33 Scenes From Life

33 scenes from life by Szumowska on Polish screens

33 Scenes recently won silver at the 61st International Film Festival in Locarno. That’s the biggest international recognition a Polish film has received since Krzystof Kieslowski’s ‘Three colours white’ won the Silver Bear in Berlin in 1994.

After watching it in Locarno, a famous German critic described Szumowka’s film as ‘33 genius scenes from life’. Tadeusz Sobolewski of renowned Polish daily Gazeta Wyborcza, wrote that it was a truly European film that showed a most noble trend in Polish cinema to the rest of the world.

In essence, this is a film about a definitive loss of childhood, about the end of a certain period in life and the fear that accompanies it.  When our successive worlds disappear; first our childhood – this real one and then this more mature one, then we become parents and then our children leave us; we have husbands and lovers who also disappear. This way successive worlds are created.” Małgorzata Szumowska.

Thirty-something year old  Julia is a very successful photographer. She lives in a rich, intellectual family . Her husband Piotr is a renown composer preparing for the first performance of his next piece in Cologne. Mother Basia is a renowned writer of crime stories. Her father Jurek is a documentary filmmaker. Suddenly their happy life together between Cracow and their country cottage comes to an end. First their beloved dog dies, and soon after Basia complains about pains in her tummy. Doctors discover cancer. and she is admitted to hospital. An operation and chemiotherapy fail to stop the cancer. Basia’s illness causes Jurek to break down. Meanwhile, Piotr can’t stop working. If it wasn’t for Adrian, a friend who shares her workshop, Julia would face the challenges of life alone. It’s time for her to take stock of the world around her. It may even be the moment when everything needs to started over, from the very beginning.