The Polish Film Institute has given a subsidy of 6 million PLN to “Miasto”, Jan Komasa’s original movie about the Warsaw Uprising.
It is the highest subsidy this session and one of the highest in the history of the Polish Film Institute. The movie will be produced by Film Miasto, a company formed by Akson Studio, ATM Grupa S.A. and TVN S.A., and will have a budget of over PLN20 million. In addition to public support, the production will be funded by private sponsors.
“The project has generated a great deal of interest,” says Andrzej Muszyński, deputy CEO of ATM Grupa S.A. and one of the movie’s producers. “The producers have been joined by TP Group. We have also spoken to companies from the finance sector. Our partners feel the potential of this production. They understand what impact their involvement in “Miasto” may have on their brands,” he adds.
Justifying the the decision to subsidize “Miasto”, Agnieszka Odorowicz, director of the Polish Film Institute, said “It would be extremely irresponsible and inconsistent to say . . . the Polish Film Institute will make it impossible to produce a film about the Warsaw Uprising”. Especially as since its inception, the Polish Film Institute has stressed that a film about the Warsaw Uprising is the institution’s priority. Odorowicz explains that she gave “Miasto” a subsidy against the opinion of a panel of experts who dismissed the script as unremarkable and recommended to reject it. “With all due respect for the experts, I didn’t agree with their assessment and thought it wasn’t fully justified. Not all experts were very familiar with the work of Jan Komasa (including “Suicide Room”) which doubtlessly reflects the exceptional talent and professionalism of this young director. It also seems that the experts proved insensitive to the innovative script. The project also got a historical recommendation from Prof. Andrzej Kunert and Prof. Władysław Bartoszewski. Notably, it is supported by the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising and veterans’ circles”, argues Odorowicz.
It is worth adding Komasa’s latest achievements to the ones mentioned by Odorowicz. During the fourth Off Plus Camera festival (April 8-17, Kraków), which ended last Sunday, the director won the prestigious FIPRESCI award of the International Federation of Film Critics (an international organization of film critics that aims to promote cinema and support filmmakers; FIPRESCI awards are presented at leading film festivals in Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Karlovy Vary).
“Miasto” will start filming this summer. Shooting locations will include Warsaw and Lower Silesia. The director is currently watching tapes from the auditions held in the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising, which were attended by over 2.4 thousand young people (ages 18-22) from all over Poland. Excluding extras, there are about 90 roles to be cast in “Miasto”, including the central characters Seba, Biedronka and Kama.
It took the director almost six years to prepare for shooting “Miasto”. “I think it’s long enough to know what a movie about the Warsaw Uprising should be like”, says Komasa. “I’ve gotten support from many experts, including insurgents who remember these events. Fact-wise, the film will be firmly grounded in reality“, says Komasa. “But the characters will be fictional; young people, full of hope, with plans for the future, whose lives were cut short by the Warsaw Uprising. They took up arms to save someone’s life and, without thinking much, put their own on the line. They were heroes without asking themselves questions what heroism was. But I’d like to ask this question to the modern viewer. I think we live in a society which requires of us little heroism. Now it’s easier to hide who’s a coward. Back then, in the heat of the fight, it was plain for everyone to see who was brave and who wasn’t. On the other hand, even back then, someone who was the hero’s opposite fought on the same side of the barricade. Fighters on both sides of the barricade were only people. It’s very modern and immortal”, says Komasa.
