OSCAR® SHORTLIST: Best Doc ‘Communion’ from Anna Zamecka of Poland
Communion is one of the 15 shortlisted doc features (out of 166 originally submitted films) which have recently been announced For Consideration for the 91st Oscars® presented by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. *
Living amid domestic instability and teenaged volatility, a sister and brother play out their lives on camera. At fourteen, Ola is already functioning as the woman of the house, cooking and cleaning for her lethargic father and helping her energetic autistic brother, Nikodem, prepare for his first Holy Communion. Throughout, she longs for her mother, whose absence is never explained, yet always deeply felt.
As the date of Communion nears, it becomes an opportunity for the family to meet up and Ola is entirely responsible for planning the perfect family celebration. Communion is a portrait of young womanhood and crash course in growing up that teaches us that no failure is final, and that change is possible and needed, especially when love is in question.
Communion/ Komunia reveals the beauty of the rejected, the strength of the weak and the need for change when change seems impossible.
Communion scores a perfect 10 in drawing out viewer empathy… There’s an unadorned, direct quality to everything in the film. — — — — Dennis Harvey, Variety
Anna Zamecka’s multi-award-winning Communion, has created a trend in Poland, a particularly devout Catholic country. This film was followed by a spate of fiction features about first communion.
The Communion team is planning a number of screenings in Los Angeles and New York coinciding with the theatrical release of the film, and the director, Anna Zamecka will be in L.A. January 2–5.
As I noted this past July, during the New Horizons Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland, a favorite festival of mine, this documentary adds to the canon of films on first communion, an important event in the life of children on the verge of pubescence.
An interesting element in Poland today is the place of the Catholic Church in modern life as Poland has always and still holds deeply revered Catholic roots.
All three films including Wild Roses, a beautiful and sensitive depiction of a woman in a small town with a husband who is usually absent, and her two children as she returns home from a long absence and hospitalization and the multiple-award-winning full-length debut by Jagoda Szelc, Tower. A Bright Day, start out as dramas focused on a first communion ceremony.
In Wild Roses / Dzikie róże directed by Anna Jadowska, Ewa leaves the hospital and returns to her hometown, where she had left her two children — her rebellious eight-year-old daughter Marysia, who is about to take her first communion, and a little boy named Jaś — -in the care of her mother (Halina Rasiaknin). Marysia is angry and observes her parents, the church, her grandmother as she prepares for her first communion and more traumatically for her first confession. With her experiencing this comes the demand that the child bury what really matters — like honoring and loving one’s parents for example, and instead she is coached to offer up a confession as trivial as forgetting to feed the goldfish one day. In the end, it is her mother’s brave move which will determine her children’s relationship with the rest of the world.
Their father (Michał Żurawski) works in Norway, and so the burden of running the house falls to Ewa, who has a teenage admirer named Marcel (Konrad Skolimowski). Featuring the poetic cinematography of Małgorzata Szyłak (Communion), this family drama, takes a close look at the often unattainable social expectations facing women and raises fundamental questions about the nature of the parent-child relationship and the essence of motherhood.
International sales agent: ANT!PODE Sales & Distribution.
The multiple-award-winning full-length debut by Jagoda Szelc, Tower. A Bright Day, also starts out as a drama focused on a first communion ceremony. Initially, everything seems to be going perfectly, especially since down-to-earth Mula is responsible for organizing the family get-together. With the passage of time, however, things get out of control, and the darkening atmosphere starts to evoke the poetics of horror. It all seems connected with the appearance of Mula’s sister, a mysterious and taciturn woman who visits her relatives after a six-year absence. Kaja’s visit has a hidden purpose, and once it’s revealed, nothing will ever be the same again. Combining an original sensibility with the creative use of horror conventions, Tower. A Bright Dayposes important questions about the role of spirituality in the modern world and about a sense of responsibility for the world around us.
Communion is being sold internationally by Cat and Docs.
Beyond the full week-long theatrical release in select markets, there additional special U.S. screenings as part of the Oscars® shortlist Documentaries Program:
AUSTIN (Alamo Drafthouse Mueller)
BOSTON (AMC Loews Boston Common 19)
CHICAGO (Music Box Theatre)
DALLAS / FORT WORTH (Alamo Drafthouse Lake Highlands)
DENVER (Alamo Drafthouse Sloans Lake)
LOS ANGELES (AMC Sunset 5, Laemmle Monica Film Center and Playhouse 7)
NEW YORK (Alamo Drafthouse Downtown Brooklyn)
PHOENIX (Harkins Shea 14)
RALEIGH (Alamo Drafthouse Raleigh)
SAN FRANCISCO (Alamo Drafthouse New Mission, Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Ctr.)
SANTA BARBARA (Santa Barbara International Film Festival Riviera Theatre)
SEATTLE (AMC Pacific Place 11)
WASHINGTON, DC (Warner Bros. Theater at Smithsonian Museum of American History)
European Academy Award Winner
AWARDS FOR ‘COMMUNION’
Winner — Best European Documentary — European Film Awards
Winner — Critic’s Week Award — Locarno Festival
Cinema Eye Honors — Unforgettables — Nonfiction subjects
Cinema Eye Honors (Nominee) — Outstanding Achievement — Debut Feature Film
Winner — Best Documentary — Polish Academy Awards
Winner — Best Documentary — Yamagata IDFF
Winner — Best Documentary — It’s All True IDFF, Brasil
Winner — Silver Eye Award — Jihlava IDFF
Winner — Best Documentary — DMZ Docs IFF, South Korea
Official Selection — True/False
Winner — Young Eyes Award — DOK Leipzig
Winner — Best Documentary — Trieste IFF
Winner — Best Documentary — Warsaw FF
Winner — Best Documentary — Minsk IFF Listapad
Winner — Best Documentary — TRT Documentary Awards
Winner — Best Documentary — Astra FF, Romania
Winner — Best Documentary — Budapest IDF
Official Selection — IDFA
Winner — Best Documentary — Bratislava IFF
Writer/Director: Anna Zamecka
Editor: Agnieszka Glińska, Anna Zamecka
DOP: Małgorzata Szyłak
Producers: Anna Wydra, Anna Zamecka, Zuzanna Król,
Izabela Łopuch, Hanka Kastelicová
* There are nine shortlist categories: Documentary Feature, Documentary Short Subject, Foreign Language Film, Makeup and Hairstyling, Music (Original Score), Music (Original Song), Animated Short Film, Live Action Short Film and Visual Effects. To download shortlists by category, visit Oscars.org/91st-oscars-shortlists.)
