Faithbreaker screens for the first time in the United States on Sunday, June 5 at the 2022 New Jersey International Film Festival. Here is my Interview with Director Piotr Złotorowicz:
Nigrin: Your wonderful feature film Faithbreaker is about two Polish families from a small town whose lives are intertwined. Tell us how and why you made this film.
Złotorowicz: I was always very interested how secrets are being transferred between generations. I wanted to tell the story about the purifying power of the truth. So, I went on to write a story where confronting with the truth would be a very unobvious choice. While writing, I was surprised that I made a strong case against the truth. When I was finishing the draft of my screenplay I wasn't sure if my characters should confront it. So, this is how I knew that I wrote something interesting worth pursuing.
Nigrin: Julia Szczepanska is great playing Ania as is the rest of the main cast. How did they come to be part of your film?
Złotorowicz: All the other performers are well established Polish actors. Julia is a major discovery from the casting. Since the characters of Alek and Ania were in love when they were kids, and now they find each other as young adults, we wanted to find actors who could be a good couple.
Nigrin: DP Nicolas Villegas doesn’t a masterful job lighting and shooting your film. Tell us more about him.
Złotorowicz: We are friends from film school in Łódź. It's our 3rd film together. It's a great satisfaction to work and grow with a friend. Nicolas has many virtues as a DP, but my favorite talent of his is the way he feels the actor with the camera. It's something that is unteachable. You have it or you don't. He has it.
Nigrin: The English title for your film is Faithbreaker but the title in the Polish version is Wiarolom -- the name of the town where the film is taking place. Why did you switch the name in the English subtitled version?
Złotorowicz: The name of the town is actually "WiaTrolom". The title is a poetic wordplay. In the Polish language we have this special word for a situation when you are promising something, but you know that you're not going to keep the promise. When you are doing that you are involved in "faithbreaking". Faithbreaker is our best attempt at translating the title.
Nigrin: Adam Walicki’s music is also superb. Tell us about how he came to work on your film.
Złotorowicz: I'm glad to hear that. The film tells a story about oblivion and moral cost of the truth, but at the same time the action is placed in very down-to-earth circumstances. To get the audience wondering about the symbolism we needed a way to elevate them from the mundane reality. Music was a strong component of this effort. Adam's work was very demanding as he was creating music from the sound of metal factory. We were looking for a tone that was organic to the rough world that was portrayed in the film. Music was also very important in the scenes of visions and dreams that our characters are having. During the production we were discussing with Adam the balance between these two worlds.
Nigrin: Are there any memorable stories while you made this film or any other info about your film you would like to relay to us?
Złotorowicz: I have so many. On a set like this there are always a lot of things going on at the same time. I still can't believe that we managed to shoot this whole film in only 15 days. For that I have to thank my whole crew who were so devoted to making everything happen. When you have so little time the margins for errors are very slim. Very few things give you so much satisfaction like seeing the script come to life on the set. Even under such a pressure and stress. I don't have a particular story. I remember a feeling of comradery.
Here is the Faithbreaker Trailer:
Faithbreaker screens at the 2022 New Jersey International Film Festival on Sunday, June 5, 2022 – Online for 24 Hours!
Faithbreaker - Piotr Złotorowicz (Warsaw, Poland)
Ania comes back home after years away to take care of her mother in last months of her life. She left the village as a child and now she comes back as a young adult and meets her childhood love, Alko. To her parents this encounter is an echo of old mistakes. None of them knows that they will have to confront their past. None of them knows that today they are going to forgive. Faithbreaker is a meditation about a moral cost of truth. In Polish, subtitled. 2021; 72 min. To buy tickets to see it click here.
The 27th annual Festival will be taking place on select Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays between June 3 -12. The Festival will be a hybrid one as we will be presenting it online as well as doing select in person screenings at Rutgers University. All the films will be available virtually via Video on Demand for 24 hours on their show date. Each ticket or Festival Pass purchased is good for both the virtual and the in person screenings. The in person screenings will be held in Voorhees Hall #105/Rutgers University, 71 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ beginning at either 5PM or 7PM on their show date. Tickets: $15=Per Program; Festival All Access Pass=$100.
For more info go here: https://2022newjerseyinternationalfilmfestival.eventive.org/
