After breaking out with her fantasy horror musical The Lure, Polish director Agnieszka Smoczyńska helmed her English-language debut with The Silent Twins, a Cannes-selected drama that will arrive this September. Ahead of the theatrical bow from Focus Features, the first trailer has landed.
Led by Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance, the Andrea Seigel-scripted adaptation of Marjorie Wallace’s best-seller tells the true story of twin sisters who only communicated with one another. As a result, they created a rich, fascinating world to escape the reality of their own lives. Reuniting with cinematographer Jakub Kijowski, the trailer shows off an impressive visual palette capturing the peculiar true tale.
See the trailer below.
The Silent Twins opens in theaters on September 16.
The post First Trailer for Agnieszka Smoczyńska's The Silent Twins Tells a Strange True Story first appeared on The Film Stage.
Led by Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance, the Andrea Seigel-scripted adaptation of Marjorie Wallace’s best-seller tells the true story of twin sisters who only communicated with one another. As a result, they created a rich, fascinating world to escape the reality of their own lives. Reuniting with cinematographer Jakub Kijowski, the trailer shows off an impressive visual palette capturing the peculiar true tale.
See the trailer below.
The Silent Twins opens in theaters on September 16.
The post First Trailer for Agnieszka Smoczyńska's The Silent Twins Tells a Strange True Story first appeared on The Film Stage.
- 7/13/2022
- by Leonard Pearce
- The Film Stage
At first, it might seem strange that experimental Polish director Agnieszka Smoczyńska chose for her third film a social justice drama about a pair of Black British twins and amateur novelists locked up for petty crimes. But the filmmaker’s esoteric style — “The Lure” was a bloody, lesbian take on “The Little Mermaid” — makes more sense once we get to meet June Gibbons (Letitia Wright) and her sister Jennifer (Tamara Lawrence). Identical twins born 10 minutes apart, June and Jennifer invent an entire language only for each other — and are despondent when anyone else tries to invade their fun. Smoczyńska illustrates the eccentric stories they tell each other with stop-motion puppets, musical montages and, in one Andy Warhol-inspired set piece, a deep pool of Pepsi washing ’round a living room.
Where “The Silent Twins” fails, however, is in tying that childlike expressionism to the stark grimness of the Gibbons’ real lives.
Where “The Silent Twins” fails, however, is in tying that childlike expressionism to the stark grimness of the Gibbons’ real lives.
- 5/26/2022
- by Adam Solomons
- Indiewire
Any number of directors could have shot Andrea Seigel’s straightforwardly moving screenplay for “The Silent Twins” and turned out a straightforwardly moving film in the process. It’s hard to imagine any of those movies looking, sounding or feeling quite like the one Agnieszka Smoczyńska has made, however. Based on the desperately sad true story of two intensely connected Black twin sisters failed by Britain’s educational, legal and mental health services in the ’70s and ’80s, this brazen, tear-your-heart-out drama gets the full benefit of the Polish filmmaker’s singular imagination. Layering one wild formal flourish over another — from macabre stop-motion animation to elaborately choreographed musical fantasies — to channel the inner lives of two young women who communicated only with each other, keeping the rest of the world outside their circle, it’s a swing for the fences that sometimes, almost by design, spins out of control.
Whenever that happens,...
Whenever that happens,...
- 5/26/2022
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Smoczynska makes her English-language debut with The Silent Twins, the strange and remarkable story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, twin sisters who only communicated with each other from 8 to later-teen years when drugs and drinking led to petty theft and an arson charge that landed them in the tightly secured medical ward of Broadmoor for 11 years before being released in the 1980s. Creating their own puppetry and dolls, poems and music, which they only broadcast for each other on a fake radio program, the “twinnies” as they were called by family fell into an odd void that became more pronounced, even when they were forced to go to separate schools at one point. And they carried on this way until becoming young women landing and in legal trouble until incredibly being incarcerated for over a decade, five or six times as long as the...
