MAŁGORZATA SZUMOWSKA

NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN (2021)
Starring Alec Utgoff, Weronika Rosati, Agata Kulesza, Maja Ostaszewska, Katarzyna Figura, Borys Szyc and Jaroslaw Milner. Directed by Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert.

One grey, foggy morning, a mysterious young man, Zhenia, crosses the border from Ukraine into Poland, carrying only a massage table. When faced with a staid official at Warsaw’s immigration office, he secures the necessary residence permit by simply taking the man’s head in his huge, soft hands and massaging him into a trance.

Zhenia soon establishes himself with the well-to-do residents of a suburban gated community of identical white McMansions, where his unique talents quickly become in demand. Among the clientele are Maria, who finds a calm in Zhenia that her hostile children and husband don’t provide; derisive widow Ewa who lusts after the masseur in more ways than she’ll dare admit; a woman obsessed by her three bulldogs who pleads for them to also be treated, and Wika, who has invested the last hopes for her cancer-stricken husband in Zhenia’s seemingly magical fingertips. But as he navigates through the affairs, drinking, drug-taking and games of neighbourly one-upmanship, no one thinks to ask Zhenia about his own concerns, least of all his mysterious origins.

ELLES (2013)
Starring Juliette Binoche, Anaïs Demoustier, Joanna Kulig, Louis-Do De Lencquesaing, Krystyna Janda, Andrzej Chyra, Ali Marhyar, François Civil, Jean-Marie Binoche and Pablo Beugnet. Directed by Małgorzata Szumowska.

Mother of two Anne, a journalist for French Elle, leads a perfectly bourgeois life in Paris, juggling family, work and leisure. Her research for an article on student prostitution cracks this serenity, as she meets Alicja, a Polish student whose persona is as troubling as it is seductive, and Charlotte, a somewhat reserved French woman who seems to exercise her trade as part of a bitter social struggle.

NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN (2021)
Starring Alec Utgoff, Weronika Rosati, Agata Kulesza, Maja Ostaszewska, Katarzyna Figura, Borys Szyc and Jaroslaw Milner. Directed by Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert.

One grey, foggy morning, a mysterious young man, Zhenia, crosses the border from Ukraine into Poland, carrying only a massage table. When faced with a staid official at Warsaw’s immigration office, he secures the necessary residence permit by simply taking the man’s head in his huge, soft hands and massaging him into a trance.

Zhenia soon establishes himself with the well-to-do residents of a suburban gated community of identical white McMansions, where his unique talents quickly become in demand. Among the clientele are Maria, who finds a calm in Zhenia that her hostile children and husband don’t provide; derisive widow Ewa who lusts after the masseur in more ways than she’ll dare admit; a woman obsessed by her three bulldogs who pleads for them to also be treated, and Wika, who has invested the last hopes for her cancer-stricken husband in Zhenia’s seemingly magical fingertips. But as he navigates through the affairs, drinking, drug-taking and games of neighbourly one-upmanship, no one thinks to ask Zhenia about his own concerns, least of all his mysterious origins.

ELLES (2013)
Starring Juliette Binoche, Anaïs Demoustier, Joanna Kulig, Louis-Do De Lencquesaing, Krystyna Janda, Andrzej Chyra, Ali Marhyar, François Civil, Jean-Marie Binoche and Pablo Beugnet. Directed by Małgorzata Szumowska.

Mother of two Anne, a journalist for French Elle, leads a perfectly bourgeois life in Paris, juggling family, work and leisure. Her research for an article on student prostitution cracks this serenity, as she meets Alicja, a Polish student whose persona is as troubling as it is seductive, and Charlotte, a somewhat reserved French woman who seems to exercise her trade as part of a bitter social struggle.

NEVER GONNA SNOW AGAIN (2021)
Starring Alec Utgoff, Weronika Rosati, Agata Kulesza, Maja Ostaszewska, Katarzyna Figura, Borys Szyc and Jaroslaw Milner. Directed by Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert.

One grey, foggy morning, a mysterious young man, Zhenia, crosses the border from Ukraine into Poland, carrying only a massage table. When faced with a staid official at Warsaw’s immigration office, he secures the necessary residence permit by simply taking the man’s head in his huge, soft hands and massaging him into a trance.

Zhenia soon establishes himself with the well-to-do residents of a suburban gated community of identical white McMansions, where his unique talents quickly become in demand. Among the clientele are Maria, who finds a calm in Zhenia that her hostile children and husband don’t provide; derisive widow Ewa who lusts after the masseur in more ways than she’ll dare admit; a woman obsessed by her three bulldogs who pleads for them to also be treated, and Wika, who has invested the last hopes for her cancer-stricken husband in Zhenia’s seemingly magical fingertips. But as he navigates through the affairs, drinking, drug-taking and games of neighbourly one-upmanship, no one thinks to ask Zhenia about his own concerns, least of all his mysterious origins.