The film „Hater. Suicide room” wins at Tribeca Film Festival!
Jan Komasa’s film „Suicide Room. Hater” won the Best Narrative Feature award at the International Narrative Competition at the Tribeca Film Festival in the USA. This is the first Polish film that not only managed to participate in this prestigious competition for foreign films, but also to win it. The Polish Film Institute has supported the international promotion of film.
„Suicide room. The Hater” is another, after the Oscar-nominated picture „Corpus Christi”, a film by the duo: director Jan Komasa and screenwriter Mateusz Pacewicz. It has been produced independently by private investors, Wojciech Kabarowski and Jerzy Kapuściński (Naima Film). This is the second film on the producer’s account after the film by Małgorzata Imielska „Everything for my mother”. The author of the cinematography is Radosław Ładczuk. The film starred: Maciej Musiałowski, Agata Kulesza, Danuta Stenka, Vanessa Aleksander, Maciej Stuhr and Jacek Koman.
The film tells the story of Tomek, who since childhood was obsessed with his peer Gabi Krasucka and her rich family who spent their holidays on his father’s agritourism farm. After years, the boy begins to study law, but is expelled from the university for plagiarism. He hides this fact from the Krasucki who pay the symbolic “scholarship” supporting him. Thanks to his cleverness and determination, he takes a job at a fashionable buzzmarketing agency that allows him to stay alive and vent negative emotions after a heart break. He receives an order to destroy the image of Rudnicki – a liberal politician who bets on the election winner. At first he has moral doubts, but he gets more and more satisfaction from work. He also manages to get closer to Gabi and her world, which he has always aspired to. However, this is temporary, the Krasuccy finds out about plagiarism, and Gabi finds his fiancé. Tomek is rejected. The boy does not give up and starts a dangerous game on two fronts. He volunteers to work for Rudnicki’s staff, leads him to come out, hoping for the loss of voters, and plans to organiza a rally of support for Rudnicki. Tom manipulates reality, both in the real world and in the virtual. Through a computer game, he employs Guzek, a boy with disorders, who is supposed to kill a politician, but in the real world.
The combination of the Oscar nomination for the previous film by Jan Komasa „Corpus Christi” with the award for the best picture in the „International Narrative Competition” of the Tribeca festival is a great success and extremely rare, which gives wide promotional opportunities for the director and Polish cinema.
One of the most important independent cinema festivals in the world
The Tribeca Film Festival was founded in 2002 by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff after the attack on the World Trade Center to restore the vitality of this part of Manhattan. The festival quickly became one of the most important independent cinema festivals in the United States. It takes place every year in April in New York and attracts about 3 million people. It is visited by stars of art, music and film. The festival’s goal is to promote independent cinema and discover new talents. Numerous panels and discussions take place during the festival.
Every year, the festival receives over 8,000 entries and only 1,400 films are selected. The International Narrarive Competition, designed for foreign films, includes only 10 films. Finding yourself in this group is extremely difficult and prestigious. This year’s competition was evaluated by a jury composed of: Danny Boyle, Demian Bichir, Sabine Hoffman, Judith Godrèche, and William Hurt. The festival due to the COVID-19 pandemic was entirely online.