- 5/25/2022
- by Pete Hammond
- Deadline Film + TV
Polish film in Cannes Official SelectionThe Polish representation at the 75th Cannes International Film Festival is exceptionally strong. Although journalists are mainly wondering whether Palme d’Or will go to Jerzy Skolimowski, the author of the film ‘Eo‘, three other Polish productions — all co-financed by the Polish Film Institute — have a chance for awards in Cannes.
Main competition — Eo
Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski Eo tells a story of a donkey in an increasingly complex reality. Passed from hand to hand, the animal meets both good and bad people on its path full of bends. Skolimowski’s film is a allegory created in a Polish-Italian co-production. The director is also responsible, along with Ewa Piaskowska, for the script.
The cinematography for Eo is by Michał Dymek, Michał Englert and Paweł Edelman, and Agnieszka Glińska was responsible for the editing. Isa: Hanway
Un Certain Regard section — Silent Twins
Un Certain Regard section includes the English-language film by Agnieszka Smoczyńska who did that fabulous mermaid movie that premierd in Sundance called The Lure. Twin sisters (June and Jennifer Gibbons), described in the book The Silent Twins by Marjorie Wallace, who in their childhood “fell silent to the outside world” are recreated in the eerie story of twin sisters who were entirely silent, communicating only to each other as children. As teenagers, they became obsessed with writing fiction, then with teenage boys, and finally, with crime. The film is based on the true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, twins from the only black family in a small town in Wales in the 1970s and 1980s.
Silent Twins is a Polish-British co-production, for which Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska, Bogna Szewczyk and Ewa Puszczyńska are responsible on the Polish side. The editing, as in the case of Eo, is by Agnieszka Glińska, and the music was composed by Marcin Macuk and Zuzanna Wrońska. Jakub Kijowski is responsible for the cinematography.
‘Silent Twins’ by Agnieszka Smoczyńska
‘Silent Twins’ by Agnieszka Smoczyńska
Section Quinzaine des Réalisateurs — Pamfir
In this section, the Polish-Ukrainian-French-Chilean co-production directed by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk is worth a look.
This story takes place in the west of Ukraine on the eve of the traditional carnival. This is about a loving father whose child sets fire to the house of prayer. In order to rectify his son’s guilt, Pamfir must stop “earning honestly for bread” and return to places he never wanted to return to. On the Polish side, Bogna Szewczyk Madants and Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska are responsible for the production. The film was edited by Nikodem Chabior. Isa: Indie Sales
‘Pamfir’ by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk
‘Pamfir’ by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk
Section of La Cinef Festival du Cannes — Tomorrow We are not There
In the student section, the animated short film Tomorrow We are not There by Olga Kłyszewicz is a triumph. It is an eight-minute story about a situation many of us have probably experienced: an unexpected encounter with a person who views life in a completely different way and changes our point of view unexpectedly.
Kłyszewicz’s animation was selected from among 1,528 student productions from around the world submitted to the competition and is one of only three animations out of sixteen qualified films. The Film School in Łódź is responsible for the production of the picture, and Joanna Jasińska-Koronkiewicz was its artistic supervisor.
‘Tomorrow We are not There’ by Olga Kłyszewicz
‘Tomorrow We are not There’ by Olga Kłyszewicz...
Main competition — Eo
Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski Eo tells a story of a donkey in an increasingly complex reality. Passed from hand to hand, the animal meets both good and bad people on its path full of bends. Skolimowski’s film is a allegory created in a Polish-Italian co-production. The director is also responsible, along with Ewa Piaskowska, for the script.
The cinematography for Eo is by Michał Dymek, Michał Englert and Paweł Edelman, and Agnieszka Glińska was responsible for the editing. Isa: Hanway
Un Certain Regard section — Silent Twins
Un Certain Regard section includes the English-language film by Agnieszka Smoczyńska who did that fabulous mermaid movie that premierd in Sundance called The Lure. Twin sisters (June and Jennifer Gibbons), described in the book The Silent Twins by Marjorie Wallace, who in their childhood “fell silent to the outside world” are recreated in the eerie story of twin sisters who were entirely silent, communicating only to each other as children. As teenagers, they became obsessed with writing fiction, then with teenage boys, and finally, with crime. The film is based on the true story of June and Jennifer Gibbons, twins from the only black family in a small town in Wales in the 1970s and 1980s.
