The first weekend of Millennium Docs Against Gravity – the prestigious international film festival in Poland – continues after opening with. Closingis a new film directed by Warsaw native Michał Marczak.
The heartbreaking documentary about a father’s search for his missing teenage son won the Golden Alexander Award at the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in Greece in March and premiered in the World Cinema Documentary competition at Sundance.
Marczak’s filmmaking journey began while spending time on the Vistula River in Warsaw. While he was on a boat with his family – the director was scouting locations for a fictional project – he saw a man wading into the water with his eyes fixed on the boat. After talking to him, Marczak found out that the man, named Daniel, was looking for his son Chris who was last seen standing on the Warsaw Bridge overlooking the river.
‘Closing’
MDAG
“A rolling CCTV camera has been captured [Chris] where he stood for 20 minutes. And since it’s turning back, we don’t know if he jumped or jumped off the bridge and may have escaped,” Marczak told Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast. “Dad decided to search the river by himself. He built this custom boat equipped with cameras, sonar, drones to inspect the dirty water. So, the ‘old man in the sea’ kind of story, a character like Fitzcarraldo, who fights against all odds to find out the truth about what happened.”
Marczak spent many months with Daniel as he continued his search, sometimes camping by the river.
“Many times, it was just easier to sleep on these islands or banks so as not to waste time and that most of the time we go to search,” he recalled. “After that [searching] many hours and you sit down at night, tired, because of the campfire, all these thoughts come to you – about what I can do better, or how can I face the challenges of raising my two sons now in this world? And when, as a society, we’ve gone wrong… A completely desolate, empty environment gives rise to these kinds of more metaphysical discussions. So, we always meditated on our lives. And I would ask him for advice. He was asking me, that’s how we got close.”
Not knowing if his son jumped to his death or perhaps left the bridge and is still alive somewhere, Daniel can’t find closure, nor can his wife. Daniel keeps searching month after month, unable to let go of his son, even as his father advises against continuing what could be considered infatuation.
“It’s a psychological film about the effects of that situation on the family and on Daniel,” Marczak noted, adding, “on other families as well.” Some families lost their relatives after throwing themselves off the bridge.
We are presenting the film at Multikino Złote Tarasy in Warsaw, MDAG Artistic Director Karol Piekarczyk said. Closing it had helped him to face the sorrow in his life. The effect of Closing it has been equally profound for many viewers. In Thessaloniki, Marczak told us about a voicemail he received from someone who had seen the documentary.
He said, ‘Listen, I’ve had bad days. I’ve had really deep and dark thoughts. But after watching your film, I know I’ll never kill myself again,’ the director recalled. “And I cried when I heard that message.”
‘Closure’ director Michal Marczak holds the Golden Alexander award from the Thessaloniki International Documentary Festival in Greece.
Matthew Carey
At the festival in Greece, Marczak told us that the film came together almost lightning fast by documentary standards.
“We made this movie in 14 months from the time we met the character and shot for a year,” explains Marczak. “We were planning as fast as we went, just trying to stretch our resources and get this film out.”
In addition to Sundance and Thessaloniki, Closing screened at True/False in Columbia, MO and will screen next month at Sheffield DocFest in the UK and the Sydney Film Festival in Australia.
