“As far as possible from here” again in cinemas. Piotr Domalewski [WYWIAD] • www.tuwroclaw.com

Michał Hernes: I’m glad “As Farth From Here” is not a movie that made me sadly leave the cinema.
Piotr Domalewski: Honestly, I don’t like her as a viewer either, and I don’t want to present something like this to the viewers of my films.

I’m under the impression that there are filmmakers who assume it’s easier to make a very good or great movie that has a sad, not hopeful, ending.
I think so too. I don’t know where it came from, but it might be easier – down, to the end and “bye” at all. Please do not write it, this is a statement from the master of the Polish language [śmiech].

I prefer to quote it, however, because this sentence shows your talent for manipulating everyday language or street slang and your ear for dialogue. You can watch it in “As Farth From Here”.
It’s funny because I’ve never thought about it before. Due to the pandemic, we waited a little longer for the premiere of “As Farthest From Here,” which was tentatively scheduled to release in the spring. After watching this movie six months later, I saw that my characters had their own way of communicating, regardless of whether they spoke Polish or English. I don’t know what this dynamic is. Maybe it was because people in my house were talking like this to each other?

Do you record other people’s conversations and take notes?
The worst part is, I remember everything. It is a heavy burden. I get the impression that good ideas remain in my memory and bad ideas disappear.

Have you heard a lot of conversations between Poles living in Great Britain?
Yes, my brother was working on a construction site in all kinds of weird places. On the other hand, I had the pleasure of working at a sawmill in Poland. It was a horrible, exhausting job.

Did any tragic accidents happen during that?
Thankfully no, but it’s also a dangerous job. Regarding the “farthest from here” incident, we considered showing pictures or video clips of containers falling into the original movie. It turns out we’ll have to do it ourselves, and dropshipped containers pose a similar challenge to a Hollywood production. In any case, they fall regularly, but not always at people.

In “Beyond Here” she showed the powerlessness of the people against the regime. In Ireland, his chances of winning are slim.
The Irish character in my movie says he won’t fight them himself, even though he’s from there. It is a big, faceless financial and administrative machine. I think he showed it better Ken Loach In “Me, Daniel Blake”. I remember when I wanted to sign up for the gym, I discovered that I had no one to talk to. It was a company without an owner or a face. Its staff had no idea who was standing above them. It is a sign of our times. It is difficult to find oneself in this structure, let alone break free from it.

In your new movie, you don’t tell a working story but a little girl.
Inspired by real events, the story of a teenager who had to travel abroad to fetch the body of her tragically dead father. It touched me a lot. I wanted to make a movie not about specific people, but about looking for a relationship with a parent who no longer exists. During one of the interviews, it dawned on me that the protagonist does not do this alone, but with the scenes – the scenes with her, from the scraps, build the character of her father and form an opinion about him. I like it when the protagonist experiences everything inside and doesn’t talk about it. That’s why I love “Manchester by the Sea” Kenneth Lonerjana, As we cannot completely access the main character. We know he’s experiencing hard-to-imagine trauma, but we have to experience these feelings for him as viewers. I like “freshmen” for similar reasons Milsa Mica. The character he played Ewan McGregorHe also faced some tragedies. He is sensitive to reality, but he does not show his feelings. I also love the movie “Luke” from Take Hardim. I’ve been watching it lately, admiring the mastery of this unusual script. I was pleased with the “concrete” in the background, and this extraordinary metaphor and feeling of emotions. I like this kind of cinema.

In such a cinema, the actors are important, so in “As far from here as possible” a lot depends on whether the actress takes the lead role.
I wouldn’t say it was easy. Arik Jacobec He said that when he played the scenes with SufiThen he already knew it was okay, but didn’t realize how powerful it was on screen. He only saw it while watching the movie. He said it was a gamble on my part to get someone who has no acting experience in such a movie. He asked me how I knew it was the right choice. I do not know. I felt like the right person.

