director Jan Jakub Kolski
screenplay (based on the short story ‘The One from Hamburg’ by Hanna Krall) Cezary Harasimowicz
director of photography Arkadiusz Tomiak
music Michał Lorenc
with Dorota Landowska, Dominika Ostałowska, Bartosz Opania, Krzysztof Pieczyński, Karolina Gruszka
awards (selection) Eagle, Polish Film Award for Best Actress (Dominka Ostałowska), 2001
Best Supporting Actor (Krzysztof Pieczyński), Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction (Michał Hrisulidis), Best Costume Design (Małgorzata Zacharska) and Young Jury Prize at the 25th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, 2000
award for music at the National Film Art Festival ‘Provincionality’ in Września, 2001
Golden Film (Złota Taśma), award of the Writers Association SFP (together with ‘Life As a Fatal Sexually Transmitted Disease’), 2001
Golden Duck (Złota Kaczka), ‘Film’ magazine Readers Award for music, 2001
[DIALOGUE FROM THE FILM]
Regina: I gave birth to you, that’s true. I had to. I… had to do everything. I wanted to live. I don’t wish to know anything about your father. Helusia: He died. Three years ago. Regina: I don’t wish to remember him. I don’t wish to remember those times. I don’t wish to remember you. For you remind me, remind me of everything. The fear, the shame, the darkness. I don’t wish to, I don’t! Helusia: Tell me… tell me who you are? Regina: Who am I? A widow.
TADEUSZ LUBELSKI, CLOSED IN THE WARDROBE [ZAMKNIĘTE W SZAFIE], ‘KINO’, 2000, NO. 11
The new film from Jan Jakub Kolski would not have been made if, it were not for one of the topics in our literature of the 1990’s: Hanna Krall’s artistic prose about the survivors of the Holocaust (…). The change in the situation results from the reversal of the narrative perspective: from external into internal. This was underlined by the writer herself, satisfied with the film, who said that Kolski had proposed a new perception of the Holocaust – from the inside. [It serves] to deepen the relations between the protagonists (…). Kolski forces us to feel, even if only to some degree, the same way they feel. This film, although refraining from direct appeals to emotions, sinks into the mind and stays in for a long time.
history periods
