"Last Chance" – a documentary directed by Wiktoria Niewiadomska, with cinematography by Monika Rakowska, qualified for the Polish Competition of this year's 61st edition of the Krakow Film Festival.

 

 

Sara is 26 years old and she has been suffering from anorexia for eight years. She currently weighs 36 kilos, but it is her highest weight since a very long time. She lives in a city called Sztum, with her mom and her younger brother. Her parents got divorced when she was three. As she says herself - she doesn’t remember her own childhood, but she remembers her brothers’, who she has always envied for the care that was taken of him. Her illness has given her the ’right’ to be weak and she says she’s liked it, because someone had to look after her. Paradoxically, Sara’s life has always revolved around food. Her time spreads between one meal and another. Her best friend is a kitchen scale and her worst enemy is also a scale, but the one in the bathroom. Obsessive calorie counting and weighing every single eaten product has been an inherent part of Sara’s life. After many years, because of her wish to start a family, she has decided to begin treatment in a closed therapeutic facility and has started a fight for herself and her own health.

 

 

The idea for the film appeared a few years ago, when the director's friend fell ill with anorexia. – The topic of eating disorders is a common one, but at the same time it is often overlooked and reduced to just thinness. And yet the appearance of the silhouette is only a consequence of the disease – says Wiktoria.

 

 

Usually in a documentary you start with the character first, but in Wiktoria's case it started with the subject. – The prototype of my heroine was my friend, Justyna. She is already healthy, but the idea was based on her story – director explains. Justyna was on a holiday at the Alira therapeutic center run by the Światło Dla Życia Foundation, and it was there that Wiktoria found the heroine of her film.

 

Sara has had this dangerous disease for several years. "How did it start? From complexes – like most anorexia stories. - she says. She decided to take part in the film because she wants people to realize that anorexia is a very serious disease which should not be underestimated – "I am aware of my disease and its consequences. I know it leads to death, and yet I want to live so much! I want to fight this disease, I want to enjoy life again, get back to sports and just love myself."

 

 

 

LAST CHANCE

 

WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: Wiktoria Nieiwadomska DOP: Monika Rakowska DOP ASSISTANT: Michał Źródlak, Cyprian Śliskowski EDITING: Malwina Wodzicka SOUND: Jakub Ochnio, Patryk Wielocha ARTISTIC SUPERVISOR: Barbara Pawłowska PRODUCER: Maciej Ślesicki PRODUCTION: Warsaw Film School

 

 

>FULL CAST & CREW<

 

 

Wiktoria Niewiadomska – third-year directing student at the Warsaw Film School. As a child, she was highly sensitive and the easiest form of communication of her emotions was the artistic form for her. Until now, she has worked mainly as a director on etudes and projects coming out of the school. She always wanted her cinema to be "important" – she tried to focus on people and their problems. This is one of the reasons she fell in love with the documentary so much. She treats film like a meeting with a new human. She loves any audiovisual form that brings something that can lead the viewer to reflect, emotions and change. And nothing human is alien to her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Films by students of the Warsaw Film School are co-financed by the Polish Film Institute