RETURNS OF AGNIESZKA HA documentary directed by Jacek Petrycki and Krystyna Krauze.A Polish - Czech co-production.

The subject and conception of the film: In May 2012, Agnieszka Holland finished the shooting of a three-episode series for HBO titled Hořící keř(Burning bush), penned by a young FAMU (Film and TV School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague) graduate - Štěpán Hulík. The series treats about the events leading to death of Jan Palach, who became a symbol of the tragic protest against the occupation of Czechoslovakia by the troops of the Warsaw Pact. The action starts on the 16th January 1969, when Jan Palach set himself on fire out-side the building of the National Museum in Wenceslas Square, and ends in 1971- more than a year after the dreadful events.

All the scenes shown in the series are based on true facts. The main character is a young lawyer Dagmar Burešová (later Minister of Justice after the Velvet Revolution), who decides to defend the honor of Jan Palach and his family in court. The series is the first attempt to show these tragic events as a feature in Czech Republic. It is to be presented at the 2013 Karlovy Vary Film Festival. It seems symbolic that the director of this feature is Polish (a contemporary of Jan Palach), who was an eyewitness to the events that had become the base of the script. Few people may know that Ag-nieszka Holland was an active participant of the protests at FAMU (together with fellow Polish stu-dents of the Academy- documentary director Andrzej Zajączkowski, who, at that time, was making a film about a famous bard Karel Kryl, cinematographer Andrzej Koszyk and her cousin, also FAMU student- Jerzy Kowalski). She was heavily involved in the op-position movement; she communicated with Czech dissidents and made contact with a group of so-called taternicy. She was arrested in January 1970, stood the trial and got eight-month suspended sentence. A co-defendant in this trial, Laco Mravec (presently an adviser to President Klaus) was sentenced to 18 month imprisonment. He served the entire sentence. Agnieszka Holland spent almost 2 months in custody.

SYNOPSIS

She used her memories while starring in a legendary film Przesłuchanie (Interrogation) by Ryszard Buga-jski. In the time of her exile, Holland hadn’t forgotten about her Czech friends – she kept in touch with oppositionists and, in 1989, she actively joined the Velvet Revolution.

Our film will be composed of several narrative layers. One of them is observation of Agnieszka Holland at work on the series, in another, we will return to the times of her turbulent youth. What kind of experience did she bring with her when she started film studies in Czechoslovakia as a young girl, and what experi-ence did she take away with her? How those events,

in which she took part, had imprinted her later works? As an example, we will use fragments of films like Bez znieczulenia (Without anestesthesia), Przesłuchanie (Interrogation), Gorączka (Fever), Aktorzy prowincjon-alni (Provincial actors)… We would like to show the atmosphere present at FAMU at that time – it was the best period in the history of the Academy. What

attracted such crowds of foreign students to Prague? Among the graduates, there were numerous Poles and Yugoslavians. Why did they choose to study in a country so politically enslaved? Those questions will be answered by Holland’s fellow students (apart from the Poles mentioned earlier, Loran Zafranović, Goran Paskajević, and also her seniors- Jiri Men-

zel and Jan Nemec). We want to meet her friends and people involved in the opposition movement (Laco Mravec, Andrzej Zajączkowski- co-creator of a famous documentary Robotnicy ’80 (Workers ’80), Zuzana Blühová, Petr Uhl, Kristina Vlachová, Maciej Kozłowski – currently a high official in the Ministry of Foreigh Affairs, and Helena Stachová – an outstanding

translator, who was incidentally accused in a trial known as Mravec versus society). The key to this story is the person of the co-director and cinematographer of the film. Jacek Petrycki is Agnieszka Holland’s long term friend and a contemporary. Once she said: ‘I became to like or even love this man right away. He is exceptionally decent and righteous and has an extraordinary sense of moral truth’. She will take Jacek Petrycki on a journey to the places of her youth; she will tell him stories of experiences of the past. It will be a dialogue of a famous

director with the camera, behind which, there is her true friend. Documentary Powroty Agnieszki H. (Re-turns of Agnieszka H.) will be an attempt to cogitate their common youthful ideals, human need to live free and in truth, important life choices in situations of political pressure, and ordinary, human integrity in totalitarian times.

Jan Palach (11 August 1948 – 19 January 1969 in Prague) was a Czech philosophy student at Charles University, who committed suicide by self-immolation as a political protest against the Warsaw Pact ag-gression and general public apathy. On the 16th of January 1969, at 4 pm he set himself on fire outside the National Museum in Wenceslas Square in Prague. He died 3 days later, at 3:15 as a result of burns (85% of body surface) in a clinic specializing in burns, at Lagerov Street. A sculpture student, Olbram Zoubek, secretly made his death mask, the cast of which was taken to the place of his protest on the following day. On the 25th of January, a funeral procession counting in thousands of people and going to the Olszański

WIKIPEDIA

FILMING METHOD

Takes from the film set will be purely documentary- hand-held camera, short takes. Podróż do przeszłości (Journey to the past) will have a different pace. Without sacrificing documentary character, we will put an effort for these fragments to have a different narrative rhythm. The main character is a great actress and is able to play with the camera being operated by her very close friend. In the documentary we will use archival materials from the 1960s- chronicles’, documentaries’ and academic films’ fragments, complimented by the take outs of Agnieszka Holland’s works, created after leaving FAMU. We will also use, as a form of commentary, pieces of archival materials obtained from the National Remembrance Institute and Czech Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes. There are recordings of interrogations, agents’ reports and official documentation.

Rezyseria

Director of photography and producer of feature movies, documentaries and teleplays. Prize winner of BAFTA award for photos for the movie The Be-trayed and many foreign and polish awards. Director of photography for one of most famous documentaries of the 70’s: Życiorys (Curriculum Vitae) and Szpital (Hospital) by Krzysztof Kieślowski, Jak żyć (How to live) and Próba mikrofonu (Microphone Check) by Marcel Łoziński, and other documenta-ries of authors who tried to show the truth about People’s Republic of Poland and people living in that reality: A. Zajączkowski, B. Kosiński, A. Brzozowski, T. Zygadło, P. Kędzierski, A. Titkow. Petrycki is also a director of photogra-phy for loud movies of so called Cinema of moral anxiety trend, permanently associated with it: Spokój (The calm) and Amator (Camera Buff) of Krzysztof Kieślowski, Aktorzy prowincjonalni (Provincial actors) or going beyond that trend Kobieta samotna (A Lonely Woman) by Agnieszka Holland.

A graduate of faculty of documentary directing in FAMU, director, translator. For last three years – deputy director of Polish Institute in Prague. Cooper-ates with Czech Television as a producer for cyclical journalistic programs. Author of the movie Nasz Vašek – siła bezsilnych (Our Vašek – power of the powerless) which had its premiere in December 2012. Main character of the movie is Václav Havel, his relationship with Poland and connections with Polish and Czechoslovak opposition.

Krystyna Krauze

Jacek Petrycki

KONTAKT Paweł Kosuńkosun@centralafilm.pl

Centrala Distribution Sp. z o.o.ul. Sienkiewicza 52/3790-058 ŁódźTel. 664 084 949 Fax. 22 207 25 11www.centralafilm.pl

CENTRALA

TECHNICAL DETAILS

Centrala, Maur FilmPolish Film Institute, Czech Public Television, Czech Film Institute, FAMU, Maur Film, National Film Archiv, HBO [not pre sale]75 min / 54 minplaned in Ihlava Film Festival 2013open

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