Old Film Festival: Meeting with Wojciech Smarzowski. Screening of the play “Treatment”

As part of the Old Film Festival in Bydgoszcz, we invite you to a unique meeting with Wojciech Smarzowski - one of the most important contemporary Polish directors, screenwriter and cinematographer. The program of the event also included a screening of the play “Kuracja”, directed by him by the Television Theater, whose script was based on the novel by Jacek Głębski.

“Treatment” tells the story of Andrzej Majer (Bartłomiej Topa), a young and ambitious psychiatrist who decides on an unusual experiment - for three months he voluntarily becomes a patient of a psychiatric hospital. In this way, he wants to better understand his wards, their way of perceiving the world and the realities of the work of a psychiatrist. He only informs his supervisor, Prof. Walas, and the head of the department, Prof. Zimiński (Jerzy Łapiński), who warn him of the consequences of the experiment.

Majer, pretending to be a young engineer suffering from schizophrenia, finds himself in the room, where he meets, among others, the catatonic Nowakowski (Lech Dyblik) and Kowalski (Arkadiusz Jakubik), who react aggressively to the appearance of a new patient. The hero keeps detailed notes and observes both patients and the functioning of the hospital. His experience becomes a starting point for questions about the boundary between health and mental illness, the ethical consequences of psychological experiments, and the nature of the doctor-patient relationship. “The Cure” is a performance that combines a medical perspective with philosophical and social reflection. The director is Wojciech Smarzowski, and the cast includes Bartłomiej Topa, Jerzy Łapiński, Lech Dyblik and Arkadiusz Jakubik. The performance was honored with the Grand Prix of the Festival “Two Theaters” in 2002.