Media Briefing for Klezmer

　　A media briefing for Klezmer, a Polish film shortlisted to compete for Tiantan Award, was held at Beijing International Hotel on April 21 at 4:00 pm. Present were Piotr Chrzan (director), Filip Kosior (starring actor), and Ms. Aleksandra Zakrzewska (music consultant).

　　Klezmer is a realistic and metaphoric story about a journey through wartime Land of Evil. It is set during World War II in the Polish countryside, although away from the frontlines. It seems that nothing has changed there and life goes on just like before the war. However, people carry the war in their hearts and souls…

　　It is a sunny summer day in 1943. Poland is under German occupation. A group of young people, inhabitants of a nearby village, goes to the forest to gather fir cones and brushwood to use as firewood. They talk, flirt and make plans for the future. However this outing has an unexpected outcome - in consequence of a certain event they have to deal with a situation that is new to them and which has an impact on their lives and the lives of other people who appear as the story develops.

　　“It was truly important for me to capture and present the atmosphere of wartime occupation,” Piotr said, “It provoked various types of behaviours, both noble and full of sympathy and the most spiteful ones, even criminal. To this ‘atmosphere of occupation’ I subjected characters of clearly diversified nature and different life experiences. Furthermore, the diversity of characters made it possible for me to review the wide range of attitudes that Poles expressed towards their Jewish countrymen during the war. Extreme cases, both positive (selfless help, sacrifice at the cost of prison or even death), and negative ones (denouncing and even taking lives) were in essence very rare. Most Poles were generally passive observers and witnesses of the Holocaust. Klezmer is not aspiring to become a voice in the national discussion of supposedly coming to terms with the past on “whether more Poles helped the Jews or harmed them”, with people whose polemical enthusiasm is reversely proportional to their knowledge of history. This is just an attempt to capture and present the entire complexity of that situation to the fullest degree possible.

　　Filip Kosior (as Jew) is a 5th year student of the Acting Department of the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw. Performed in a number of theatrical plays, Klezmer is his full-length feature film debut.

　　Aleksandra Zakrzewska studied history of religions, psychology and film production. She produced two shorts written and directed by Piotr Chrzan – Night Visit (2011) and Toreador’s Last Song (2014). Klezmer is her feature debut as a producer and music consultant. All the music in the film, including violoncello is made by Vivaldi.