Walking through the streets of Krakow,
two of the greatest contemporary Polish artists
,
Roman Polanski and Ryszard Horowitz,
retrace their past and recall the difficult moments in their lives,
during the Holocaust, when they met in the Jewish ghetto built by
the Nazis.
The two tell survival stories:
Horowitz became one of the youngest children rescued by Oscar Schindler
and
Polanski hid in a small village after escaping from the ghetto
, in the home of a poor peasant family.
The meeting-comparison between the two is the story of the documentary "
Polanski, Horowit. Hometown",
produced by Luca Barbareschi and presented today at
the Rome Film Festival
in the "Special Screenings" section. The film, conceived 5 years ago, and was made by two young directors: 31-year-old
Mateusz Kudla
and 34 -year-old
Anna Kokoszka-Romer
, a couple in private life.
The two authors are also journalists and told, at the press conference, that this created a small difficulty: "
Not so much for Horowitz, but for Roman Polanski because we had to convince him to shoot the film, explaining that
it was not an interview
" .
The one between the two artists, in fact, is an intimate conversation, an
uninterrupted dialogue
full of memories and
punctuated by hilarious and surreal moments
.
Horovitz and Polanski
have always been different, but united by their passions: they
skipped school to go to the cinema
,
developed their first photographs
and fell in love with art in
communist Poland, against the wishes of governments.
They both studied great artists and discovered the beauty of jazz.
Both have left the country: since
Polanski left Krakow to make films
and
Horowitz fled to New York to
pursue his career in photography, they had never had the chance to see each other again in Poland.
Thanks to “
Polanski, Horowitz.
Hometown
”, after 50 years, they returned to see together all the places of their origins and shared their history, which is the history of humanity, with the general public.