News

Mubi Swoops For Andrea Arnold’s ‘Bird’

Mubi has acquired UK and Ireland rights to Bird, the Andrea Arnold feature that is getting its world premiere in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Written and directed by Arnold, the pic stars Barry Keoghan, Franz Rogowski (Passages, Great Freedom), and newcomers Nykiya Adams and Jason Buda. The plot follows a 12-year-old girl, Bailey, who lives with her dad and brother in a squat in north Kent in southern England. As her dad has little time for his kids, Bailey seeks attention and adventure elsewhere. BBC Studios-owned House Productions made the film, which was shot in the UK around the Kent area. Tessa Ross, Juliette Howell and Lee Groombridge are the producers. Financiers include BBC Film, the BFI through National Lottery funding), Pinky Promise, FirstGen Content and Access Entertainment. Cornerstone is handling international sales and distribution, striking the deal with Mubi.

Exclusive: Disney+ is moving into originals in the Central and Eastern Europe region with a green light for Polish drama Breslau (working title). The drama will follow a police officer investigating an horrific killing and production is underway, Deadline has learned.

The cast includes Tomasz Schuchardt (You are God), Agata Kulesza (Ida), and Sandra Drzymalska (Filip). Leszek Dawid (My Name Is Ki) directs from Bartosz Janiszewski and Magdalena Żakowska’s script.

The eight-part crime drama is set in 1936 in Breslau (the German name for the Polish city of Wrocław). It will tell the story of a commissioner Franz Podolsky, who investigates a brutal murder. Because of the upcoming Olympic Games, the pressure is on to catch the murderer.

“This is an important moment for Disney+ in Poland,” said Magdalena Cieslak, Director Original Productions Disney+ in Cee. “It’s our first Original production in Central and Eastern Europe and we are excited that such talented,...

Agnieszka Holland’s refugee drama The Green Border has taken the top prize for best film at the Polish Film Awards. The black-and-white feature, which looks at the inhumane treatment of refugees trying to cross the natural border between Belarus and Poland, premiered to critical acclaim at the Venice Film Festival last year but came under attack from Poland’s far-right government, which called the movie “Nazi propaganda” for its supposedly negative depiction of Polish police and border guards. The political attacks are thought to have influenced the Polish Oscar committee’s decision not to put Green Border forward as Poland’s best international film contender this year, instead selecting Dk and Hugh Welchman’s Hugh animated literary adaptation The Peasants (which did not get nominated).

But a lot has changed in Poland since. Parliamentary elections last October ousted the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which had ruled for 8 years,...

Closing ceremony of festival in Gdynia sees Polish film community speak up against “awful hatred” directed at Holland in recent weeks.

Pawel Maslona’s second feature Scarborn (Kos) won the Grand Prix - Golden Lion at the 48th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia whose closing ceremony saw the Polish film community express their solidarity with Agnieszka Holland in the light of the vociferous political campaign against her and her film The Green Border.

In his acceptance speech, Maslona spoke out against the “awful hatred” directed at Holland in recent weeks and noted that, despite Poland being a country with a strong Christian faith,...

Danger Zone

Director: Vita Maria Drygas

Producer: Vita Żelakeviciute

Production companies: Drygas Film Production

Sales: Dogwoof

Documentary is a journey to places devastated by military conflicts, seen through the eyes of thrill-seeking tourists.

Delegation

(Generation 14plus)

Director: Asaf Saban

Cast: Yoav Bavly, Neomi Harari, Leib Lev Levin, Ezra Dagan, Alma Dishy

Producers: Agnieszka Dziedzic, Yoav Roeh, Aurit Zamir, Roshanak Behesht Nedjad

Production companies: Koi Studio, Gum Films, In Good Co.

Sales: New Europe Film Sales

Three Israeli friends visit Holocaust sites in Poland before their stints in the army, and deal with love, friendship and politics.

Disco Boy

(Competition)

Director: Giacomo Abbruzzese

Cast: Franz Rogowski, Morr Ndiaye, Laëtitia Ky, Leon Lučev

Producers: Lionel Massol, Pauline Seigland

Production companies: Films Grand Huit, Dugong Films, Panache Productions, La Compagnie Cinématographique, Donten & Lacroix, Division

Sales: Charades

Aleksei reaches Paris to enlist in the French Foreign Legion, which allows any foreigner, even undocumented, to be granted a French passport.

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,...

Warning! This article contains Spoilers for Netflix's High WaterNetflix’s High Water is based on the true story of Wroclaw’s 1997 flood, also known as the Central European Flood, and it's exemplary in its accuracy in depicting the events leading up to and during the disaster. Wroclaw is the capital of the Lower Silesian Voivodeship, a province in southwestern Poland, and was hit especially hard by the historic weather event. Sometimes called the Millennium Flood because of its rarity, the rising waters put 40 percent of the city underwater while also hitting Germany and the Czech Republic.

