This Sunday at 14:05 on the Espreso TV channel – the premiere of the teaser of the feature film “Vincenz” by the Polish director Jan Kidawa-Blonski.
“Vincenz” is an upcoming large-scale biopic of Polish-Ukrainian production, the life story of the “Homer” of Hutsul Region, the author of the Hutsul epic “On the High Uplands”, Stanisław Vincenz, a writer and thinker. The script of the 2018 film was created by Ukrainian playwrights Natalia Vorozhbyt (“Cyborgs”) and Max Kurochkin with the support of the Ukrainian Academy of Arts. The pre-production project was implemented by the NGO “All-Ukrainian Democratic Forum” with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation.
In the center of film history, in addition to beautiful Carpathian landscapes, Hutsul legends and the philosophy of an outstanding humanist, we see a dramatic love triangle. The fact is that two women fought for the heart of Stanisław Vincenz – the first and second wives – Lena and Irena. When in 1939, after the redistribution of Poland, which included Hutsul region before the Second World War, this territory was captured by Soviet troops, the local intelligentsia began to be threatened with repression. Vincenz went to prison. The arrest threatened his entire family – representatives of the Polish elites were sent en masse to exile in Kazakhstan at that time. The many-week journey in goods wagons was terrible, the conditions were inhumane – few experienced even the journey itself, let alone exile. Miraculously freed from prison, the writer decided not to wait for the next arrest – and together with his two dear women and three children fled across the border to Hungary through the Black Mountain Range, accompanied by a molfar guide.
The writer ended his life and book in the Swiss Alps.
The scene of the Vincenzes fleeing abroad is reproduced in the teaser of the film with the support of the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation. Under the direction of the famous Polish director and laureate of the Cannes Film Festival, J. Kidawa-Blonski, it was shot by the second outstanding Pole in the project – cinematographer Lukasz Gutt. Filming took place in the National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine near Kyiv, as well as in the capital’s filming pavilion. A significant part of the natural scenes was shot in the Ukrainian Carpathians – in the writer’s homeland, in the village of Kryvorivnia, Verkhovyna district, Ivano-Frankivsk region.
The role of Stanisław Vincenz in the teaser was performed by Ukrainian actor Oleg Drach, who will present the teaser to the general public at Espreso this Sunday together with journalist and cultural manager Maria Gurska, who starred in the teaser as Vincenz’s wife, Irena.
The teaser will also feature Ukrainian folk star Nina Matviyenko, Ukrainian actor Yevhen Malukha and other talented actors.
Work on the full-length film will begin in 2020 on the basis of pre-production, carried out with the support of the UKF.