She came to casting on her own?
Yes, and it has gone through its five phases, including test shots. It must have been hard for her, but she left her unscathed. I could still think about it and only later did I start to think how it happened. Sophia He has extraordinary toughness and diligence. She is not afraid of challenges – she sets it herself. She seems to have unlimited potential in terms of the challenges she can face. As a manager, I of course had to take care of her a lot. It took a lot of work, but I get the impression that it will only be possible with her. The last time I spoke to her, she said that she was lucky to win that choice. It wasn’t luck, I replied.

How did it happen that she decided to participate in this selection?
This is a wonderful and very funny story. Sophia She got an email about two representatives from her agency. The second was slapstick. When I got to our cast, I thought it was a comedy. She was surprised that the scene she was playing wasn’t funny, and demanded to be less clever and cruel. It wasn’t until she came home that she felt the scene was too strange for a romantic comedy. She carefully read her emails and realized that moment when she was involved in casting. This is where it all began.

In fact, without it, this movie wouldn’t have happened.
This is the case with films based entirely on the hero. This is why I stress how dangerous it is on my part, but to be honest, I didn’t think of it that way.

How challenging did you face writing this character?
It’s a character that has a thing for each of my four sisters. I’ve seen them all my life, so I had a really good base to create a strong heroine. In our house, women have dominated the numbers. The character in the movie talks like one of my sisters, reacts like the other, smokes like a third, and drinks like a fourth.

Who were you a model for when creating characters of Poles working in Great Britain?
I always try to listen to others and find suitable places. While in San Sebastian, I decided to go for a coffee before leaving for the airport, but I didn’t want to sit in any of the expensive restaurants. Finally, I found a small bar where the workers who do fronts sit daily. There were also two Poles. I am interested in these people and a lot happens in places like this. This is more of an inspiration to me than the bunch of hipsters who sit with their Mac exposed and stare at their phones. Maybe you can build a drama out of their stories, for example based on a lack of communication, but I prefer dealing with people who are talking about something.

When I was visiting my brother in the different countries in which he worked, I ended up in a barracks similar to the one in which the heroes of my film lived. Not only that, we filmed this scene in a staff hotel in Warsaw, where construction workers live, just across the eastern border. I saw similar things five years ago in the Netherlands and Scotland.

Poles abroad are not easy.
It is not easy for anyone to emigrate for economic reasons and improve their existence. this is difficult. No one is waiting for you there. If anything, they are waiting to call qualified personnel. I make movies about people who have to beat every penny. We talked a lot with the consulate staff in Dublin and they had interesting conversations. I heard a lot of stories there and maybe any of them would be suitable for a movie.

It is true that it is not easy, but the main character in “As Farthest From Here” has not been robbed or raped by its own citizens.
I like making movies about things that lie in my own reality space. Hope it’s very wide since there are many siblings and they all work in a completely different field. It allows me to gain insight into spaces that I would not have been able to access otherwise as someone who has been in the artistic environment for years.

I don’t like the tabloid approach. Yes, you could make a movie about a man who sliced ​​a woman in a supermarket cold room, wrapped it in foil and sold it to people like a pork shoulder. Surely such a story happened somewhere. People have kept kids in barrels, but I don’t want to make a movie about that. I don’t know what to treat. I think of a whole animal world. This is not my perception of reality. However, I believe that a person is inherently good and if people harm others it is because they themselves suffer.

Hope is useful.
I like it when the viewer stays with it. You can see it – I hope – in “Cicha noc” and “As far as possible from here” as well. The heroine of this movie won because she survived everything and somehow managed it.

Was it difficult to know how this movie would end?
To be honest, I get to ends pretty quickly. When I’m working on a movie, I also need to start with it and see what it’s about. As a kid, I read the beginning of a book and immediately checked how it ended. Only then did I go to the center to see how all this happened.

Measure is critical.
Yes, but once you know what it will lead to you can tie it very precisely into these reels. I try different things and we’ll see how it goes. At the moment, interesting challenges await.

For example, the series “Sexify” on Netflix.
This is something completely different, but with the freedom and joy of writing something completely different. It is true that I do it a little upon request, but these characters speak of my conversations and are no different from the characters in my films. It would be a very bold trip.

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