Silent Twins is a Polish-British co-production, for which Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska, Bogna Szewczyk and Ewa Puszczyńska are responsible on the Polish side. The editing, as in the case of Eo, is by Agnieszka Glińska, and the music was composed by Marcin Macuk and Zuzanna Wrońska. Jakub Kijowski is responsible for the cinematography.
‘Silent Twins’ by Agnieszka Smoczyńska
‘Silent Twins’ by Agnieszka Smoczyńska
Section Quinzaine des Réalisateurs — Pamfir
In this section, the Polish-Ukrainian-French-Chilean co-production directed by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk is worth a look.
This story takes place in the west of Ukraine on the eve of the traditional carnival. This is about a loving father whose child sets fire to the house of prayer. In order to rectify his son’s guilt, Pamfir must stop “earning honestly for bread” and return to places he never wanted to return to. On the Polish side, Bogna Szewczyk Madants and Klaudia Śmieja-Rostworowska are responsible for the production. The film was edited by Nikodem Chabior. Isa: Indie Sales
‘Pamfir’ by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk
‘Pamfir’ by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk
Section of La Cinef Festival du Cannes — Tomorrow We are not There
In the student section, the animated short film Tomorrow We are not There by Olga Kłyszewicz is a triumph. It is an eight-minute story about a situation many of us have probably experienced: an unexpected encounter with a person who views life in a completely different way and changes our point of view unexpectedly.
Kłyszewicz’s animation was selected from among 1,528 student productions from around the world submitted to the competition and is one of only three animations out of sixteen qualified films. The Film School in Łódź is responsible for the production of the picture, and Joanna Jasińska-Koronkiewicz was its artistic supervisor.
‘Tomorrow We are not There’ by Olga Kłyszewicz
‘Tomorrow We are not There’ by Olga Kłyszewicz...
- 5/8/2022
- by Sydney
- Sydney's Buzz
Offering a different kind of near-future dystopia, “Warning” lets the clock run out on humanity’s stint in the background, while in the foreground we examine ways technology might usurp our lives in the guise of “improving” them. This first feature for music video director Agata Alexander, credited as “a film by” producer Cybill Lui Eppich, is a refreshingly offbeat series of faintly interlocking stories that hang together better than most omnibus-type constructs.
This is sci-fi cinema of a relatively subtle, intriguing stripe, without the usual emphasis on fantastical or action imagery. Still, it’s slickly engaging enough to please more open-minded genre fans, and brainy enough to attract those who want something other than another laser shoot ’em up. Lionsgate is releasing the Poland-shot, English-language production to limited U.S. theaters as well as digital and VOD formats on Oct. 22.
David (Thomas Jane) is a lone maintenance man working...
This is sci-fi cinema of a relatively subtle, intriguing stripe, without the usual emphasis on fantastical or action imagery. Still, it’s slickly engaging enough to please more open-minded genre fans, and brainy enough to attract those who want something other than another laser shoot ’em up. Lionsgate is releasing the Poland-shot, English-language production to limited U.S. theaters as well as digital and VOD formats on Oct. 22.
David (Thomas Jane) is a lone maintenance man working...
- 10/21/2021
- by Dennis Harvey
- Variety Film + TV
Further prizes awarded to Quentin Tarantino, Edward Norton, Peter Greenaway and Richard Gere.
Joker cinematographer Lawrence Sher won the Golden Frog at Poland’s EnergaCamerimage International Film Festival on Saturday (November 16).
The box-office hit, starring Joaquin Phoenix and directed by Todd Phillips, also won the audience award at the festival, which returned to Torun, Poland.
Scroll down for full list of winners
The Silver Frog went to cinematographer César Charlone for his work on Fernando Meirelles’ The Two Popes, while Vladimír Smutný won the Bronze Frog for Vaclav Marhoul’s The Painted Bird.
Second World War drama The Painted Bird,...
