"WEREWOLF" WITH AWARDS AT 22nd FF BLACK NIGHTS
Co-financed by the Polish Film Institute, the second feature film by Adrian Panek “Werewolf” received in Tallinn the ecumenical jury and the audience awards. The festival took place from November 16 to December 2.
Two prizes in Tallinn
The ecumenical jury composed of Rainer Sarnet, Regina Hansen, Madis Kolk, Marge-Marie Paas and Erki Tamm awarded the film “Werewolf”, directed by Adrian Panek. The production was also appreciated by the audience.
Jury comment: Ecumenical jury offers their prize for the best picture to “Werewolf” by Adrian Panek for being a thrilling movie in its own genre where the message and the medium were equally important which made it very exciting to watch. It is important to mention that the movie was not in any way trying to manipulate the viewer through the painful and politically sensitive topic. Werewolf shows the human nature, created in Gods image, in extreme situations where the Latin proverb “A man is wolf to another man” is not valid anymore and where meekness, love and forgiveness towards the enemy are chosen instead.
These are not the first awards for the film. “Werewolf” won awards at the Polish Feature Film Festival in Gdynia (for directing and for music), as well as the Discovering Eye Award for Young Filmmakers at the Polish Film Festival in Chicago.
“Werewolf”
Photo by Łukasz Bąk
The film takes place in the summer of 1945. Eight children liberated from the Gross-Rosen camp are settled in a provisional orphanage, created in an abandoned palace among the forests. A twenty-year-old Hanka, also a prisoner, becomes their guardian. After the horrors of the camp, the children slowly recover the remnants of a lost childhood, but the nightmare quickly starts again. In the surrounding woods, camp wolfhounds prowl. Released by the SS before the liberation of Gross-Rosen, famished and feral animals surround the palace in search of food. In terrified children the camp instinct of survival starts.
Creators
The scriptwriter and director of the film is Adrian Panek, Dominik Danilczyk is reponsible for the cinematography. The music for the film was created by Antoni Komasa-Łazarkiewicz, who was awarded in Gdynia. The film was edited by Jarosław Kamiński, this year’s EFA award winner for the Best European Editor for the film “Cold War”. “Werewolf” was produced by Agata Szymańska and Magdalena Kamińska from Balapolis. The image is Polish-Dutch-German co-production and is co-financed by the Polish Film Institute.
Polish films shown at the 22nd Black Nights in Tallinn.
In the program of the festival, apart from “Werewolf”, other Polish films and co-productions were presented, including “The Day of Chocolate”, dir. Jacek Piotr Bławut (Just Film Children Programme International Competition), “Cold War”, dir. Paweł Pawlikowski (Screen International Critics’ Choice), ‘Foam at the mouth’, dir. Janis Nords (Baltic Film Competition), “When the trees fall”, dir. Marysia Nikitiuk (Panorama), “Winter Flies”, dir. Olmo Omerzu (Panorama) and “The River”, dir. Emir Baigazin (Forum).