Academy of Motion Pic­ture Arts and Sci­ences has just announced the Oscar nom­in­a­tions. Among the films com­pet­ing for the statuette, there is “Rab­bit a la Ber­lin” by Bartek Konopka.

The list of films selec­ted by the Academy in the “Short-​length Doc­u­ment­ary Film” cat­egory includes:

 “China’s Unnat­ural Dis­aster: The Tears of Sichuan Province” — Jon Alp­ert and Mat­thew O’Neill
“The Last Cam­paign of Gov­ernor Booth Gard­ner” — Daniel Junge and Henry Ans­bacher
“The Last Truck: Clos­ing of a GM Plant” — Steven Bognar and Julia Reich­ert
“Music by Prudence” — Roger Ross Wil­li­ams and Elinor Bur­kett
“Rab­bit à la Ber­lin” Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra

„Rab­bit a la Ber­lin” is an extraordin­ary story of the Ber­lin Wall, told from the per­spect­ive of rab­bits liv­ing there. In 1961, the anim­als were imprisoned in the green belt divid­ing East and West Ber­lin. They remained there until the destruc­tion of the wall in 1989, tak­ing part in his­tor­ical events. In this way, the rab­bits shared the fate of East Ger­mans, who lived uncer­tain lives under the com­mun­ist regime, isol­ated from the world.

Bartek Konopka — born in 1972 in Myślenice. A gradu­ate of film stud­ies at the Jagi­el­lo­nian Uni­ver­sity, journ­al­ism at the Uni­ver­sity of Warsaw, and dir­ec­tion at Krzysztof Kieślowski Radio and Tele­vi­sion Depart­ment at the Uni­ver­sity of Silesia (2002). He is the author of doc­u­ment­ar­ies such as: “Sky over Europe” (2003), “Goat Walker”(2004) and the fea­ture film “Three for the Tak­ing” (2006). Awar­ded at the fest­ivals in New York, Seattle, Krakow, Brest, Wro­claw and many oth­ers. Polityka’s Pass­port nom­inee. He was awar­ded the Min­istry of Culture’s schol­ar­ship for his artistic achieve­ments and Nipkow’s fel­low­ship in Ber­lin. Presently, he is work­ing on his début fea­ture film “Acro­pho­bia.” 

The doc­u­ment­ary “Rab­bit à la Ber­lin” has recently been given the Jań­cio Wod­nik award at the Nation­wide Fest­ival of the Film Art PROW­INC­JONALIA, and earlier it received the Golden Hobby-​Horse at the Krakow Film Fest­ival and an Best Mid-​length film award at the Hot­docs - Cana­dian Inter­na­tional Doc­u­ment­ary Fest­ival.

Earlier, the only Pol­ish doc­u­ment­ar­ists nom­in­ated for the most import­ant award were Mar­cel Łoziński in 1993 for “89mm From Europe” and Hanna Polak with Andrzej Celiński in 2005 for “The Chil­dren of Len­in­grad­sky.” How­ever, in both cases the nom­in­a­tions did not turn into the statuettes. Whether the Pol­ish film is suc­cess­ful this time, we will learn in a month – on 7^th March 2010.

The rest of nom­in­a­tions here.


(02.02.2010)