Piotr Stasik's latest documentary OPERA ABOUT POLAND won the competition "Between the Seas" at the prestigious Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival, Czech Republic. The film is running at the FFC in the section Polskie Horyzonty. It was invited to Cottbus shortly after its Polish premiere at the T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival in Wrocław in July.
The impressive audiovisual essay depicts the state of the nation with artistic images and an electrifying soundtrack and does not quite uncritically search for the emotional core of the "Polish". An approach similar to that of a similar film from 1976: Wojciech Wiszniewski's THE PRIMER reflects the state of social awareness in Poland with a comparable techniqe. Dorota Wardęszkiewicz, who was responsible for the editing of both films, is expected as a guest in Cottbus alongside Stasik.
The five-member jury in Jihlava around the French film theorist Nicole Brenez and the Ukrainian festival curator Illia Gladshtein, c-founder of the Festival of Film and Urbanism in Slavutych, Ukraine, justified their decision pointedly: "World emergency! Hysterical analysis. Destructive mosaic. Heretic essay. Audio attack. Anti-catharsis."
OPERA ABOUT POLAND and THE PRIMER are running in the program "Reflections on Poland" on Fri, 10th Nov at 18:00 in the Kammerbühne.
More information about the Jihlava International Documentary Film Festival: www.ji-hlava.com