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Warsaw Rising film shoot in final phase

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 30.07.2013 11:06
As Poland marks the 69th anniversary of the Warsaw Rising against the Nazi Germans, young film-maker Jan Komasa is finishing a shoot on a major movie about the insurgency.

Photo:
Photo: Akson Studio - Miasto 44/Facebook

Komasa's City 44 (Miasto 44) will include state of the art visual effects from the British and Czech specialists who worked on such blockbusters as Peter Jackson's King Kong and Christopher Nolan's Inception.

The 31-year-old director, who became an overnight sensation following the release of his 2011 debut Suicide Room (2011), penned the script himself for the Warsaw Rising epic. The screenplay was approved by such luminaries as Professor Norman Davies and former foreign minister and underground member Professor Wladyslaw Bartoszewski.

The plot focuses on Stefan ( Jozef Pawlowski), whose mother forbids him from taking part in underground activities following the death of his father in 1939 at the outbreak of war.

However, Stefan falls under the spell of an underground operative code-named Ladybird (played by Zofia Wichlacz), and he is drawn into conspiracy.

Shooting began on 11 May and is due to finish on 18 August. The budget, partly funded by the Polish Film Institute, is 24 million zloty (5.6 million euro), making it one of the most expensive Polish movies of all time.

Komasa told the Polish Press Agency that veterans of the insurgency had visited the set.

“In Warsaw, we had situations where older people who had survived the Warsaw Rising came up to us,” he said.

“They told us how things had looked at a certain spot, for example, when we were shooting in the Old Town.

“They were curious, and they had their recommendations - like how someone should hold a weapon or stand against a barricade.”

The premiere of City 44 is set for the 1 August 2014, on the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Rising. The film will be screened in front of a crowd of 15,000 people.

The Warsaw Rising was launched on 1 August 1944, after five years of Nazi occupation.

The insurgency ended in catastrophe two months later, with about Polish 200,000 casualties (the vast majority civilians). What was left of the city was largely dynamited by Nazi troops, on Hitler's orders.

A Soviet-backed communist regime was then installed, with the Red Army occupying Poland. Sixteen of the surviving leaders of the underground who fell into Soviet hands were flown to Moscow for a stage trial, with several dying in captivity. (nh)

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