You're reading: Polish director talks Ukrainian filmmaking

A fatal disease and a suicide-obsessed character aren’t usual elements of a comedy movie. But those unexpected features are in “And a Warm Heart,” the 2008 movie by Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi, and it’s still funny.

With Zanussi, 74, who left science for filmmaking at the age of 30, movie-making is seldom this easy. “This film is mostly making fun of post-modernism. I use post-modern style to ‘ridiculize’ this view of life,” he explains, referring to the philosophy of post-modernism that denies basic humanistic feelings.

Explaining the casting of Ukraine’s legendary actor Bohdan Stupka for the role of Konstanty, the movie’s main character, Zanussi says simply: “He was playing an oligarch and Poland is such a poor country, we don’t have oligarchs, while you (in Ukraine) could export some.”

Zanussi looks serious even when joking. His gestures are fluid, his voice never rises and his eyes seem to be filled with some secret knowledge or at least wisdom.

Zanussi directed more than two dozen feature films, and probably as many TV productions and short movies. He won awards at Moscow, Venice, Locarno and Berlin international film festivals. His film genres range from dramas to comedies, however most of the comedies are pretty dramatic.

Now Zanussi is about to release his new movie “Foreign Body,” picturing corporate life and corporate mentality, starring the famous Russian actress Chulpan Khamatova.

According to Zanussi, bureaucracy is one of the things that prevents Ukrainian cinema from evolving and reaching the level of the film industry in neighboring Poland.

“The major problem is Soviet mentality. You have more of that than we ever had in Poland,” Zanussi says. “We also were not a part of the Soviet Union and you always had Moscow censorship.”

Film distribution is also far from perfect, Zanussi says.

“Ukraine should have a whole system of public cinemas that will promote national films in Ukrainian language,” he says and explains that despite the multilingualism of Ukrainian society, the dominant language should be the national language. “The language is what consolidates the national identity in the society,” he says.

A screenshot from the film “And a Warm Heart” (2008) directed by Krzysztof Zanussi showing Bohdan Stupka starring as a nasty Polish oligarch in need of a heart transplantation.

Zanussi also says he would recommend Ukraine adopting a Polish law regulating its cinema industry.

“In Poland we have a law that rules that films are financed from public money, but not from the state budget. The money is taken from TV advertising and cinema tickets sales. In France, the stake is 3 percent and we have only 1.5, but it still works very well and actually funds the national cinema,” he explains. “We copied this law from France where it was established in the 1950s.”

But even Zanussi has professional challenges. Seeking financing for his movies is one of them. “Each film is a battle and not all the battles are won,” the director says.

But Zanussi wins enough battles to keep getting movies funded and produced at a high artistic level.

The director says that Ukraine has lots of perfect locations for movies. “I am writing something for Odessa producer and if he finds money we’ll probably work on kind of a comedy focused at the Odessa Opera House,” he says.

According to Zanussi, it is always hard to predict which movie will become famous. Zanussi says he had a couple of influential movies, though only Hollywood movies can really reach the masses. “But this is not essential. When you reach elites you reach something more important than when you reach the masses,” he says. “Masses don’t change the world, elites do.”

Zanussi says he is familiar with Ukrainian filmmaking.

“Sergey Babayan, who is Armenian but works in Ukraine, Kira Muratova and Sergey Loznitsa are probably the names that are associated with Ukraine,” he says. “Though sometimes new names appear as well and it’s a good sign.”

Zanussi’s personal list of favorite movies is too long to enumerate, but it does not contain a single Hollywood flick.

“It is a matter of taste. If you have taste you can’t say you like something tasteless,” he says. “And it is not that everybody has a different taste. This is nonsense. You either have taste or you don’t.”

Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko can be reached at [email protected]