“LESSONS OF LOVE” WITH A CHANCE TO LAND AN OSCAR NOMINATION

The film by Małgorzata Goliszewska and Kasia Mateja was among the documentaries competing for the nomination for this year's Academy Award.

This year, the list of nominated titles will be announced very late, only on 15 March, and we will have to wait for the gala itself until April 25. The schedule was changed due to the pandemic. There is one Polish film among the documentaries competing for the nomination – “Lessons of Love” by Kasia Mateja and Małgorzata Goliszewska.

The film's protagonist is an eccentric, colourful woman in her late 60s. After fifty years, she takes an important step – she runs away from her marital nightmare in Italy back to her home town of Szczecin. There, she can finally live like she has always wanted to: she dances, sings, writes poems, and songs. Her lyrics are about a love she has never known. In Jola's eyes, the world is romantic, colourful, and dramatic. One night on the dance floor of Cafe Uśmiech [“Cafe Smile”] she meets Wojtek – an older man who madly falls in love with her. All of Jola's friends, as well as her six children, urge her to divorce Bogdan, an alcoholic who stayed in Italy. Only the priest tries to dissuade her, claiming that she should forgive and remain faithful to the end. Jola hesitates and doesn't know what to do. Face a difficult divorce and remarry? Or, perhaps, just live in the moment and not dwell on the past? Will Jola dare to live her life? And will she finally do what she wants and not what others expect of her?

In recent years, the Academy has appreciated Polish productions. Zofia Kowalewska's “Close Ties” made the Oscar shortlist, and so did Michał Szczęśniak's “Starting Point” five years ago. In turn, in 2014 two short documentaries were nominated for an Academy Award – “Our Curse” by Tomasz Śliwiński and “Joanna” by Aneta Kopacz. Even earlier, nominations in the short documentary category went to Hanna Polak and Andrzej Celiński's “The Children of Leningradsky” (2005) and Bartosz Konopka and Piotr Rosołowski's “Rabbit à la Berlin” (2010).