The UK’s Hurricane Films has joined as co-producer Natalia Koryncka-Gruz’s comedy drama Miss Kebab, the big winner at this Polish Days ,held in Wroclaw during the New Horizons International Film Festival this week.
Miss Kebab won the inaugural Wroclaw Feature Film Studio Award for production and postproduction services worth PLN 100,000.
Based on a true story about a Polish female teacher working in the UK with children from immigrant families, the screenplay was written by Koryncka-Gruz with Kamila Czul, the author of the eponymous novel published in Poland in 2018.
The €2m English-language production is being produced by Koryncka-Gruz through her Eureka Studio and a shoot is planned for early 2025.
Additionally, the No Problemo Music Award offering a co-production contribution to sound postproduction worth PLN 75,000 was given to Lukasz Grzegorzek’s Romantic Psychos, while two awards of an Audio Network music license for the film and its promotional materials went to Aleksandra Maciusek’s Four Winters in Edificio Cuba and Michal Kwieciński’s Chopin, Chopin!.
Presented as one of the eight works-in-progress at this year’s Polish Days, Grzegorzek’s mix of romance, thriller and humour within an emotional love triangle has Canal+ onboard as a co-producer and is set to begin shooting in four weeks’ time for Koskino, which also produced the director’s previous feature films Kamper, A Coach’s Daughter and My Wonderful Life.
Footage of documentary Four Winters In Edificio Cuba which follows the life of a young boy and his friends in their old Havana townhouse over eight years was also shown in the work-in-progress section.
Maciusek said the co-production between her company New Plot Films and France’s Little Big Story has 80% of its €465,000 budget in place. A final round of shooting is planned in Cuba at the end of this year, with delivery of the film scheduled for the end of 2025/beginning of 2026.
Note perfect
Meanwhile, the third No Problemo winner, Chopin, Chopin!, is set to have one of the biggest budgets for a Polish production in recent years at € 15m.
Director Kwieciński, also the founder of Akson Studio, one of Poland’s leading production companies and behind productions including Katyn and Warsaw 44, explained the final years in the life of the composer Fryderyk Chopin will not be a typical biographical film. “While the events depicted will be historically accurate, my primary focus is on creating a psychological portrait of an artist who, at a certain stage of his life, refuses to compromise his art,” he said.
Principal photography will begin in late August in Bordeaux (standing in for Paris street scenes), Majorca, Lodz, Warsaw and Lower Silesia.
In his pitch Kwieciński added the international cast will be headed by Eryk Kulm in the role of Chopin - Kulm also had the lead in his award-winning 2022 film Filip - with all of the piano music being played in the film being performed by the actors themselves and 80% of the film’s dialogues being in the French language.
Meanwhile, the ORKA Postproduction Award covering the costs of image postproduction services to the value of PLN 30,000 - went to Jan Holoubek’s Escape From The Dark Valley, based on a true story about four inmates attempting to escape the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1942 using a limousine stolen from the camp’s SS commandant.
Producer Anna Wasniewska-Gill of Wonder X said the screenplay for the €5m project was at second draft and the goal is to go before the camera in 2026.
Holoubek, who made his feature directorial debut in 2020 with 25 Years Of Innocence, said he has been inspired by classics of the genre such as Escape From Alcatraz, The Great Escape and Escape From Dannemora.
“I want to showcase not only the heroic deeds of the main characters, but also their friendship, cooperation and determination. This is a story of human solidarity and morality where every life has value ,” he said.
In addition, the FIXAFILM Postproduction Award, which offers to cover the cost of image postproduction services up to PLN 30,000 went to Bartosz Kruhlik’s social thriller Sacred Law, centring on the protests of residents in a Warsaw tenement against so-called wild privatisation that threatens their homes.
The €1.5m production by Kuba Kosma’s company Serce will be Kruhlik’s second feature film following his award-winning debut Supernova from 2019.
“The best place to meet the Polish industry”
Over 200 guests from Poland and the international industry attended Polish Days 2024, including first-timers Gabriela Trujillo from Cannes Directors’ Fortnight, Miriam Henze from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg,, Arnaud Chevallier of B-Rated, Matthieu Eberhardt from sales outfit Be For Films, Clemens Köstlin from Paris-based Coproduction Office, and Kate Schaeffer from German distributor Arsenal Filmverleih.
“This year was a very strong edition for both the projects and the works in progress being presented,” said Laurent Danielou of French sales company Loco Films, a Polish Days regular. “What is good for us as guests coming from abroad is all of the major Polish distributors are here because they want to discover the latest Polish films and get to see the new projects. It’s the best place to meet the local industry. Whether it’s distributors or producers, they are all here.”
Denis Krupnov of the UK-based sales company Reason8, who was in Wroclaw for the second time, pointed to the fact “many of the projects being pitched here are close to shooting, sometimes in a matter of weeks or in the next 12 months. There was also great variety in the types of projects being presented this year from documentaries through genre, including horror, to experimental films”.
Ukrainian producer Olga Zhurzhenko of Krakow-based MOREFILM agreed with Krupnov’s assessment: “There was a really good mix this year,” she said. “You had the artistic kind that Polish producers are often working on as well as others which are attempting to be more audience-friendly rather than just targeting festivals. That’s a trend that’s being supported by the Polish Film Institute.”
Meanwhile, Flanders Image’s Yort Jansen, who was attending the industry event for the first time, said: “There was a great selection of projects and the organisation is so efficient. One thing that really impressed me was how well they integrate their industry partners and sponsors as part of the event.”
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