“Leader is an attempt to showcase how modern times can change the relationship quotient between men and women generally. Primarily it tries to portray women only from the perspective of men,” said producer of the movie Korek Bojanowski while addressing a press conference at the 52nd International Film Festival of India in Goa today. Leader, a Polish film, is Bojanowski’s debut production and he was joined by the Cinematographer of the film Grzegorz Hartfiel.
Throwing light on the very idea of this fast paced movie, which belong to the genre of black comedy, Bojanowski told that this film tries to depict how people use others to establish themselves in the world through manipulation. “It’s an intense satirical take on human emotions,” he said adding further that they aspired to make a postmodern movie which fits in all genres.
The film which had its World Premiere at IFFI52 is featured in the International Competition category for the coveted Golden Peacock Award for the best film along with 14 other films.
Directed by siblings Katia Priwieziencew and Igor Priwieziencew, Leader in a perverse way talks about the mechanisms of personal coaching and it depicts the world where the most rational of people could be taken for crazy ones, while the truly mad manipulate facts and become authority figures.
Explaining further on how the idea of the film took the shape, Bojanowski said that self-training coaching centres and coaches are a common phenomenon in the entire part of the world. “Through the movie we have tried to touch a subject which has universal appeal,” the producer said.
Leader started as a short-film project in 2017 and then seeing the reception of the film across festivals we made a feature length of the film which is now at IFFI, Bojanowski added.
Asked about the most challenging part in making the movie, Cinematographer Grzegorz Hartfiel said that the biggest challenge was the idea itself. “Most of the time, camera moves within a single room with 6 men! There were no landscapes, mountains and beautiful weather, but just a single room and what was to be captured were the intense emotions of these 6 men” he added in jest.
In the context of how Covid affected the making of the film, Bojanowski told, “The situation had been same around the world, so it affected us as well. We were forced to stop shooting due to a Covid case in the set. Some of the scenes were also changed due to the pandemic restrictions.”
Sharing their excitement to have the film’s world premiere at IFFI 52, Bojanowski said that it was an amazing experience to see the movie on a screen where viewers are mostly from India. “After the screening we had an interaction with some people. Our goal was to evoke different reactions among people rather than giving answer to one question,” he told further adding that, “It had the same impact as we desired.”
Leader is the story of a kind and shy boy Piotrek, who appreciates simple life. Due to the worldly pressure to do more and reap more, he falls into the trap of persuasions and determines to change himself for the people whom he love. Here by virtue of coincidence he comes face to face with a charismatic but mysterious person with the pseudonym ‘Leader’ who is a personality development coach. There the protagonist meets other men from different circumstances who all falls prey to the emotional manipulations by the Leader who are ‘oppressed ‘by women.
The director duo Katia and Igor Priwieziencew graduated from the Warsaw Film School. The duo has made fictions, many short films and music videos. For many years Katiahas been involved in the music industry. She also holds a ZASP (Polish Scene Artists Association) diploma.
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