPECIAL SCREENINGS

Friday October 21st, 2016

For many years Special Screenings have been organized at Camerimage. This section presents the most interesting out-of-competition productions from all over the world and is always one of the most attractive at the Festival.

Barney's Version

Barney Panofsky is not a particularly nice guy, unless you give him something to drink and a good cigar to smoke, though it is entirely possible that it will make him even more unpleasant. Barney has not achieved anything memorable in his life. He did not enjoy success as a TV producer because of his lack of talent and good taste. He could not make any of his three wives stay with him, although they all loved him for some reason at one point or another. Because of his behaviour, he did not make many friends, and his best pal was a drug addict who died in mysterious circumstances. One could even say that the protagonist of Barney’s Versionis a kind of loser who has tried his whole life to make something worth being excited about, but has always been his greatest enemy in doing so. The film is narrated by the old Barney, who reminisces about his life, and because the guy clearly has a talent for telling stories about his own failures, it is difficult not to empathise with the character in them.

Polish title: Świat według Barneya
Director: Richard J. Lewis
Cinematographer: Guy Dufaux

Produced by: The Harold Greenberg Fund, Serendipity Point Films, Optix Digital Pictures

Polish distributor: SPI International Poland Sp. z o. o.
Canada, Italy, 2010

Birth of a Nation, The

The Birth of a Nation is partially based on real events, partially dramatized – the tale of the two-day rebellion by black slaves led by Nat Turner that ended in the slaughter of both the guilty and the innocent. At the same time, it was the first decisive signal to white plantation owners that America was ready for a change. Thirty years later, this fact was confirmed by the Civil War. The film narrates the story of Turner’s life; his birth, growing up with the Bible in his hand, and gradual assumption of the responsibility for leading the angry, degraded, tortured, raped people who could no live longer as slaves. A century after D. W. Griffith’s controversial The Birth of a Nation, in which black Americans were still treated as subhuman, the new The Birth of a Nation takes up the perspective of those whose voices were ignored for too long. The film brings back to light the memory of an event that was important to the creation of America’s national identity, but that has largely been forgotten.

Polish title: Narodziny narodu
Director: Nate Parker
Cinematographer: Elliot Davis

Produced by: Phantom Four, Bron Studios, Mandalay Pictures, Tiny Giant Entertainment, Creative Wealth Media Finance, Argent Pictures, Follow Through Productions, Hit 55 Ventures, Infinity United Entertainment, Juniper Productions, Novofam Productions, Oster Media, Point Made Films

Polish distributor: Imperial CinePix Sp. z o. o.
USA, 2016

Café Society

New York, the 1930s. Bobby is a young and naive dreamer who imagines his life as something more than just a series of predictable years in the Bronx, devoid of any excitement. He therefore follows his heart and goes to the only place in America in which dreams supposedly do come true every single day – Hollywood. However, Bobby has the advantage of having an uncle who is an agent for the biggest stars, so he soon begins to swiftly climb the film industry’s ladder. At the same time he falls in love with a girl, beautiful yet already disillusioned with Hollywood’s glamour, who makes him see things in a new light. However, before Bobby understands who he really is and how he would actually like his life to be, he will experience firsthand that not all dreams should be fulfilled and that, indeed, all is fair in love. Café Society is a bittersweet tale of becoming an adult in a world full of illusions, and of the illusions of becoming an adult.

Polish title: Śmietanka towarzyska
Director: Woody Allen
Cinematographer: Vittorio Storaro

Produced by: Gravier Productions, Inc. for release by Amazon Studios/Lionsgate

Polish distributor: KINO ŚWIAT Sp. z o. o.
USA, 2016

Deepwater Horizon

Deepwater Horizon is a true story of the events leading to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and the subsequent oil spill (the largest in the history of the United States) in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. However, rather than narrating the effects of the ecological disaster, the film focuses on the rig workers who were forced to fight for their survival in a trap of extreme proportions, surrounded by millions of tons of water, all while struggling with mud, fire, and oil. The external conditions make it impossible for the rescue team to get there on time. The survivors, over a hundred people led by Mike Williams, make a desperate attempt to escape from the red-hot prison and return safely to their families. But the situation is getting worse by the minute. A riveting disaster movie that begins by bringing the audience closer to the oil rig workers, depicting the hardships of their everyday lives, only to throw them into the middle of a fiery hell.

Polish title: Żywioł. Deepwater Horizon
Director: Peter Berg
Cinematographer: Enrique Chediak

Produced by: Participant Media, Di Bonaventura Pictures, Summit Entertainment LLC, Closest to the Hole Productions, Leverage Entertainment, TIK Film

Polish distributor: Monolith Films Sp. z o. o.
USA, 2016

Killing Jesus

The film adaptation of a book by Bill O’Reilly, the popular journalist and television host professionally known for his work on Fox News. It tells the story of the birth, life, and death of Jesus Christ by focusing on the cultural clashes and the difficult political relations between the Roman authorities and Jewish patriarchs. The film makes a conscious effort to concentrate on the social and historical background of the familiar tale, as well as on depicting Jesus more as a human preacher bringing the message of love and forgiveness in times in which there was too little of them. The result is that Christ’s image differs from the one shown in the most notable religious film productions. Regardless of what the viewer’s faith is – whether you are deeply religious, a hard-core atheist, or you would like to believe but cannot find a reason to – Killing Jesus is one of those films which will always provoke a debate.

