from vk & associates

Winner of Best Actor (Vincent Gallo) + Special Jury Prize Venice Film Festival 2010

Opens in Toronto on Thursday, March 31, 2011 @ Bell Lightbox

A gripping, gruelling, existential chase movie from renascent Euro-auteur Jerzy Skolimowski, Essential Killing won both the Special Jury Prize and the Best Actor award for star Vincent Gallo (The Funeral, Buffalo ’66, Brown Bunny) at the 2010 Venice film festival.

In a rocky, sand-swept, sun drenched landscape that clearly suggests Afghanistan, Mohammed, a bearded combatant (Gallo) ambushes three unwary soldiers before being captured by US forces. Jailed, interrogated and beaten, the man is then shipped off with other detainees to a frozen, wintry, unidentified European nation, where he bloodily effects an escape and sets off cross-country, with soldiers, local authorities, dogs and helicopters hot on his trail. Dispassionately following our “hero’s” desperate, iron-willed struggle to survive and pointedly offering no moral judgment on the brutal lengths to which he is driven, Skolimowski reaffirms his mastery with this highly unusual and wholly riveting film.

The idea of the film evolved after a secret CIA operation set up camp around the corner from where Director Jerzy Skolimowski lives in Poland:

“The film is obviously not based on a true story … But given the fact that US Military planes actually landed less than 20 kilometers from where I live, the plausibility of the situation portrayed in the film seemed … absolutely exciting.”

About the story itself, Skolimowski comments:

“For me, ESSENTIAL KILLING is a struggle for survival, neither political nor apolitical, taking no sides. It will satisfy me most if anyone watching this film will feel, for a mere 83 minutes, free of any preordained judgments and will get involved in the primal journey together with the main character.”

Director Jerzy Skolimowski:

For Jerzy Skolimowski, this is his second film in two years, after “Four Nights with Anna,” (2008). Before that there was a fallow period of 17 years, during which he painted, wrote and acted. His roots go back to the beginning of the great postwar Polish cinematic renaissance; Andrej Wajda was a mentor, Roman Polanski an early collaborator, and his wonderful “Moonlighting” (1982) was an international breakthrough with Jeremy Irons as the foreman of a team of Polish workers in London. It takes place just before and after the banning of Solidarity, and those finding parallels may not be entirely wrong – Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, November 17, 2010

With over twenty films to his name, Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski’s work includes the Berlin Golden Bear winner THE DEPARTURE (1967), Cannes Grand Prix winner THE SHOUT (1978), the political drama MOONLIGHTING (1982), and THE LIGHTSHIP (1985), for which he won best Director at the Venice Film Festival. Skolimowski also collaborated with Roman Polanski on the screenplay for KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962). As an actor he appeared in EASTERN PROMISES (2007) and BEFORE NIGHT FALLS (2000). He returned to Cannes as a director in 2008 with critically lauded thriller FOUR NIGHTS WITH ANNA, which opened the Director’s Fortnight and also won the Grand Prix de Jury at the Tokyo International Film Festival. Skolimowski is an accomplished painter who has taken part in the Venice Biennale and exhibited across Europe and the US.

Essential Killing is distributed in Canada by W2 Media. A special thanks to the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Toronto for their support in the release of the film.

For more info please visit: www.essentialkilling.com