"The audience in different countries has a different kind of humour"

"Tricks", a film by the Polish director Andrzej Jakimowski, is certainly low budget, but it is rich in terms of cinema. In his first interview before the movie's premiere in Israel, Jakimowski tells us, why he likes to observe the audience and which of the scenes from reality made it to the movie.

Quietly, without praise from the critics, without colorful posters or trailers on internet movie pages, the Polish film "Tricks" is coming to our cinemas. It's the best, most beautiful and most moving of all the films we've seen for years. This modest, low budget movie is rich both in it's spirit and in it's realisation.

The movie tells the story of a poor Polish family, abandoned by the father many years ago, trying to cope with the troubles of everyday life and the solitude in a small poor Polish village. When Stefek and Elka, his older sister, see a man that resembles a lot to their father at the train station, everything starts to change. First in their guts, where the heart really is [this is a typical hebrew expression]./[following- a typical hebrew expression].

"Tricks", which were awarded the prize for the best european movie at the Venice Film Festival in 2007, is only the second feature of the Polish writer-director-producer Andrzej Jakimowski (45), a calm and modest man, but yet full of self confidence in his form and movie language, which probably resembles nothing else. It's most of all his unique point of view with it’s beauty and opulence contained in such a simplicity, that finds it’s meaning in a description put together from scraps of reality. Just like the toys of Stefek (the movie's main character) which are decorating the metallic rail tracks and the crumbling walls, the picture of flying doves gives life to the sad reality of the village. Not every scene is moving the plot forward, but the fabric that is weaving itself is perfect.

"What was important to me, was showing in a movie how it's possible to capture the little things that can change a life. Capture the coincidences", says Jakimowski.

Jakimowski is one of the few people, who do not think about the audience when creating and are totally detached from the commercial or critique’s reviews consequances and does not try to be like another directors. Jakimowski, motivated by his faith in himself and the cinema's truth, has created a story, and he is the only one who can tell it. It's because of this, that he writes, directs and produces his own movies. Jakimowski: "I feel that to tell my story I need to use my own language. I've learned this from the best directors. To develop a language. I prefer not to let myself be influenced, but just imagine my next movie and the language it will be done with. I like Jim Jarmusch, the pace of his stories, I value his timing and his style - it's impossible to imitate him. And it makes no sense to imitate him, because his style suits only himself.

Jakimowski landed in Israel last months and went directly to Haifa. The media didn't interest him that much, he mostly wanted to hear the reactions of the audience to the movie. " I come to movie festivals to see how the audience reacts to movies", says Jakimowski. "The people react differently on the outside. Their way of expression changes. But on the inside they are all influenced [by the movie] in the same way and feel the same. People are not different from one another. It's only the audience's sense of humour that is different in different countries."

*Is the story in the movie based on true events?
-I mixed two stories of my personal life in "Tricks". I remember the relations between the brother, the sister and her boyfriend from my childhood. My sister had a boyfriend, I tried to separate them a bit and the character of the boyfriend in the movie is similar to the real one, the way I remember him at least. But my sister says that I showed this inaccurately and that she doesn't remember something like this happening in our childhood. She says that the guy wasn't even her boyfriend. But maybe she's not telling the truth. The second story (of the girl who meets her father on the street) is based on the story of my friend - they are walking on the street, she recognizes him, he doesn't recognize her. It was a real shock to her, her heart was beating incredibly fast, and she almost fainted. I added this to my movie. I stole it from a true story."

Matan Shiram

/photos subtitled: "To tell my story I need to use my own language". Jakimowski. & "Tricks"/ Translated by Justine Julie Charlet