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THEATRUM MAGICUM

This film has been inspired by the short plays of the eccentric Count Jan Potocki, author of the famous novel Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse. Completed at the beginning of the 19th century, it was turned into a cult movie by Wojciech Jerzy Has. Earlier, at the end of the 18th century, Potocki had written a series of short humorous plays (Recueil de Parades) which he staged in a court theater in Łańcut, Poland. Miraculously, this theater survived several wars and two partitions of Poland unscathed and can now be seen as part of the Museum at the Castle of Łańcut. Together with the building and its interior, a few complete sets of stage decorations survived. These beautiful, original sets have been used in the film in order to create the inimitable atmosphere of an authentic late 18th century spectacle.

THEATRUM MAGICUM tells the story of a magic show performed at the end of the 18th century by a magician and his troupe. The magician’s persona is modeled after Cassandre, the protagonist of Jan Poptocki’s plays, but also resembles Georges Méliès as a character in his own films, and Baron Münchhausen (both from movies and Gustave Doré’s illustrations).

The film has been inspired by the short plays of the eccentric Count Jan Potocki, author of the famous novel Manuscrit trouvé à Saragosse. It tells the story of a magic show performed at the end of the 18th century by a magician and his troupe.

GENRE:
fiction
COUNTRY:
Poland
RUNNING TIME:
25'
YEAR:
DIRECTING:
Marcin Giżycki
SCRIPT:
Marcin Giżycki
DOP:
Zbigniew Kotecki
MUSIC:
Sławomir Szudrowicz, Kordian Lewandowski
PRODUCTION:
Fundacja Kultury Rozruch, Black Dwarf Production

Marcin Giżycki »

Art and film historian, critic, filmmaker. Editor in Chief of “Animafilm” magazine (1979-81). Profesor at Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology in Warsaw and Senior Lecturer at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, USA (since 1988). Artistic Director of “Animator” International Animated Film Festival in Poznan, Poland (since 2007). He has made a number of documentary, experimental, and animated films, among them “I Am Providence: The Story of H.P. Lovecraft and His City” (1997), “Gus Van Sant” (1998, with Slawomir Grünberg), “The Island of Jan Lenica” (1998), “Travels of Daniel Szczechura” (2005), “106 Olney Street” (2007), “Sicilian Flea” (2008), “Panta Rhei” (2008), “Aquatura” (2010), “AE” (2011), “Kinefaktura” (2012), “F.I.T.” (2012), “FFF1” (2013), “White Curtain” (2014), “A Magic-Lantern Life” (2014), “Watch Your Thoughts” (2015), “Mono Canne” (2015), "Sto[ne]s" (2015), "Monument" (2016), "Stone Story" (2016), "Theatrum Magicum" (2017). His books include: “Disney Was Not the Only One” (2000), “Wenders Go Home!” (2006). He co-curated retrospectives of Polish animated films at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (2003) and Centre Pompidou in Paris (2004).

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