„A BLUE ROOM” – A PREMIERE AT CANNES FILM FESTIVAL
Last Saturday at 2:00 pm at Espace Miramar the first screening of “A Blue Room” by Tomasz Siwiński was held. The animation is the sole Polish film in this year’s programme or Critics’ Week section at Cannes Film Festival.
“A Blue Room” is a debut of Tomasz Siwiński made after graduating from the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts. Film was produced as a coproduction between Polish Se-Ma-For and French Sacrebleu Productions. The painting animation by Siwiński is a story of a man who wakes up in a blue room. He's stuck and he can't escape. A window is his only connection to the outer world. It filters the reality in a very mysterious way...
Just before his departure to Cannes, Tomasz Siwiński answered some of our questions. The director was interviewed by Zofia Ścisłowska
PS: Tomek, your film "A Blue Room" will have its première at the Cannes Film Festival this Saturday - it will be screened as a part of the SEMAINE de la Critique section. What was your first reaction to the invitation?
TŚ: Together with the producer, we wanted the film to have its première at one of the most important festivals. We have been awaiting the replies from several festivals from the beginning of 2014, when the film was finished. We waited for so long that we could lose hope that our assumptions would be successful. Therefore, the news from Cannes was for me a great relief and the reason for satisfaction.
PS: Both in the film "Blue Room" and your painting, there is a recurrent motif of the warp of reality, and realistic plot elements mingle smoothly with the surrealistic ones. For you, what is the most interesting thing in such a way of presenting the reality?
TŚ: What characterises my approach and what interests me most is the intention to depict stories and situations which do not lend themselves to unambiguous interpretation. I have always been interested in mystery and stories which stimulate the imagination and live in the minds of the audience in various ways. I think that blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, which I like so much, creates the space for the freedom and creativity of the audience.
As a viewer, I often expect the cinema to provide me with escape from reality, to enable me to immerse myself in a world which may be close to the world of dreams. I am particularly excited by the idea that thanks to the film many people can dream the same dream.
PS: How your idea about the visual layer of the film was formed? I'm not asking about the technique, but about the particular style of painting, which you chose to tell this story, which to me resembles a bit the murals by Diego Rivera.
It is very interesting that you have such associations. So far, my painting have been compared to Picasso's blue period, to Wilhelm Sasnal, to Orthodox icons, but no one has mentioned Rivera yet... It is hard for me to explain clearly and in an conscious way why the aesthetic of the film looks in the way it looks. It happened in an organic way during the preparations for the project. Certainly, in some way it is the sum of my visual inspirations, but I cannot name one source.
PS: And the last question. From the production side - how did you start co-operation with Sacrebleu Productions?
It started quite a long time ago. One day I got an e-mail from Ron Dyens, who wrote that he had seen my diploma film "Little Black Square". He liked the film enough to express the wish to meet me and - possibly - to co-operate with me. After some time, we met at the festival in Zagreb, where I showed him some drafts of scripts. "Blue Room" was one of them.
PS:Thank you for the interview and good luck in Cannes!
The following screenings of „A Blue Room” will take place on Saturday at 8:00 pm in Espace Miramar as well as on Tuesday, 20th May at 6:00 at Théâtre Allexandre III.
More about the film can be found at the official Critics’ Week website