First Screening – Saturday, November 14th – 4pm @ TIFF
For all the cinematic and televisual treatments of alcoholism that have come before, rarely has the affliction been treated with such harrowing frankness and sheer expressive brilliance as on display Wojtek Smarzowski’s The Mighty Angel. Based on Jerzy Pilch’s celebrated novel, the movie tells the story of Jerzy (an all-too-convincingly debauched Robert Wiekiewicz) a writer, wit, celebrity, ladies’ man and raconteur with a drinking problem. But that’s a very polite way of putting it. Robert doesn’t just get drunk: he plunges headfirst into the deepest darkest wells of binge-drinking, until his memory collapses, his body revolts and time itself shatters into fleeting glimpses and impressions of his life circling the drain. In and out of rehab almost as often as consciousness, Robert is stuck in a full-blown alcoholic cycle of hell. We are proud to present this: The Mighty Angel might well be a new masterpiece in the cinema of madness, addiction and recovery.
Author Jowita Bydlowska (Drunk Mom) and filmmaker Jim Shedden (Michael Snow Up Close, Brakhage, I Drink) will be in attendance after the completion of the film for a panel discussion.
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