Aneta Kopacz: Joanna
Yesterday midday I mailed Joanna Solecka from Wajda Studio. I have known Joanna for some years and she was the one, who sent me the link to watch their 45 minutes long documentary ”Joanna”, a film about a mother who suffers from cancer. My starting point – to be a bit cynical: I have seen lots of films about a dying parent and their loved ones to be left behind. Nevertheless I don’t remember one with the same high quality. These were the words sent to Joanna about ”Joanna”:
I watched the film – if you can put it like that – with pleasure and emotionally touched, to say the least, well what else can I say but BEAUTIFUL. As a film and as a hymn to Life and Love, whatever might happen.
One day later, today, Joanna writes me that the film ” won the Silver Eye award at the 10th East Silver Market at Jihlava in the mid-length documentary category”. The jury motivation goes like this:
We decided to award the documentary, which opens the door to the private life of an engaging protagonist in the hardest time of her life. The director approaches her story with a high level of sensitivity and an elegant cinematic approach. We are entirely immersed in her life, through which the viewer experiences a transcendent lift from her story to the bigger values of life and our own personal lives.
One more quote, quite precise actually from the Wajda Studio itself:
Joanna’s hand lovingly strokes her son’s back. They are lying in the grass, listening to the meadow dwellers and the sounds of nature. Jaś says he has a “divine time” with his mom, and Joanna, too, loves to spend time with her boy. But this time is limited. Joanna says she is not afraid of dying, but of leaving behind her little family. Aneta Kopacz’s narrative is remarkably subtle, preserving the tender moments of the remaining days in expressive images.
Subtle, sensitive, tender, expressive, a marvellous music score, BEAUTIFUL.
The film will be shown in competition in DokLeipzig. An obvious candidate for one or more awards.
