Inside look at folk ensemble that inspired Oscar nominated "Cold War"

Record ID: 1396293

  • Title: Inside look at folk ensemble that inspired Oscar nominated "Cold War"
  • Date: 21st February 2019
  • Summary: BIALYSTOK, POLAND (FEBRUARY 16, 2019) (REUTERS) VARIOUS DANCERS PERFORMING IN THE SHOW
  • Embargoed: 7th March 2019 11:39
  • Keywords: Pawel Pawlikowski Cold War Oscar nominated movie best foreign film Mazowsze folk song and dance ensemble
  • Location: OTREBUSY, BIALYSTOK, POLAND/FILM LOCATION
  • City: OTREBUSY, BIALYSTOK, POLAND/FILM LOCATION
  • Country: Poland
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment,Film,Editors' Choice
  • Reuters ID: LVA005A2IZPYX
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: The Oscar nominated "Cold War" movie owes much of its visual beauty to a real-life folk ensemble "Mazowsze", founded in 1948 and still active today.
    The film's tempestuous romance moves from Poland's post-war countryside to Paris jazz clubs against the backdrop of the ensamble's performances - black and white in the movie, bursting with colour in real life.
    The movie which has already earned Pawel Pawlikowski the Best Director award at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival, tells the story of a love affair between Zula, a tough, beautiful woman who wins a much coveted place at the "Mazurek" troupe and Wiktor, its dashing musical director.
    "Mazowsze", the real-life prototype of the movie's "Mazurek" was founded by a Polish composer Tadeusz Sygietynski and his wife, Mira Ziminska who travelled around post-war Poland collecting folk songs and traditional dances. The ensemble founded by the couple quickly gained support of the communist authorities which used it as a propaganda tool pitting folk art against jazz, seen as a decadent, bourgeoisie music.
    During the communist times "Mazowsze" became a flagship of Polish culture. After performing in Moscow in front of the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, the ensemble toured all Warsaw Pact capitals including East Berlin from where the movie's protagonist Wiktor defects to the West.
    In the years that followed, tens of the troupe's dancers chose not to return from tours in western Europe, the United States and Canada.
    Pawlikowski who left Poland as a 14-year-old boy when his mother emigrated to Britain, returned to the country to make his movie.
    "Pawel Pawlikowski came to Mazowsze a year before casting for the film began, searching for inspiration," said Wioletta Milczuk who worked as a consultatnt for the film's crew.
    In Otrebusy, a village near Warsaw where "Mazowsze" has its base, the director found both the inspiration and the cast - the ensemble's dancers became actors in his movie while "Two Hearts", the song played in various renditions throughout the film, is the classic standard of Mazowsze's repertoire.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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