The Making of IDA, Part One

Posted on January 23, 2015 by garyedf

by Pawel Pawlikowski

The other day someone from the Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Academy in LA asked my producer Ewa to send them the script of our film Ida so they could deposit it in their Core Library collection. Ewa rang me up worried: what exactly should she send them? She had 23 permutations of the script on her files. Surely she couldn’t send them the official script we raised the money on. It was nothing like the film that ended up on the screen. Maybe we could simply send a transcript of the finished film? But that would amount to no more than 30 pages—probably not much use to the Academy, either. Continue reading →

The Making of IDA: Part Two

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Adam Cuttler

by Pawel Pawlikowski

(Read part one of “The Making of Ida” here.)

In the original script for Ida , the film opened with a scene of three nuns making a scarecrow in the field and then some generic dialogue scenes between them, setting up the situation and their characters.

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Grappling with Faith in Shades of Gray: Pavel Pawlikowski’s IDA

Posted on May 22, 2014 by garyedf

by Michael Fox

Set in Poland in the early 1960s and shot in a 1.37 aspect ratio, Ida (2013) is high-grade catnip for aficionados of vintage black-and-white Eastern European cinema. The latest film by Pavel Pawlikowski, one of the most astute and insightful observers of human nature working in movies today, is the furthest thing from a nostalgia trip, however. An unfiltered, unblinking journey into the interior—of the land of Pawlikowski’s childhood, and the enigmatic psyches of its female protagonists—Ida confronts the crimes of the last century and, inevitably, the responsibility of living in this one. Continue reading →