Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF | 2017 | FICTION | 25' 40" | DCP | Colour | 5.1 | Polish OV
Ela lives in a small provincial town in Poland. Her daily life is stuck in a routine, balancing work and family. But Ela has a dream: Like many young Polish people, Ela, too, wants to escape the tristesse of the council housing estate and move West, into a better life.
KAROLINA ROMUK‑WODORACKA, BARTOSZ SAK, KAROLICA PORCARI, MIKOŁAJ TRZYBIŃSKI, BJÖRN HEIENBROCK
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY Oliver Adam Kusio / PRODUCER Simon B. Stein / CINEMATOGRAPHER Marco Müller / EDITOR Anna‑Lena Laura Engelhardt / MUSIC Azadeh Zandieh / SOUND DESIGNER Azadeh Zandieh / PRODUCTION DESIGNER Fanny Welz / COSTUME DESIGNER Janina Kuhlmann / GAFFER Jakob Reinhardt
Ela - Sketches on a Departure has won the GOLDEN HORSEMAN for best short film at the 29th International Short Film Festival FILMFEST DRESDEN and was selected for the short film competition of the Semaine de la Critique in Cannes (amonst other). In 2017 it was shortlisted for the German Short Film Award LOLA and scored the Deutsche- Film und Medienbewertung's top certification mark for outstanding quality.
Born to Polish parents who settled in Germany before his birth in search of a better life, Oliver Adam Kusio carries with him the remains of the deracination which also haunts his cinema. Ela - Szkice na Pożegnanie (Ela - Sketches on a Departure) is the melancholic and solar portrait of the hope and pain a definite uprooting can stir. Shot "like a jazz piece" in the director's own words, this intimate gesture, yet universal in scope, bears its author's experience in documentary and evokes heroines of the Dardenne brothers and Andrea Arnold. A powerful poem.
- Carole Milleliri
MDR & Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF | 2018 | FICTION | 30' 00" | DCP | Colour | 5.1 | German OV
Janusz, a man in his late 40s, is confronted with the sudden death of his estranged wife. To cover up for all his failings, he hires a young prostitute to act as his girlfriend and join him for the funeral in the village he left many years ago.
BEA BROCKS, ROBERT GALLINOWSKI, IRIS BÖHM
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY Oliver Adam Kusio / PRODUCERS Simon B. Stein, Joshua Domnick/ CINEMATOGRAPHER Marco Müller / EDITOR Michał Kuleba / MUSIC Marcus Sander / SOUND RECORDIST Till Lorenz Aldinger / SOUND DESIGNER Azadeh Zandieh / PRODUCTION DESIGNER Fanny Welz / COSTUME DESIGNERS Belle Santos, Ran Chai Bar‑zvi / GAFFERS Hendrik Römer, Jakob Reinhardt
UNCSA - University of North Carolina School of the Arts & Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF | 2023 | FICTION | 20' 00" | DCP | Colour | 5.1 | English/Romanian OV
A young Romanian woman visits her uncle, a baker who left for the United States decades earlier. What begins as a warm family reunion turns tense when he refuses to treat her broken tooth, turning a small physical wound into a confrontation over identity, belonging and the choices that shape a life.
SILVANA MIHAI, SORIN CRISTEA, CLAUDIA TROY, ALEX HUDSON, BRENT GALLIMORE, THOMAS GILLESPIE, CRISTI D. EDWARDS
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY Oliver Adam Kusio, Vanessa Gunesch / PRODUCER Katrin Kreppel / CO-PRODUCER Dillon Dipietro / CINEMATOGRAPHER Marco Müller / EDITOR Anna‑Lena Engelhardt / COLORIST Ben Packer / SOUND RECORDIST Alexander Wolf / SOUND DESIGN & FOLEY Till Lorenz Aldinger / PRODUCTION DESIGNER Sylvia Massey / CASTING Iulia Lumânare / GAFFER Katie Mlinek
In development supported by FFA and MBB / financing | FICTION | 120' 00" | Colour | Polish OV
In a near-future northern Polish shipyard town facing closure, Marta, a laundry worker, and her husband Lech, a union activist, take in Marta’s teenage niece Aga after her mother’s death. When Lech turns Aga’s story into a weapon in the growing strike and she is arrested during a violent protest, Marta must decide whether to cooperate against him to keep her niece out of the reformatory.
