Tricks (film)

Tricks
Sztuczki
Directed by Andrzej Jakimowski
Produced by Izabel Jakimowski
Written by Tahila Jakimowski
Starring Damian Ul
Ewelina Walendziak
Tomasz Sapryk
Music by Tomasz Gąssowski
Cinematography Adam Bajerski
Edited by Cezary Grzesiuk
Release dates
October 26, 2007 (Poland)
Running time
95 min.
Country Poland
Language Polish

Tricks, (Polish: Sztuczki) is a 2007 Polish film written, directed and produced by Andrzej Jakimowski starring Damian Ul, Ewelina Walendziak and Tomasz Sapryk. Tricks is Andrzej Jakimowski's follow up to Squint Your Eyes (Zmruz oczy), his 2002 debut.

Plot

A charming bittersweet narrative unfolds from director Andrzej Jakimowski. This is the story of siblings Stefek, 6, and Elka, 18, along with Elka's car mechanic boyfriend Jerzy during one sun-drenched summer. The siblings live with their shopkeeper mother. Their father has left their mother for another woman, unaware of Stefek's existence. After a chance encounter at the local railway station, and despite a denial by his sister that this was his father, Stefek decides to challenge fate to engineer another meeting. He believes that the chain of events he sets in motion will help him get closer to his father who abandoned his mother. His sister Elka teaches him how to bribe fate with small sacrifices. Tricks played, coupled with a number of coincidences eventually bring the father to the mother's shop but the long awaited re-union does not immediately materialise as expected. As a last chance Stefak tries his good luck with the most risky of his tricks.

Cast

Distribution and response

Tricks received a warm reception from the audience at the Venice Film Festival whilst at the same time gaining critics' approval. Iain Millar from the American channel Bloomberg wrote in his review: "The success of Sztuczki is due mostly to the incredible intuition of Jakimowski as a director. Although not nominated for the bigger awards, Tricks received attention from many film festivals. The film was chosen as Poland's official submission to the 81st Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.[1]

Awards

Nominations

See also

References

  1. ""Sztuczki" polskim kandydatem do Oscara". Wiadomosci. 2008-09-20. Retrieved 2008-09-21.

External links