The Polish Film Institute (PISF) has already provided the film 'Volhynia' with PLN 6 million [EUR 1.4 million], the maximum amount that it can give for a historical production.
Other sponsors contributed several more millions, but having shot most of the movie, Smarzowski still needs over PLN 2 million to complete the picture.
Since a collection began on 3 March, he has gathered PLN 200,000.
The production is the first feature film to deal with the Volhynia Massacres, a traumatic page in Polish-Ukrainian history.
Between 60,000 and 100,000 ethnic Poles were slaughtered from 1943 to 1944 by the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), a guerrilla force that sought Ukrainian independence.
The killings began in the Volhynia region, then under Nazi German occupation.
Polish guerrillas struck back, and about 2,000-3,000 Ukrainians were killed by Poles in Volhynia, and about 20,000 more Ukrainians were slaughtered when the fighting spread to other areas of Nazi-occupied south east Poland.
The plot of Smarzowski's film follows a young Polish woman who wants to marry a Ukrainian from the same village, contrary to her parents' wishes.
“We're repeatedly stressing that this is a film about genocide, but it is in fact a film about love – a film about love in inhumane times,” Smarzowski said in an interview released this week by the Polish Film Institute.
“According to research, about 50 percent of Poles don't know what happened in the borderlands,” he reflected.
“And half of those who say they know have got it wrong.”
Smarzowski said in the past that he would not be making a “black and white” version of what happened.
In the promotional film released on Monday, he said that the toughest challenge was trying to guide child actors through the horrors that had to be portrayed on camera. (nh/pk)
Promotional film about 'Volhynia'