Tomasz Wolski: An Ordinary Country

Agnieszka from Fine Day Promotion invited me to watch a new film by Tomasz Wolski, ”An Ordinary Country” - look at the great film poster above, which reveals the content of the film perfectly, surveillance, not of today (could it be?… I have the feeling that the Danish authorities today could know everything about me, if they wanted. As the GDR people, when I went to Berlin and Leipzig in communist times. As the Polish when I went to Krakow and Warsaw FF’s before 1989?).

According to Tomasz Wolski I went, back then, to An Ordinary Country, where surveillance was being performed. A quote from the well written press material:  

„They were everywhere, though they tried to be invisible. Filming from hiding in restaurants, on the street, in shops. They registered illegal bottling of regulated fuel, lovers meeting in the hotel. They wiretapped phone calls with a man living abroad, during which Poles placed orders for hemorrhoid ointment. They filmed interviews during which, through blackmail, they carried out the process of breaking a detainee to persuade them to cooperate. Another time, they interrogated a woman from whom they required detailed billing of household expenses, including the type of meat and the number of butter cubes used. ‘An Ordinary Country’ is a found footage creative documentary based on film and videotapes recorded by officers of the Polish communist security services in the 1960s through the 1980s.”

Yes, it’s a cold war film and Wolski succeeds to create the claustrophobic feeling of being listened to, watched – because he has so well worked on combining image and sound, phone calls at the same time as he creates small visual stories like the ones mentioned in the quote. Doing so he lets an interpretation go hand in hand with information. Wolski received an award at the Visions du Réel in Nyon and the film is taken for the international competition at the upcoming online Krakow FF – together with two other films by fine directors, whose carreers I have followed with pleasure: Piotr Stasik and Maciej Cuske.

https://www.krakowfilmfestival.pl/en/