Tadeusz Sobolewski

Why this school occupying several rooms of a small building situated on the premises of Warsaw Film Studio becomes so important for Polish cinema?

No one is questioning the importance of Lodz Filmschool or Audiovisual Department named after Krzysztof Kieœlowski, placed at Silesian University in Katowice. This can be proved by student etudes, which won numerous prizes at international film festivals:"The man thing" by Slawomir Fabicki (Lodz), "Magnet-Man" by Marcin Wrona (Katowice). The interesting thing is, they both can be met in Warsaw, at Chelmska St. After graduating from their filmschools they became students of a master class in a school founded by Andrzej Wajda and Wojciech Marczewski. In this class one can find, next to the beginners, experienced directors after their debut, like Denijal Hassanoviæ ("The letter") and Iwona Siekierzyñska ("My roasted chickens"). What are they looking for in this school? Why did they decide to pay 10 000 zlotys for a one year education in a master class?

I attend classes

On one side of the classroom – a dozen of students. On the other- combined forces of two the best film units: "X" and TOR: Wajda, ¯ebrowski, loziñski. The program of a course is concentrated on a work on a script, the weakest point of Polish cinema. I happen to witness the moment known from Hollywood; the author has to tell his story in three minutes. Of course, it takes more time, and a brutal "Be short!" can be heard from beside the Master’s table.
Directors can be good in roles of critics. With their questions: "who?", "why"? "what about?", "why?" they bring out the weak points and look for the strong ones. They give ideas, try different solutions. I witness a brain storm which lasts many hours.

- They learn to discuss without a fear that it can be seen as a malicious comment towards one’s colleague – explains Marczewski, who was tutor in film directing in London, Bern, Copenhagen. – We do not possess that culture of discussion yet. There, like in the old-days- schools of rhetoric disputants are assigned different roles: today you point the negative, and you – the positive. Then the roles change.

Lozinski: The times, when we were, in a group of friends, discussing (in Warsaw Film Studio) how to help the author, are gone. No one imposed anything to anyone. Together we were searching for the optimum solution. After all, the author made his film in his own way, because he had his own style, "hand-writing". Young people of today, deprived of such a comfortable atmosphere, are left alone.

The master school intends to be a intermediate stage between a film school, which is an asylum of artistic freedom and a production routine, which gives little chance for creative development. This school differs from traditional schools offering several-year-education not only with the insensitivity of classes but first of all with the practical approach, better possibilities of producing (during a year student should make about 7 etudes and finish a script). The most important thing, however – is a contact with Masters.

A model unit

Andrzej Wajda Filmschool resembles very closely a film unit – nowadays a form practically non-existing, which guaranteed a vitality of Polish cinema in years 1956-81. The units were not an idea of PPR (Polish People’s Republic) authorities. They were established out of initiative of film directors themselves, referring to pre-war experiences of film authors’ association "Start". Reference to this tradition does not come out of nostalgia for former glory – the idea of team work is a laboratory for individual development. Copenhagen Film School is based on similar rules – this is were begun a revival of Danish cinema; a lot of it happened thanks to Wojciech Marczewski. For the beginning director, as for a little child, the most important thing is environment, in which he shapes his character. The Master School intends to protect the most talented ones in a moment of making a first step.

The weakness of Polish cinema, which lost the support of the state and did not create strong production centers, is a distraction of means and talents, getting pleased with a mediocre, lack of mechanisms pushing up the quality – and a lack of faith that we can make a films which would move the world.

Listening to the discussions in a colleague-master team I get assured one more time, how hard in character-shaping is cinema: you have to know how to do it your own way and at the same time know how to use someone else’s wisdom and experience. To what extent?

Marczewski encourages one of the students: "Think, it’ the best thing that could happen to you. Twenty people are working on your script! Write down everything! Then you’ll do what you want. I remember, in TOR Unit Ró¿ewicz gave me 44 remarks after first viewing of "Nightmares". I considered five, and I still remember them.

