Fugue (2023)
Director: Agnieszka Smoczyńska Run Time: 102 min. Rating: NR Release Year: 2018
Starring: Gabriela Muskała, Łukasz Simlat, Małgorzata Buczkowska, Piotr Skiba, Zbigniew Waleryś
Country: Poland, Czech Republic, Sweden
Language: Polish, English
About the film:
Official Selection, 2018 Cannes International Critics’ Week
After a two-year disappearance, free-spirited Alicja (screenwriter Gabriela Muskala) is reunited with her parents, husband and young son despite having no memory of them. Suddenly thrust back into a domestic life she has no recollection of choosing, Alicja struggles to reconcile her new and unfamiliar roles of dependability with the unshackled independence sprung by her recent mental break.
With surreal, icy imagery and a seductively hypnotic atmosphere, director Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s sophomore feature burrows into the landscape of Alicja’s mind, excavating the societal burdens and duties expected of women, and whether personal freedom is truly attainable.
Fugue (2023) evokes the social taboos around motherhood and the pressure on women to accept maternity without hesitation or reflection, as though the biological capacity of giving birth means that every woman should be willing to be a mother.
About the filmmaker:
Agnieszka Smoczyńska is a Polish film and television writer and director. Originally a student of art history and culture, she completed her education at the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing in Warsaw. For its artistic vision, her first full-length film Daughters of Dancing (2015) received a Special Jury Award in the World Cinema competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Her follow-up feature Fugue (2023) was presented in International Critics Week at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival. In 2018, together with Agnieszka Holland, Kasia Adamik and Olga Chajdas, Smoczyńska directed 1983, the first Polish series for Netflix. Based on the best seller by Marjorie Wallace, Smoczyńska’s third feature film The Silent Twins (2022) premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
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