INTERVIEW WITH WOJCIECH SOBCZYK - THE AUTHOR OF "SUMMER 2014"
Tomorrow, in Riga, the names of the winners of this year's European Film Awards will be announced. In the short film category, Poland is represented by "Summer 2014" by Wojciech Sobczyk. We managed to have a short chat with the director before his journey.
Zofia Ścisłowska: The titles of your films - "Spring 1999" or the latest "Summer 2014"- point to a specific moment in time, while their content refers to some kind of cyclicity of human fate, placing the events in a wide temporal perspective. I wonder what is the reason for such consistency in naming the films?
Wojciech Sobczyk: I sign a film just like one signs a painting, customarily adding the date of its making. Thanks to it, some kind of specific system of recording real time and reckoning time is created. In particular my time. In this case, the perspective of the present is crucial, thanks to it we can relate the events shown in the film to present times. It is true that "Spring" and particularly "Summer" refer to events known from history, bring back images from the past, but what matters is not stopping and concentrating on the past events, but being able to apply them to the present. The record, documentation of the present would not be possible without historical context.
The films "Spring" and "Summer" are parts of a wider project depicting the cycle of successive and repetitive seasons. It is assumed that there would be more parts. By referring to nature, it described the repetitiveness of events, which seems to convince that if something passed, it does not mean that it would not be back, and if there is something, it does not mean it would be here forever. After all, the world is in particular a real graveyard of civilizations and cultures.
The film begins with the quote from the Gospel According to Mark, the parable about possession by an unclean spirit. Why did you choose this fragment as the film's motto?
The film "Summer 2014" is an autonomous work, complete, self-contained and absolute. By evoking images related to the dark side of human nature, it expresses the true nature of the world. The reality shown in the film is the reality of evil. Everything visible in the film seems to confirm this state of affairs. The world is possessed by evil and it is not possible to break this circle by any human actions. But the world is not only a world of visible, but also invisible things. Breaking the circle of evil is possible only thanks to interference of power not of this world. The Biblical quote, referred to in the title, speaks not (or not only) about possession by an unclean spirit, but above all, about exorcising evil spirits. So, it is the sign of healing, cleansing by a subtle expression of hope. It is what Jerzy Nowosielski talked about when he wondered how it is possible that the infernal reality could be transformed into heavenly reality. In the film, the equivalent of this idea is the rain falling from the sky.
The full interview can be found here.