BreakThru Films and New Europe Film Sales have released today the official teaser for The Peasants, the new painted animation feature film from the makers of Loving Vincent, DK Welchman (previously known as Dorota Kobiela) and Hugh Welchman.
The Peasants tells the story of Jagna, a young woman determined to forge her own path within the confines of a late 19th century Polish village — a hotbed of gossip and on-going feuds, held together, rich and poor, by pride in their land, adherence to colourful traditions and a deep-rooted patriarchy. When Jagna finds herself caught between the conflicting desires of the village’s richest farmer, his eldest son and other leading men of the community, her resistance puts her on a tragic collision course with the community around her.
Director DK Welchman explains that while The Peasants is animated in hand-painted oils, like Loving Vincent, the new film is much more ambitious. “The scale of the two films are incomparable. Loving Vincent is an intimate film, with a lot of static scenes and dialog. The Peasants is much more spectacular. There are breathtaking dance scenes and even a pitched battle. These scenes are extremely dynamic scenes, with the camera following the characters, and flying into the heart of the action. To make the first fully oil painting animated film (Loving Vincent) we had to come up with a raft of cinematic and technical innovations, but The Peasants sets the bar much higher.”
The film’s screenplay is based on Władysław Reymont’s Nobel Prize-winning novel — is considered the most credible chronicle of the Polish peasant community ever written. The novel has recently been newly translated and published by Penguin Classics. “Reymont painted in words, and we paint the film in the aesthetic of his contemporaries from the Young Poland movement, to which Reymont also belonged. The big screen will feature interpretations of works by artists such as Józef Chelmonski, Ferdynand Ruszczyc, and Julian Fałat,” DK adds.
The Peasants was first shot as a live-action film to create a guide for the painted animation. The cast features a lineup of well-known Polish actors, led by the upcoming actress Kamila Urzędowska as Jagna and including Mirosław Baka, Ewa Kasprzyk, Andrzej Konopka, Sonia Bohosiewicz, Małgorzata Kożuchowska, Robert Gulaczyk, Maciej Musiał, Dorota Stalińska and Julia Wieniawa.
More than 90 painters in four studios in Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, and Serbia animated on canvas with oil paints. To date, the artists have painted for more than 180,000 hours. For the paintings, they used Cobra paints from Royal Talens — water-soluble oil-paints, making them much more ecologically friendly and also healthier for the painters than regular oil paints.
The film’s creative team includes directors of photography Radosław Ładczuk (The Babadook, The Nighingale, The Hater), Kamil Polak and Szymon Kuriata; costume designer Katarzyna Lewinska (EO, The Lure, The Silent Twins); and set designer Elwira Pluta. The head of the paint animation team is Piotr Dominiak. Lukasz Mackiewicz and Michal Janicki were in charge of post-production.
The Peasants is set to a soundtrack composed by Lukasz L.U.C. Rostkowski, who teamed up with a Slavic music collective as well as notable folk musicians such as Tęgie Chłopy, Laboratorium Pieśni, T.Etno and Maria Pomianowska to create a modern take on Polish folk music.
Loving Vincent was the first ever feature-length, fully hand painted animation — screening in cinemas around the world and breaking box office records. After the theatrical release, hundreds of paintings from the film were sold to fans and collectors and hundreds more toured the world in a special exhibition. To create space for the paintings of The Peasants, BreakThru is putting the remainder of the Loving Vincent production paintings on sale leading up to the premiere of the new film: LovingVincent.com/Paintings.