Joker cinematographer Lawrence Sher won the Golden Frog at Poland’s EnergaCamerimage International Film Festival on Saturday (November 16).
The box-office hit, starring Joaquin Phoenix and directed by Todd Phillips, also won the audience award at the festival, which returned to Torun, Poland.
Scroll down for full list of winners
The Silver Frog went to cinematographer César Charlone for his work on Fernando Meirelles’ The Two Popes, while Vladimír Smutný won the Bronze Frog for Vaclav Marhoul’s The Painted Bird.
Second World War drama The Painted Bird,...
- 11/18/2019
- by 1100613¦Tiffany Pritchard¦0¦
- ScreenDaily
“Joker” cinematographer Lawrence Sher’s bid, along with director Todd Phillips, to try something “perhaps even a bit artful” won big Saturday in Torun, Poland as he took the top prize at the EnergaCamerimage Intl. Film Festival.
The Golden Frog for cinematography, along with the audience prize, went to his work filming Joaquin Phoenix in the dark origin story of Batman’s nemesis for its “dystopian storytelling” that “challenges us and unsettles us,” the jury said.
Sher quipped that such a gritty film from “the guys who made ‘The Hangover’ is not always expected.”
The fest wrapped in its new home, the historic city where it was first launched 27 years ago, after screenings of 188 films, most judged by some of 48 jurors in 10 competition categories.
The filming of cinematographer Cesar Charlone in Fernando Meirelles’ portrait of rivalry within the Vatican, “The Two Popes,” won the Silver Frog, while Vladimir Smutny’s...
The Golden Frog for cinematography, along with the audience prize, went to his work filming Joaquin Phoenix in the dark origin story of Batman’s nemesis for its “dystopian storytelling” that “challenges us and unsettles us,” the jury said.
Sher quipped that such a gritty film from “the guys who made ‘The Hangover’ is not always expected.”
The fest wrapped in its new home, the historic city where it was first launched 27 years ago, after screenings of 188 films, most judged by some of 48 jurors in 10 competition categories.
The filming of cinematographer Cesar Charlone in Fernando Meirelles’ portrait of rivalry within the Vatican, “The Two Popes,” won the Silver Frog, while Vladimir Smutny’s...
- 11/16/2019
- by Will Tizard
- Variety Film + TV
Camerimage, the festival in Toruń, Poland dedicated to the art of cinematography, handed out its prestigious Frog prizes this evening. The big winner was “Joker” cinematographer Lawrence Sher, who won the top prize, the Golden Frog, in addition to the Audience Prize. The Bronze Frog was awarded to “The Painted Bird” Dp Vladimír Smutný, while “The Two Popes” Dp César Charlone won the Silver Frog. A full list of winners at the end of this article.
Now in its 27th year, Camerimage has become homecoming week for cinematographers from around the globe, with a vast number of the best DPs, past and present, in attendance. From an awards perspective — considering cinematographers nominate their colleagues — it’s hard to overestimate the value of DPs presenting their work and discussing their craft with their tight-knit community during the week-long celebration.
Sher — whose “Joker” screened early in the fest, and has been in...
Now in its 27th year, Camerimage has become homecoming week for cinematographers from around the globe, with a vast number of the best DPs, past and present, in attendance. From an awards perspective — considering cinematographers nominate their colleagues — it’s hard to overestimate the value of DPs presenting their work and discussing their craft with their tight-knit community during the week-long celebration.
Sher — whose “Joker” screened early in the fest, and has been in...
- 11/16/2019
- by Chris O'Falt
- Indiewire
In the moody psychodrama “Fugue,” competing in the Polish films section at EnergaCamerimage, Agnieszka Smoczyńska explores memory loss and its devastating impact on family in her follow-up to “The Lure.” Utterly unlike her debut, which was a colorful, musical fantasy focused on mermaids, “Fugue” is a study in perception and emotion in which the lead and co-writer, Gabriela Muskala, is suddenly discovered wandering and returned to her family two years after disappearing.
What did you learn from your research into the woman who had gone through this actual breakdown?
