Chce się żyć, 2013, 107 min.
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
Director | Maciej Pieprzyca | |
Screenplay | Maciej Pieprzyca | |
Cinematography | Pawel Dyllus | |
Muscic | Bartosz Chajdecki | |
Art Director | Joanna Anastazja Wojcik | |
Producer | Wieslaw Lysakowski |
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 |
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.