DEFINITION November 2018.pdf

SHOOT STORY | COLD WAR

D irector Pawel Pawlikowski and 2018 Cannes Film Festival. Their previous collaboration, 2013’s Ida , won 69 awards, including the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film and the BAFTA Award for Best Film Not in the English Language. Pawel Pawlikowski says he always had the idea of making a film about a love story that was loosely based on his parent’s lives and many others who fled Poland for the West. After the success of Ida , he found an opportunity to realise this dream. Ida was remarkable for its stark black & white imagery, but music is also an important element in Pawlikowski’s films. “I like music in films, rather than film music. When I write the script, the music is another layer that helps imagine the world, the period and the scene you are creating but I don’t intellectualise it,” he explains. “In Cold War , I needed something to bring the characters together and came across the wonderful Mazowsze folk ensemble that opened up a beautiful range of possibilities. This was a third element to explain the history during the Stalinist era and how music was used by the state. I would never start with politics, if there are political resonances today, it was not my intention. “I identified three songs performed by folk musicians for the soundtrack that had the potential of becoming jazz songs and these Lukasz Zal PSC collaborated on Cold War, which won Best Director in the Official Competition for the

three became characters in the film,” he adds. “Later, we are in Paris in the 1950s with jazz music and salons, and all those pretentious, over- educated people so full of themselves – it’s the complete opposite of Poland. There are other bits of music that helped out at certain points in the story to give it some energy. For instance, when Wiktor (played by Tomasz Kot) and Zula (played by Joanna Kulig) are lethargically sitting in a bar and Rock Around the Clock starts playing, Zula gets up to dance. It was a good moment to wake-up the audience”. COMMERCIAL RISK “This is an 84-minute film, covering a time Seghatchian. “With an unusual screen ratio – we had 57 shooting days. Making a black & white film is challenging – you lose half your audience, so it does limit the commercial period that spans 15 years and four countries,” says producer, Tanya

I needed something to bring the characters together and came across the Mazowsze folk ensemble

TOP Cinematography Lukasz Zal. ABOVE AND LEFT Actress Joanna Kulig who plays Zula and Tomasz Kot who plays Wiktor.

34 DEF I N I T ION | NOVEMBER 20 1 8

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