Life Feels Good

Chce się żyć, 2013, 107 min.

Life Feels Good (2013)
Awards

2014
Gijon International Film Festival, Spain
Best Actor for Dawid Ogrodnik; Best Art Director for Joanna Wojcik

Seattle International Film Festival
Golden Space Needle Award for Best Actor for Dawid Ogrodnik

2013
Chicago International Film Festival
Silver Hugo in New Directors Competition

Montreal World Film Festival
Grand prix des Amreicas, Public Awards for the most popular film of the Festival, ECUMENICAL PRIZE

Gdynia Film Festival
Silver Lions, Audience Award and Elle’s Cristal Star for Dawid Ogrodnik

Production

Director Maciej Pieprzyca
Screenplay Maciej Pieprzyca
Cinematography Pawel Dyllus
Muscic Bartosz Chajdecki
Art Director Joanna Anastazja Wojcik
Producer Wieslaw Lysakowski
Cast
Mateusz Dawid Ogrodnik
Young Mateusz Kamil Tkacz
Mateusz’s Mother Dorota Kolak
Mateusz’s Father Arkadiuss Jakubil
Matylda Helena Sujecka
Tomek Mikolaj Roznerski
Young Tomek Tymoteusz Marciniak
Jola, Bliss Language Teacher Anna Nehrebecka
Story

Mateusz has cerebral palsy. In addition to his obvious physical handicap, he was diagnosed at a very early age as a mentally disabled person with no communicative ability. After twenty five years, however, it turned out that apart from his physical problems, he was a perfectly normal, even quite intelligent person. The film is a chronicle of his life. We get to know Mateusz now, when he is 30 and is institutionalized at a clinic for the mentally disabled. He is about to be examined by a committee which will decide whether he is normal or not. In retrospect we follow his life from the early 1980s to the present, in happy and sad times. We also get to know the love of his life, Anka. “The story of Przemek (the name of the real person on whom Mateusz is based) is above all a pretext to ask existential questions about life, death, faith, love, normality and understanding. Life does not bring unambiguous moments of sadness or joy; it is more a state in-between those feelings, between a funeral and a wedding. Life is both tragic and comical.” — Maciej Pieprzyca.