"Our Curse" in Locarno

Nasza klątwa (Our Curse). Photo courtesy of T-Mobile New Horizons

The lineup of the 66th Locarno International Film Festival, which launches on August 7, features the film Nasza klątwa (Our Curse), directed by Tomasz Śliwiński. Co-financed by the Polish Film Institute, Śliwiński’s picture is a documentary student film, made at the Warsaw Film School.

Tomasz Śliwiński’s Nasza klątwa (Our Curse) will screen in the Pardi di domani (Leopards of Tomorrow) international short film competition, as one of 24 films from around the world.

Nasza klątwa (Our Curse)

“The film is the director’s personal statement about the battle he and his wife must endure in facing the untreatable and very rare disease of their newborn child – the Ondine’s Curse [(…) CCHS (…)]. People affected with this disease stop breathing during sleep and require lifelong respirator support. The film documents the process of dealing with the fear stemming from the illness and the way the couple attempts to provide their son with a normal happy childhood,” reads the film description on the T-Mobile New Horizons website.

An Attention-Grabbing Film

“The documentary Nasza klątwa (Our Curse) by Tomasz Śliwiński is an attention-grabbing film. By telling a story about young parents and their everyday dilemmas, Śliwiński in fact tells a story about the world […]. The parents place themselves in front of a camera and reveal the first days after baby Leon’s birth. These are difficult days. [Days of] breakdown, feelings of helplessness, followed by a period of learning how to take care of a child. The parents show the details of this child-care […], at times even bordering on exhibitionism. Over time, their infirmity transforms into a great love for their child, eventually becoming simply moving,” wrote Agnieszka Wiśniewska about the film in her account of the ‘Young and Cinema’ film festival in Koszalin.

66th Locarno IFF

The films screening in the Pardi di domani (Leopards of Tomorrow) competition will be judged by jury members Adriano Aprà, Marta Andreu, Emir Baigazin, Grégoire Colin, and Basil Da Cunha. The Leopards of Tomorrow section of the Locarno IFF focuses on short films made by film school students or independent filmmakers before their feature debut.

At last year’s edition of the festival, the Polish film Serce do walki (Battleheart) by Tomasz Matuszczak also screened in the Leopards of Tomorrow competition, winning special mention of the Cinema & Gioventù jury “for its outstanding aesthetics, the beauty of photography, scenery, and acting.” At the 2011 Locarno IFF, Grzegorz Jaroszuk’s Opowieści z chłodni (Frozen Stories) was nominated for the European Film Awards in the Best Short Film category.

The 66th Locarno International Film Festival runs from August 7 through August 17.

Further details available at: www.pardolive.ch.

Marta Sikorska

Translated by Karolina Kołtun