Magnificent7 Speech by Elwira Niewiera
Elwira Niewiera, co-director with Piotr Rosolowski of ”The Prince and the Dybbuk”, the opening film at the 14th edition of the Magnificent7 festival in Belgrade, had to cancel her presence because of illness. From Berlin the Polish co-director sent this text as a sound bite. It was played before the screening:
“I am very, very sad that I can’t be there with you today. This is an exceptional festival, created by some very special people.
I would like to say a big thank you to Svetlana and Zoran Popovic, and also to Tue Steen Müller.
When we started to work on this movie, one of the Polish filmmakers told us, that even if you are making a film about someone who passed away, remember that it’s still very important for that person what kind of film you are going to make.
It was a big challenge to make a film about someone, who constantly erased/or had to erased his own traces, changing names, religion, titles or countries.
This mechanism became a way of life for him, and also a means of survival, as it allowed him to outsmart the spirit of intolerance.
Over the next few weeks, we will all be excited about the football World Cup taking place in Russia. But when we will be supporting our teams in front of the TVs, please let us at the same time remember the Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov, who is imprisoned in a labour camp, is on a hunger strike and is slowly dying in the very same country – in solidarity with other unlawfully convicted people.
Thank you and I wish you a nice screening and a nice opening of the festival“.
