"JOANNA" AND "OUR CURSE" NOMINATED FOR THE ACADEMY AWARD
Joanna by Aneta Kopacz and Our Curse by Tomasz Śliwiński received the nominations for the Academy Awards in the short documentary film category. It is an enormous success of Polish cinema.
So far, only three Polish films have been nominated in this category: 89mm from Europe by Marcel Łoziński, The Children of Leningradsky by Hanna Polak and Andrzej Celiński and Rabbit a la Berlin by Bartek Konopka. However, none of these documentaries returned from the Academy Award gala with a statuette.
This year, there is again a chance of the Academy Award for Polish short documentary film. And a double one! Both films have already been successful at international festivals. Our Curse has been shown 28 times at festivals abroad, where it won 15 awards, including the best short documentary award at the festivals in Mexico, Bogotá and Aspen. Joanna appeared at 26 festivals, bringing 13 trophies, among others, the main awards of the festivals in Los Angeles and Palm Springs.
"Our Curse" is a personal confession of the director, who, together with his wife, has to face a very rare, incurable disease of their new-born child - Ondine's Curse (congenital central hypoventilation syndrome, CCHS). People afflicted with this disease stop breathing during sleep and require life-long use of respirator to support their respiratory functions. The director documents the first months of his family's life after the birth of the child. The film was produced by Warsaw Film School.
"Joanna" is a documentary about the author of the blog Chustka, who relishes every moment in spite of being diagnosed with a serious disease. She promised her son that she would do anything to be with him as long as possible. She does not give up. For Jaś, she writes a blog in which she describes their everyday life - in a simple and accurate way. The blog itself inspires many readers to attentive, happy life. The film shows fragments from the life of Joanna, her husband Piotr and son Jaś. Joanna was produced by Wajda Studio.
Both films were shown at Krakow Film Festival.
The award ceremony is on 22 February. Let's keep our fingers crossed!