During night shooting on a swimming-pool in Academy of Physical Education I encounter a dramatic moment: young director refuses to make a scene because of bad conditions – he wants to change the location because of noise. Wajda appears at midnight and tries to discipline the director, in a military-like tone tells him to shoot. The director says: no. After a one-hour discussion he wins. Wajda accepts his argument.

The director went through a first ordeal, a model situation when he had to say "no" to his producer, someone he depended on and, in so doing, to reinforce instead of weaken his position.

Therefore, the master unit is a model of cinematography, were the horizon of great expectations is not covered by a market in the need of film-products.

That is why the role of this school is so important – in a situation where a Cinematography Bill is not yet enacted , where Polish Film Institute does not exist, the school is a source of normality. Also because of its origin – an outcome of marriage of capitalism and idealism (school was founded thanks to Ryszard Krauze Foundation).

The Documentary School

January 31st is a deadline for sending applications for new documentary course run in Master School by Marcel loziñski and, among others, Jacek Petrycki - director of photography. In the end of 8-month-course (IV-XII 2003) each of the students will leave school carring his first own film.

- I want them to have a feeling – says Loziñski – that all that talking about a film, work, which awaits them bring a material, tangible effect. If not, a possibility of tasting this profession – wonderful and damned at the same time- will be wasted.
Here, just like in case of feature film, a team work on a documentary is supposed to be something more than learning the technique and reportage skills. What matters though, is asking questions, which no one asks in television chase after an attractive topic: what do I want to talk about? Why? What for?

Loziñski starts his course from changing point of view.

- Before you look around, look at yourselves. Your thoughts are parts of reality, as much as things you are going to film – he explains to his students. – Your subjects are important but the personality of filmmaker also matters.

- Making a documentary means not only to expose your own experiences, fears, complexes and dreams, but also - what can be more frustrating – to exploit privacy of other people. We hide behind them. We speak about ourselves using their mouths. We show ourselves by photographing others. Before getting close to your protagonist you have to get close to yourself and feel how it hurts sometimes. Training of documentary director on a certain stage resembles a psychodrama. One has to find a thick line of interference in other people’s lives which you cannot cross. And, at the same time, to learn ways of getting to the truth.

An anecdote told by Marcel loziñski shows the difference between a documentary director and TV reporter:

Student: I want to make a film about the old lady rummaging the bins. It is awful picture.
Loziñski: All right. Have you met her?
-Yes.
-Did she agree to be photographed?
-Of course.
- What did this old lady done before?
- I don’t know. I suppose she was always rummaging the bins.
-Does she have a family?
- I don’t know.
-Where does she live?
- Probably at the train station.
- You didn’t ask her?
- Why? It is not my topic.
- What is it then?
- I’ve already told you: this is an awful picture. I want to be an artist, not a sociologist!
- And then I know for sure – says loziñski – that this guy will never be a true documentary director. Because to make a documentary does not mean to describe reality but to interpret it.

Listening to him, I remind myself the words of Roberto Rossellini, the father of Italian neo-realism "The world of today becomes unbelievably cruel. To express the truth about it, one has to have an ability of critical judgment and assume a moral position. An observation deprived of emotions is not enough. In order to rescue the sinking, one has to learn how to swim – this is a position of a real artist".
Maybe it is worth to attend such a school before you enter a television feeding ground of topics. Cinema as art has a meaning when there is something more about it that mere cinema.

The Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing was founded in November 2001. It’s founders are Andrzej Wajda, Wojciech Marczewski and Warsaw Film Studio. The main school’s donor is Ryszard Krauze Foundation. European Film Academy has embraced the school with a honorary patronage. Film courses last one year. Candidates must have artistic experience, not necessarily in a field of film making.

Tadeusz Sobolewski

This article was published on 27th January 2003 in Gazeta Wyborcza, the biggest and the most influential daily newspaper in Poland. It’s author, Tadeusz Sobolewski is a journalist and a film critic. Footnotes come from the translator.