This is not a film with one specific protagonist. Instead, we’re presented with a collective of main characters—a group of students that arrives at a dingy hotel for an internship. Thrown into a mysterious situation, they gradually lose their humanity, oppressed by a tyrannical hotel manager and forced to perform incomprehensible tasks. They suspect that there’s a deeper meaning to what’s happening to them, but they don’t realize that in this hotel time and space are relative. Jagoda Szelc’s second feature is also a thesis project for actors graduating from the National Film School in Łódź (Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna im. Leona Schillera w Łodzi). The film, made with limited resources as a collective effort by people connected with the Łódź film school, is impressive in terms of its creative solutions as well as its originality. Szelc, whose debut Tower. A Bright Day won her last year’s Krakow Film Award at Mastercard OFF CAMERA, remains faithful to an artistic vision based on a specific approach to storytelling, creating a sense of ambiguousness and mystery that’s reflected in the visual style as well as the sound design. It all comes together for an unforgettable cinematic experience.
Jagoda Szelc
Jagoda Szelc
Przemysław Brynkiewicz
Rafał Nowak
Karolina Bruchnicka, Paulina Walendziak, Mateusz Więcławek, Jakub Zając, Dorota Łukasiewicz-Kwietniewska
Poland