Jerzy Skolimowski collects award at Polish Film Festival; photo - PAP/Adam Ciereszko
Essential Killing also won awards for directing, photography and music score.
The main thrust of the criticism was that the film was in English and aimed at an international audience.
Writing in the Gazeta Wyborcza daily under the headline, “Excellent festival, disastrous verdict,” film critic Tadeuesz Sobolewski declared that, “the main task of the festival should be to promote native cinema among a native audience,” adding that foreign members of the jury, “for all their refinement, were unable to get beyond the language barrier,” and overlooked some quality Polish language movies.
The critic noted that the two most successful films at the Polish Film Festival were in English: Essential Killing and Lech Majewski's The Mill and the Cross.
Rose by Wojciech Smarzowski’s was considered by critics to be the top candidate for the Golden Lion best picture award. Besides winning the Critics Prize, the only award it received was Best Actor for Marcin Dorociński, however.
Jury chairman, the Polish-born British director Paweł Pawlikowski, explained that while Essential Killing is a universal film that can be understood in all corners of the world, he had to explain to other foreign members of the jury the complicated historical context of Smarzowski’s Rose.
Rose was universally hailed by Polish critics. Barbara Hollender, writing in Rzeczpospolita, declared that whilst the foreign jurors had “got lost” in the film, the work is “immensely important for us Poles.”
The action of Rose is set in 1945-46 in the Mazurian Lake District, a former Polish-Prussian border area, which was incorporated into Poland after World War Two. Many of the local people leave for Germany. Those who want to stay are forced to speak Polish. Tadeusz, a former Homy Army officer, arrives in the Mazurian District to find a place where he can live a peaceful life. He comes to a farm owned by Rose, whose husband, a Wehrmacht soldier, had been shot by Tadeusz’s troops. Suspected to be a German, the woman is an outcast in her village. Tadeusz stands out in her defence.
A less controversial winner was Jan Komasa's Suicide Room. The hotshot director's debut feature about a troubled teenager who gets sucked into a hideous internet talk room has proved a hit both with Polish movie-goers and critics, notching up 800,000 viewers so far this year. The film won the runner-up award of the Silver Lions.(mk/nh/pg)