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Weekend with Millennium Docs Against Gravity 2018
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WEEKEND WITH MILLENNIUM DOCS AGAINST GRAVITY
May 18-20 2018
Kino Pod Baranami
Once again Kino Pod Baranami will host the best documentary films presented at the Millennium Docs Against Gravity Festival. This year’s edition is dedicated to Polish documentaries, which are being recognised at film festivals all over the world.
The weekend will open with a screening of Looking for Jesus, the newest project by one of the most renowned Polish artists Katarzyna Kozyra, inspired by the so-called Jerusalem Syndrome. For reasons unknown, people suffering from it seem to acquire personalities of characters from the Bible. The film is based on numerous conversations the artist has recorded during her trips to Jerusalem with people who believe themselves to be Jesus Christ. Tourists by Mateusz Romaszkan and Marta Wójtowicz-Wcisło is a combination of amateur videos and experimental techno music, created for the film by talented music producer Natalia Zamilska. Following popular tourist tracks in countries such as India, Cuba or Ethiopia, the filmmakers tried to determine whether it is possible to really get to know people brought up in an entirely different culture. The viewers will also see Call Me Tony, which has been acclaimed as the best student documentary at the festival in Amsterdam. Director Klaudiusz Chrostowski observed an 18-year-old boy making the most important decisions at a time in his life when every young adult needs to choose between their own needs and the expectations of their community.
Call Me Tony, Looking for Jesus and Tourists will be presented with English subtitles.
PROGRAMME:
Friday, May 18
19.15 LOOKING FOR JESUS | SZUKAJĄC JEZUSA
dir. Katarzyna Kozyra, Poland 2018, 73’
Saturday, May 19
19.15 TOURISTS | TURYŚCI
dir. Mateusz Romaszkan, Marta Wójtowicz-Wcisło, Poland 2017, 72’
Sunday, May 20
19.15 CALL ME TONY | CALL ME TONY
dir. Klaudiusz Chrostowski, Poland 2017, 63’
TICKETS:
20 PLN (regular) | 15 PLN (discount)
ABOUT THE FILMS:
CALL ME TONY | CALL ME TONY
dir. Klaudiusz Chrostowski, Poland 2017, 63’
(with English subtitles)
International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam (IDFA) 2017: Best Student Documentary
DOK Leipzig 2017: International Competition
Konrad lives in a small mining town in southern Poland. In his attempts to get noticed he looks up to his favorite action movie heroes, spends hours at the gym and signs up for a bodybuilding competition. An inner conflict between who he is and who he thinks he should be to get people’s acceptance soon leads to depression. His life changes after he revisits his childhood passion for acting. Will he find his own way? Call Me Tony is a coming of age story about the time when the whole world expects us to have answers but all we have are questions.
LOOKING FOR JESUS | SZUKAJĄC JEZUSA
dir. Katarzyna Kozyra, Poland 2018, 73’
(with English subtitles)
Visions du Réel Nyon 2018: official selection
The film problematizes the so-called Jerusalem Syndrome, an acute delusional disorder which was reported by medical professionals only in the second half of the 20th Century. After visiting the Holy Land, people afflicted with the syndrome start to identify with Biblical characters – usually with the Messiah. Since 2012, the artist Katarzyna Kozyra has visited Jerusalem several times in order to find those who in the early 21st Century believe themselves to be Jesus. The result is over 100 hours of video footage – interviews, shots of the city, which serves as a backdrop for religious rituals and a scene for people of various faiths, denominations, and colors. Subsequent Messiahs who try to convince the artist they are miraculous and genuine, surrounding themselves with colorful crowds of pilgrims and locals. Kozyra encounters incredible personalities. Each of her characters has a fascinating story and all of them combined constitute a project presenting ways and means of carrying out one’s faith, its place and role in today’s world, and values on which we build our reality. Looking for Jesus is a documentary debut by Katarzyna Kozyra, a Polish sculptor and audiovisual artist. In 2013 Huffington Post included her in the list of ten most important female artists of the new millennium.
TOURISTS | TURYŚCI
dir. Mateusz Romaszkan, Marta Wójtowicz-Wcisło, Poland 2017, 72’
(with English subtitles)
A study on the human quest to explore the Exotic, constructed from amateur tourist footage and set to an original experimental techno score. The film follows a travelling group of people, sharing their personal video recordings all transformed by one extraordinary experience. Their trans-like footage leads spans from the banality of ubiquitous coverage to suddenly confronting the most amazing images, shot carefully from a unique perspective. No DOP nor photographer has ever made these destinations look as fresh as these amateur films. Close-ups on the faces of people praying at the sacred river, slow-motion shots of reposing camels, a focus on unexpected details – like the sun standing still over a desert – masterpiece takes of unnamable beauty. These are rare gifts coming from an original point of view; found-footage work is edited with enormous empathy, poetry and humor, stunning images orchestrated with Zamilska contemporary electronic music.
The film compels the viewers to embrace not only the perspective of an outsider, but within that, the near psychedelic state of constant incomprehension. How can we truly and effectively meet the residents of distant cultures? Is understanding between us even possible? Does tourism target or threaten poor countries, or is it perhaps still the only system we can count on? And what will come next after mass tourism? The creators question both the limits of experiencing different cultures by citizens of the Western world, and the ambition of becoming a traveler instead of a tourist. Is it really possible to feel like a local in places like Africa, and to make long-term friendships through repeated journeys? Or is this simply the next illusion being sold to us by globalization?
This is not at all the experience of conventional pre-packed group tours, but rather an effort to find a way of understanding the countless people all over the world who dare search for connection within the only framework we have available – Tourism. We are no more than them.
