The World Premiere of "Kill It and Leave This Town" in Encounters competition at Berlinale





The world premiere of Mariusz Wilczyński’s feature animation film “Kill It and Leave This Town” co-financed by the Polish Film Institute will take place in the new competitve section Encounters during the 70th International Film Festival in Berlin.

“Kill It and Leave This Town”

Fleeing from despair after losing those dearest to him, the hero hides in a safe land of memories, where time stands still and all those dear to him are alive. Over the years, a city grows in his imagination. One day, literary heroes and cartoon childhood idols, who in the consciousness of the successive generations are forever young and wearing short pants, come to live there, uninvited. When our hero discovers they have all grown old and that eternal youth does not exist, he decides to return to real life. And the amazing characters living in his imagination lead him back to the real world.

The film is a debut feature film by Mariusz Wilczyński with the voices of Krystyna Janda, Andrzej Chyra, Maja Ostaszewska, Małgorzata Kożuchowska. The producers of the film are Agnieszka Ścibior from Bombonierka and Ewa Puszczyńska (Ida, Cold War) from Extreme Emotions. The film is coproduced by National Film Archive – Audiovisual Institute, Adam Mickiewicz Institute, EC1 Łódź – City of Culture, LETKO, NOLABEL, DI Factory, Gigant Films.

Mariusz Wilczyński

A self-taught artist who has been creating animated auteur cinema for over twenty years. Retrospectives of his films were held, among others, at MoMA in New York, National Museum of Brasília, Tokyo International Forum and The National Museum in Warsaw. His animations were shown at the National Gallery in London and at Berlinale. He also realises improvised live animation performances which he co-creates with symphony orchestras from Hong Kong, Paris, Tokyo, Geneva, Lviv and Warsaw. In 2007, the New York Times called him “one of the most important contemporary creators of artistic animation.” For the last 11 years, he has been working on “Kill It and Leave This Town.” He is a professor of animation at the Film School in Łódź.

Encounters

The goal of the Encounters competition is to support new voices in cinema and to give more room to diverse narrative and documentary forms in the official programme. A three-member jury will choose the winners for Best Film, Best Director and a Special Jury Award.

Berlinale website.


20.01.2020