33 Scenes from Life

^director Małgorzata Szumowska
^screenplay Małgorzata Szumowska
^{director of photography} Michał Englert
^music Paweł Mykietyn
^with Julia Jentsch, Peter Gantzler, Małgorzata Hajewska- Krzysztofik, Andrzej Hudziak, Maciej Stuhr, Iza Kuna, Rafał Maćkowiak
^awards
 Jury's Special Prize at the International Film Festival in Locarno, 2008
 awards for Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Music, Best Supporting Actress for Małgorzata Hajewska-Krzysztofik, Journalists Award and award of the Studio and Local Cinemas Association at the 33rd Polish Film Festival in Gdynia, 2008

MAŁGORZATA SZUMOWSKA, ALMOST A PSYCHODRAMA; TALK WITH MAGDALENA LEBECKA [PRAWIE PSYCHODRAMA; ROZMOWA Z MAGDALENĄ LEBECKĄ], KINO 2008 NO. 9

The term auto therapy makes me laugh. More likely, it’s measuring one’s strength against fear of death, against dying. ‘What’s there to be afraid of?’, the documentary which preceded this production, had a similar significance. This is such a concrete story that any manifestation of metaphysics could smack of sentimentalism.

ZDZISŁAW PETRASIK, GDYNIA BELIEVES THE TEARS [GDYNIA WIERZY ŁZOM], POLITYKA 2008 NO. 39

Some of the most intense emotions were aroused (at the Gdynia Festival) by a very personal picture from Małgorzata Szumowska who, quoting her own words, had made a film about the loss of her near and dear ones. Szumowska had the courage to break in every respect with the elegiac poetics, generally applied in stories about death, revealing its very ordinary, even trivially prosaic features. (…) Additionally, Szumowska’s film is also an exercise in demythologization of the Polish family, the members of which are supposed to always come together in pain and mourning. (…) ‘33 Scenes from Life’ is not only a story about death stripped of its sacrum, but also about love; fighting for it is the main heroine of whom we can in no way say that her life has run to waste.