It was a very strong experience. I was particularly struck by the fact that Maria never really came back from that “other world.” She was talking to us normally, she seemed to remember everything, and yet she seemed somehow suspended between two worlds: the real here and now and the one that wasn’t “real,” the one of her memories.
How...
What did you learn from your research into the woman who had gone through this actual breakdown?
It was a very strong experience. I was particularly struck by the fact that Maria never really came back from that “other world.” She was talking to us normally, she seemed to remember everything, and yet she seemed somehow suspended between two worlds: the real here and now and the one that wasn’t “real,” the one of her memories.
How...
- 11/13/2018
- by Will Tizard
- Variety Film + TV
Oh, man. The home entertainment releases for October 10th are bonkers, as we have a ton of brilliant offerings making their way to Blu-ray and DVD this Tuesday. Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver hits multiple formats this week, and we also have the unrated cut of Wish Upon to look forward to as well. Scream Factory is digging up The Poughkeepsie Tapes (finally) for their Blu/DVD Combo release, and Criterion Collection has put together a stunning presentation for The Lure.
Cult cinema fans will want to pick up the new Blu-rays for Kill, Baby… Kill and The Green Slime, and for those looking for some new horror experiences, Temple, Open Water 3, and Demonic come home on October 10th.
Baby Driver (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 4K Ultra HD/Blu/Digital, Blu/Digital & DVD)
Baby (Ansel Elgort) – a talented, young getaway driver – relies on the beat of his personal...
Cult cinema fans will want to pick up the new Blu-rays for Kill, Baby… Kill and The Green Slime, and for those looking for some new horror experiences, Temple, Open Water 3, and Demonic come home on October 10th.
Baby Driver (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 4K Ultra HD/Blu/Digital, Blu/Digital & DVD)
Baby (Ansel Elgort) – a talented, young getaway driver – relies on the beat of his personal...
- 10/10/2017
- by Heather Wixson
- DailyDead
No jokes about fish and visitors please — Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s horror fantasy musical is indeed about delectable creatures from the deep, but these particular mythical misses have their own agenda, and woe to the man who trifles with their affections. What’s today’s catch? A Polish phantasmagoria seemingly teleported from the glitzy 1980s.
The Lure
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 896
2015 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 92 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 10, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Kinga Preis, Michalina Olszańska, Marta Mazurek, Jakub Gierszał, Andrzej Konopka, Zygmunt Malanowicz, Marcin Kowalczyk.
Cinematography: Kuba Kijowski
Film Editor: Jarosław Kamiński
Production Design: Joanna Macha
Costume: Katarzyna Lewińska
Special Effects makeup: Tomasz Matraszek
Choreography: Kaya Kołodziejczyk and Jarosław Staniek
Original Music and Lyrics: Barbara Wrońska and Zuzanna Wrońska
Written by Robert Bolesto
Produced by Włodzimierz Niderhaus
Directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska
I’m normally an easy mark for bizarre genre-bending horror fare. I also like musicals of all sorts,...
The Lure
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 896
2015 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 92 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 10, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Kinga Preis, Michalina Olszańska, Marta Mazurek, Jakub Gierszał, Andrzej Konopka, Zygmunt Malanowicz, Marcin Kowalczyk.
Cinematography: Kuba Kijowski
Film Editor: Jarosław Kamiński
Production Design: Joanna Macha
Costume: Katarzyna Lewińska
Special Effects makeup: Tomasz Matraszek
Choreography: Kaya Kołodziejczyk and Jarosław Staniek
Original Music and Lyrics: Barbara Wrońska and Zuzanna Wrońska
Written by Robert Bolesto
Produced by Włodzimierz Niderhaus
Directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska
I’m normally an easy mark for bizarre genre-bending horror fare. I also like musicals of all sorts,...
- 10/7/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
imdb.1eye.us, Inc. takes no responsibility for the content or accuracy of the above news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. This content is published for the entertainment of our users only. The news articles, Tweets, and blog posts do not represent IMDb's opinions nor can we guarantee that the reporting therein is completely factual. Please visit the source responsible for the item in question to report any concerns you may have regarding content or accuracy.