The Netflix Original TV show is laudable for its authenticity in depicting the local efforts to mitigate the flooding from July 7 through July 12, 1997. For Netflix to popularize such a story and share it with other nations is an important factor in global empathy, so that viewers gain a better understanding of the world beyond their immediate experience.

Exclusive: Netflix’s Director of Local Language Originals for the Cee, Anna Nagler, has outlined the streamer’s ambitions in region, as its biggest drama series from the region, High Water, launches globally today.

In an exclusive interview, Nagler said the streamer’s “doors are open” to creatives and their ideas in Central and Eastern Europe, as Netflix pushes into original shows from international territories despite the company’s well-documented stock price drop this year.

This comes after Netflix opened its regional Cee office in Poland this year. Since launching in Poland in 2016, the SVoD player has claimed to have invested more than 490M Pln (115M) on original films and series such as erotic movie franchise 365 Days in the country, creating more than 2,600 jobs across the production sector in 2020 and 2021.

“Opening the Warsaw office was important but also we’re getting closer to the creative community in general,” Nagler told Deadline.

"I deceived... everyone." Netflix has revealed an official trailer for a Polish crime thriller titled Operation Hyacinth, also known as just Hyacinth, connected to the sad, true story of a secret mass operation of the Polish communist police in the 1980s to track homosexuals in Poland. Robert, a young policeman "out of principle", finds a serial gay killer. In the course of the investigation, he meets Arek. She decides to use him as an informant, not realizing how much this relationship will affect not only his work, but also his personal life. The main cast includes Tomasz Ziętek, Hubert Miłkowski, Marek Kalita, Tomasz Schuchardt, Sebastian Stankiewicz, Jacek Poniedziałek, Piotr Trojan, Agnieszka Suchora, Tomasz Włosok, Adrianna Chlebicka, and Mirosław Zbrojewicz. After premiering at the New Horizons Film Festival in Poland this summer, the film will be streaming on Netflix in October. This seems quite good - worth a look. Here's the...

"What now? Shall we shoot each other?" Shout Studios has released an official Us trailer for a Polish WWII action thriller titled The Resistance Fighter, commemorating the anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, the largest resistance operation in WWII Europe. The original Polish title is Kurier, which translates to The Messenger, but it has a whole new name for the Us release. Based on a true story, the film is about the Polish resistance fighter / war hero Jan Nowak-Jeziorański. He works as the courier between the Poland's resistance movement and the Polish government in exile in London, and is pursued ceaselessly by the Nazis. "The stakes could not be higher in this riveting wartime thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat!" Philippe Tlokinski stars, with Julie Engelbrecht, Bradley James, Martin Butzke, Nico Rogner, Patricia Volny, Jan Frycz, Tomasz Schuchardt, Grzegorz Malecki, & Miroslaw Baka. Take a look. Here's...

This Polish thriller, which is based on the true events of the 1950s, sees Lieutenant Karski (played by Tomasz Schuchardt) trying to solve the disappearances of 67 people in Kraków, Poland. It starts with a bang – quite literally and from then on, you’re enticed. Throughout the film there are Wtf moments you just don’t see coming.

Directors Magdalena Kronenberg-Seweryn and Krzysztof Lang introduce us to the mystery behind the murderer that is Władysław Mazurkiewicz (played by Andrzej Chyra). His cunning methods and the brutality of his kills are hard to watch, and the thoughts you have when you watch are why would someone do something like this? How can one man kill someone the way he does? It’s pure evil.

The film isn’t as distressing as most thrillers would be but it’s still gripping and savage nonetheless. Lieutenant Karski is a clever man and determined to find out the truth.

Nothing’s allowed to derail the guests of a Polish wedding from having fun, not even the groom’s epileptic seizure. You just pick him up and cart him out. Send the ambulance away so it won’t scare the crowd, pump him full of meds to even him out, and simply bring out more vodka to spike the punch and confuse everyone’s equilibrium when the revelers start spreading rumors that he’s been possessed by a Jewish demon. We aren’t celebrating the union of man and wife after all, this is an excuse to go wild and revere the bride’s father as an unforgettable host. So what if those rumors are true and there’s at least one set of skeletal remains beneath our feet. We can worry about all that tomorrow.

This is Marcin Wrona‘s final film Demon in a nutshell: a tale of destiny,...

"Buried for decades... silent until now." The Orchard has released an official Us trailer for a horror-comedy called Demon, from the late Polish filmmaker Marcin Wrona, who finished this film and died last year just before its initial release. Titled Ha'dibouk in Hebrew, the film is about a man possessed by an "unquiet" spirit in the midst of his own wedding. It's a new take on the Jewish legend of the dybbuk, described as "part absurdist comedy, part love story that scares, amuses, and charms in equal measure." Starring Agnieszka Zulewska and Itay Tiran, with Andrzej Grabowski and Tomasz Schuchardt. The film is actually partially in English, so dive right in, even though this trailer doesn't seem to show much of the comedic side. This looks quite chilling and unique, worth seeking out if you're a fan of possession horror or Polish cinema. Here's the official Us trailer (+ poster) for Marcin Wrona's Demon,...