The doc­u­ment­ary “Lovers”(“Kochankowie”) is another pro­duc­tion made for HBO Cent­ral Europe this year. The film is about love, friend­ship and sexu­al­ity of the handicapped.

The prot­ag­on­ists of the film by Rafał Skal­ski are the han­di­capped who have no inhib­i­tions about bring­ing the audi­ence into the world of their romantic rela­tion­ships. They do not con­sider them­selves dif­fer­ent or worse. Like every­one else they want hap­pi­ness and love. They do not expect care from their part­ners, but rather under­stand­ing, warmth and hon­esty. Their lives do not dif­fer much from those of able-​bodied people. They have sim­ilar dreams, wor­ries and joys. 

“The prot­ag­on­ists of Lov­ers are ordin­ary people who found them­selves in extraordin­ary cir­cum­stances. I think that it is because of their ‘han­di­capped situ­ation’ that the glance at love and the phases of it devel­op­ment in the film are becom­ing more and more uni­ver­sal,” says Rafał Skal­ski, the documentary’s dir­ector.

Each couple in the film is dif­fer­ent. All prot­ag­on­ists are united by the dream of hap­pi­ness in the arms of a beloved per­son. Krzyś, con­fined to a wheel­chair, plans a future with able-​bodied Ola, and sight­less Grzegorz and han­di­capped Ania can­not ima­gine liv­ing without each other. “He is my legs and I am his eyes,” says Ania. Five-​year-​old Vic­toria is the fruit of love between phys­ic­ally han­di­capped Ela and her healthy hus­band Rafał.

The film was made for HBO Cent­ral Europe by Eur­omedia TV. The documentary’s dir­ector is also the author of “52 per­cent”, which received awards in 2007, among oth­ers the Golden Hobby-​Horse in the Pol­ish con­test at Krakow Film Fest­ival.

The première of “Lov­ers” took place on Sunday, 27^th Decem­ber in HBO.

More about HBO pro­duc­tions here: www​.bez​cenzury​.hbo​.pl



(14.12.2009)