The film is directed by Dorota Kobiela, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Hugh Welchman, the British founder of Sopot-based BreakThru Films and is based on the Nobel Prize winning novel ‘The Peasants’ by Polish writer Władysław Reymont. Published in the first decade of the 20th century, it depicts the rural lifestyle and social conventions of a small Polish peasant community. Its plot follows a tragic story of a peasant girl Jagna forced to marry a much older, wealthy farmer Boryna, despite her love for his son Antek.
The film uses painted animation inspired by the works of the “Young Poland” art movement (1890-1918).In the first stage the film was shot over 36 days with a group of actors, then each of its 72,000 frames is manually rendered in oil paint by a team of over 50 artists.
‘The Peasants’ has been produced by Poland’s BreakThru Films, whose previous fully painted animated feature ‘Loving Vincent’ won an Oscar nomination in 2018.
(mk/ab)