THE CONVERSATION

POLISH TITLE: ROZMOWA

Agnieszka and Janusz are serving long-term sentences in Polish prisons, both having committed heinous crimes. She is a young girl ; he a middle-aged man serving life imprisonment. They got to know each other many years earlier, through correspondence, but “The Conversation” depicts their first virtual meeting face-to-face, during Agnieszka’s first leave from jail. Throughout their sincere and startling Skype conversation, entirely filmed in split-screen, the young girl confides in the elderly man, as during therapy or in a confessional. Her story is far from catholic, though, and her attentive listener seems to be everything but pious. Through a series of intriguing sequences describing Agnieszka’s brief visit to her home during the leave – in quest for her past, her identity and motives – an unsettling story unfolds. The eternal story of Good and Evil, reflecting Raskolnikov’s theories in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s “Crime and punishment”. The audience is left with a number of harassing existential questions : To what extent is society to blame? Are there such things as innocence and intentional cruelty ? What does it take to make an individual cross the moral borderline? The director, Piotr Sulkowski, discreetly present behind the camera all along the film, thoroughly refrains from giving any hint or clue. His documentary acts a razor-sharp reminder of the harsh human condition, uniting victims and their executioners.

FILM REPRESENTED BY KRAKOW FILM FOUNDATION

GENRE:

documentary

COUNTRY:

Poland

RUNNING TIME:

16'

YEAR:

2011

DIRECTING:

Piotr Sułkowski

SCRIPT:

Piotr Sułkowski

DOP:

Michał Gruszczyński

EDITOR:

Piotr Sułkowski, Joanna Więckowska

PRODUCTION:

PWSFTviT (Państwowa Wyższa Szkoła Filmowa, Telewizyjna i Teatralna)