Polish title: Zabić Jezusa
Director: Chris Menaul
Cinematographer: Ousama Rami

Produced by: Scott Free Productions, Dune Films

Polish distributor: FOX International Channels Poland Sp. z o. o.
USA, 2015

Light Between Oceans, The

Tom Sherbourne returns to his native Australia, shell-shocked after what he had to endure in the trenches of World War I. He desperately seeks a job of silence and tranquillity, so he agrees to keep tend a lighthouse on the island of Janus Rock, supplied only once every couple of months by a small ship. Before Tom gets to his asylum on the edge of the human world, he falls in love with the young and spontaneous Isabel. Some time later they get married and begin to build their new life around the lighthouse and the adjacent house. They live by the rhythm of the tides, though still subject to personal tragedies, until the day they find a boat washed ashore containing a man’s dead body and a barely alive infant. They decide to keep the baby and not to reveal the truth to anyone. The Light Between Oceans is a poignant melodrama about making decisions and accepting their consequences, and a universal tale of the desires, joys, and weaknesses that fill human hearts.

Polish title: Światło między oceanami
Director: Derek Cianfrance
Cinematographer: Adam Arkapaw

Produced by: Heyday Films, Touchstone Pictures, Reliance Entertainment - Big Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, Participant Media, DreamWorks SKG, LBO Productions

Polish distributor: Monolith Films Sp. z o. o.
USA, 2015

Naked lunch

Secret agents, government conspiracies, accidental murders, doppelgängers of dead wives, huge talking insects, creepy typewriters, and many other things that exist in the mind of an exterminator who has overdosed on insect powder and lost the ability to differentiate between reality and the creation of his tainted imagination. But what if William Lee really has experienced all of this, but has been made a scapegoat by the people from the mysterious Interzone who do not want the world to know of their existence? This hallucinogenic, meta-textual, narratively elaborate, often loose on cause-and-effect relations, film adaptation of the cult novel by William S. Burroughs was considered unfilmable. This is a tale of a drug-induced flow of creativity and a narcotic haze blurring the distinction between reality and nightmare. A unique journey into the mouth of madness, as well as one of the films you do not have to understand to lose yourself in – or to be afraid of.

Polish title: Nagi lunch
Director: David Cronenberg
Cinematographer: Peter Suschitzky

Produced by: Téléfilm Canada, The Ontario Film Development Corporation, Recorded Picture Company (RPC)

Polish distributor: Solopan Sp. z o. o.
Canada, Japan, UK, 1991

On the Silver Globe

A group of astronauts leave the Earth with the hope of starting a new civilisation on some distant planet, free from the problems and faulty systems of the one they decided to escape. They are successful in their endeavour, at least in the beginning. Yet, as their children grow up, the endless cycle begins anew. The last of the astronauts dies, aware that the shipmates’ ideals have failed. Some time after, the planet is visited by another man from the Earth. He is almost instantly announced as the messiah who will bring an end to the slavery of humans to the planet’s native inhabitants. Only the viewer is able to appreciate the bitter irony of it all. On the Silver Globe is a visionary Polish science-fiction film which was never finished in the way the director wanted it to be due to the political climate in the country at the time. Today, it can be experienced in a version that has some scenes shot eleven years after the production halted, emphasising the uniqueness of the whole project.

Polish title: Na srebrnym globie
Director: Andrzej Żuławski
Cinematographer: Andrzej J. Jaroszewicz

Produced by: Studio Filmowe KADR

Polish distributor: Studio Filmowe KADR
Poland, 1987

Paterson

Photo Credit Mary Cybulski

Every bus driver can become a poet, if only they have enough talent and strong will, but not every poet can become a bus driver. Paterson, the main character of Paterson, a drama set in the small American town of... Paterson, is actually both. Driving through the sleepy streets, he observes the people he passes by, as well as his bus’s passengers, only to fill blank pages with poems that begin to emerge in his head later on. All of this enables him to keep the desired rhythm to his life, one of numerous daily routines along with an occasional surprise. The latter comes mainly in the form of his energetic and creative wife, who would like to do many things at the same time, but ultimately can’t stick to any of them. The film’s narrative takes the viewer to a world of normal people with normal problems, and will not make friends with viewers looking for action and snappy dialogue, though it can inspire you to stop for a while, take a look around, and appreciate the beauty of the surrounding world.

Polish title: Paterson
Director: Jim Jarmusch
Cinematographer: Frederick K. Elmes

Produced by: K5 Filmproduktion, Amazon Studios, Animal Kingdom Films, Le Pacte, Inkjet Productions

Polish distributor: GUTEK Film Sp. z o. o.
USA, Germany, France, 2016

Swiss Army Man

Due to a series of tragic events, Hank finds himself stranded on a desert island. When he loses all hope of being rescued, he decides to hang himself, but just before he finishes the act he notices a young man’s corpse lying on the beach. A corpse, one might add, that is moving around due to spasms caused by intestinal gases. What can Hank do in such an absurd, dead-end situation? He throws away his provisional gallows, takes the farting corpse out to open sea, and rides it, like an amazing water scooter, to the mainland. Strange? That is only the beginning of the surrealistic odyssey during which Hank and Manny – seeing as the colder of the mismatched duo ultimately begins to talk, and quite sensibly at times – experience many exciting adventures, while learning that a human body can become a multifunctional tool for a survivor’s everyday needs. Despite all of the madness that happens on screen, Swiss Army Man is a surprisingly deep film about the frailty of human nature.

Original title: Swiss Army Man
Director: Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert
Cinematographer: Larkin Seiple

Produced by: Cold Iron Pictures, Blackbird Films, Tadmor
USA, 2016