'Mug' competes for Golden Bear at Berlinale

According to the film's producers, Mug (Twarz) is a modern fairy tale about a man who loses his face in an accident and, after receiving a face transplant, comes home to find himself a stranger among friends who no longer know how to treat him.

The film is set to hit Polish big screens on 6 April.

Szumowska’s film Body (Ciało) received the Silver Bear for Best Director in 2015.

Her new film will compete against, among others, Dovlatov, a Russian-Polish-Serb co-production directed by Alexey German Jr. about Russian-Jewish writer Sergei Dovlatov, who in 1971 couldn’t get published in Russia, as well as about the people who helped him become a great writer, including his friend Joseph Brodsky, whom the authorities forced into exile.

Łukasz Żal, who worked on Polish film Ida, which won the foreign film Oscar and was nominated for the academy’s award for best cinematography, was director of photography for Dovlatov.

Among Polish films outside of the main competition in Berlin are Łódź film school graduate Jagoda Szelc’s debut film Tower. A Bright Day (Wieża. Jasny dzień), which was awarded for its screenplay and directing debut at the Gdynia Film Festival last year; Paulina Ziółkowska’s short Bless You! (Na zdrowie); and a Polish-German co-production entitled Whatever Happens Next.

The Berlinale is among Europe’s most prestigious international film festivals.

It opens on Thursday with a screening of Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs and closes on 25 February. (vb/pk)