IMAGO

Director Olga Chajdas, main actress Lena Góra and music composer Andrzej Smolik are available for interviews in Karlovy Vary.

IMAGO by writer and director Olga Chajdas is celebrating its world premiere in the Proxima Competition at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2023 on 2 July. IMAGO is featuring co-writer Lena Góra (“Roving Woman”,”The King”) in the lead role with music composed by the Polish musician Andrzej Smolik and cinematography by Tomasz Naumiuk (“High Life”, “Mr. Jones”).

IMAGO is a post-punk psychological drama about otherness, the desire for freedom, and the failure to conform. It is a story about sex, youth and meditation and, above all, the deep and complicated bond between mother and daughter.

The story is set in Tricity from 1987 till 1989 – after the first free elections in Poland – against the backdrop of the rebellious Tricity music scene, a cultural and social phenomenon of the period and a harbinger of revolutionary changes in Poland.

SYNOPSIS

Late 1980s, at the Polish Coast. The old communist order, with its greyness and rigid set of prohibitions and commands, is in decline. But a new order is yet to be established. Ela, the youngest of nine siblings, is just entering adulthood – already knowing she will not fit into any of these worlds. She finds a sanctuary in the Tricity counterculture. And so she drifts along… carried by the wind of her dreams and hunger for life – until the moment she is faced with reality.

Olga Chajdas studied film production at the Łódź Film School. Her participation as an assistant in the “Prime Minister” series by Agnieszka Holland, Magdalena Łazarkiewicz and Kasia Adamik turned out to be an important professional experience for her. She then continued to work with Agnieszka Holland on her subsequent films, including the Oscar®-nominated “In Darkness” and “Mr. Jones”. Chajdas has directed many television productions and series including “The Deep End” and “The Border” for HBO, “Cracow Monsters” and “1983” for Netflix, and also co-directed the first Polish feature film for Netflix “Erotica 2022”. After two short films, “3x LOVE” and “Morning has Broken”, Chajdas directed her feature debut “Nina” in 2018 which went on a successful international festival tour. It was awarded with the VPRO Big Screen Award at Rotterdam IFF and won the Polish competition at Camerimage IFF.

IMAGO is an Apple Film Production production in coproduction with Topkapi Films, Moloko Film, CANAL+ Polska, House Media Company. Supported by Polish Film Institute, Netherlands Film Fund, Czech Film Fund, Netherlands Film Production Incentive, Eurimages, the City of Gdańsk (partnership).

Production Company: Apple Film Production – www.applefilm.pl

113 min. / Poland, Netherlands, Czech Republic 2023 / Color / Feature

©/CREDITS:

Stills: © Apple Film Production