Skolimowski tours this year all major international film festivals in Eastern Europe and wider, visiting Belgrade International Film Festival FEST www.fest.rs with his "Four Nights With Anna" about obsessive-love drama. A filmmaker who already turned 70 has been absent from the filmmaking profession for almost two decades. But good reviews, and distinction pleasure of being Cannes' Directors' Fortnight opener last year, has opened the doors for him worldwide. His last two decades, he spent in painting and collecting funds to return to his original passion-films.
“It was like therapy after my last movie, which I made 17 years ago, which I was very unhappy with. And I decided to take a break and recover, as an artist, to find again the pleasure of creating, you know. And I got into painting, finally, because all my life I was painting but occasionally. And to paint, really you have to devote years of your life, so I did. I didn't know that it will be 17. You know, I thought maybe a few years. I have full satisfaction of acting as a real artist, as an honest artist. No sign of any commercial activity. I was painting for myself. And this is a good feeling and I thought that if I could, if I would be able to make a movie with the same feeling that I had full control, that I do whatever I want to do, then I could make my comeback. “Said Jerzy Skolimowski
Very heavily maintaining drama "Four Nights With Anna" emphases the fact that story takes place from one person perspective. A loner almost retarded has the object of his fantasy, Anna, a chubby blonde that he sees from a distance or in sleep in bed. There’s not a back-ground story for his character accept the rape seen in flashback that obviously occurred in past. Skolimowski in this film say that there's no hope of the relationship and that entire drama lies in a big question of Leon discovering how guilty of her rape he is/was back in past. About this film Skolimowski said : “Well, it had to be a film of a certain budget, up to 2 million euros and it had to be shot in Poland, because only there I can have a real control, I can really take everything in my hands, and that's what happened, and that suits me very, very well.”
The festival maintained the exclusivity of the guest by organizing a big exhibition of Skolimowski’s fine art, held within the 37th FEST in Belgrade, Serbia. This was the exhibition of 15 oil paintings, the most significant director’s large paintings.
“Jerzy Skolimovski’s most recent artwork finds the exact midpoint between medium and metaphor, gesture and creature. The space of the pictures plane and the space of consciousness. Seen with one eye, they are ominously colored, furiously handled abstraction. Seen with the other, they are presences drawn from the depths of human experience, social and psychological models and archetypes.”
(Art critic Peter Frank, LA Weekly)
12.04.2009 | Radmila Djurica's blog
Cat. : art critic Artist Belgrade Cannes Cannes Cinema of Poland Contact Details Director Directors' Fortnight Eastern Europe Entertainment Entertainment FEST09 guest Four Nights with Anna Four Nights With Anna Jerzy Skolimowski LA Weekly LA Weekly Major paint Person Career Peter Frank Poland Serbia www.fest.rs FESTIVALS