PODCAST| Bénédicte Prot interviews Malgorzata Szumowska and Michal Englert, director/scriptwriter and co-scriptwriter of the film Mug.

To listen to the interview, click on the ► icon on the right, just above the picture

A lovely Berlin moment, a few hours before the awards ceremony and the Silver Bear for Mug, with Polish director Malgorzata Szumowska and her long-term co-scriptwriter and DoP Michal Englert – also her collaborator on the two other films Szumowska presented in competition in Berlin, In the Name of… and Body, the latter ending up winning a Silver Bear for Best Director -, to discuss the choice of the title Mug, the origins of this very Polish satire and the humour in it, as well as the main character and what he embodies… Silver Bear – Grand Jury Prize Berlin 2018.

Mug combines the fundamental brutality of a rural provincial town where a giant statue of Jesus Christ is being built – a community quite content with sticking with the old ways whilst having an impressive potential for exaltation (for discount store operations or whatever is on TV -, with the story of a young and vital Metallica fan (Mateusz Kosciukiewicz) who has an accident while working on the statue and has to undergo a facial transplant. Around this loveable, now nearly-mute Frankenstein-type character whose his own mother doesn’t recognize, the village goes beserk.

To discover more about the film, click here.