The premiere of the film "Filip" directed by Michal Kwiecinski, whose screenplay is based on the novel by Leopold Tyrmand under the same title

The Polish National Foundation, which has been supporting Polish moviemaking for years and is a patron of many film productions, has become involved in the promotion and distribution of the film at home and abroad.

The film tells the story of a boy, the titular Filip, who, after losing his family in occupied Poland, is employed in a luxury hotel restaurant in the Third Reich. The protagonist, hiding his Jewish origins, builds his own world full of comforts, friends and women, but the approaching World War II leaves an increasing mark on the elaborately built reality.

„The movie „Filip” produced by TVP is a story that avoids the cliché and deals with the contestation of the madness of World War II. Compared to more traditional narrative plots concerning the subject, this production features a non-obvious confrontation of the war tragedy with the desire to preserve life and the awareness of functioning in a situation of abnormality. The Polish National Foundation supports Polish cinematography, both feature films and documentaries that treat Polish history. In the case of „Filip” we have to do with a production that should be familiar to foreign viewers, precisely because of the universality of the message and the filming of Tyrmand’s beautiful prose”

— said Dr. Marcin Zarzecki, Chairman of the Board of the Polish National Foundation.

In 2022, the film was awarded the Silver Lions at the Polish Feature Film Festival in Gdynia. Also receiving individual awards at the Festival were Michał Sobociński for cinematography, Dariusz Krysiak for makeup, and the Zbyszek Cybulski Award for the title role of Filip went to Eryk Kulm Jr.

Audiovisual communications are dominant in today’s society, and therefore images - film works are the main tool for communicating difficult, complex and multithreaded topics, and this is exactly what the new Polish Television production represents.

„The Polish National Foundation has been intensively pursuing a diverse spectrum of activities in line with its mission to uphold Polish collective memory. By telling the story of Polish history and the experience of World War II, we have been engaged in the domestic and foreign distribution of the film, thanks to which it will reach a wide audience in Poland and around the world”

— said Michal Góras, vice president of the Polish National Foundation.

The next film, in which PFN participates along with WFDiF and TVP, will provide strong emotions, feelings and impressions, leaving viewers to reflect on the complexity of human life.

Tłum. K.J.