A Lucky Boy

A Lucky Boy 

(Chłopiec, któremy się poszczęściło)

The short version:

please go to the Krakow Film Festival Trailers Competition page and vote.  The trailer with the most votes will be included in the Festival. I added the trailer for "A Lucky Boy" on March 26th.   The votes can be cast till April 10th.  

The longer version:

What to do with the harrowing historical past?  We can't forget it, yet we have to put it aside so it does not paralyze us.  The hero of this story is compelled to remember, but he also wants to forget in order to succeed in life.   The tension between the horror of the past and the need to move on is what drives this story forward. 

The story is about Stanley Opalka (82),  the author of "Escape from Russia", the memoir which chronicles his 1940 deportation from Eastern Poland to a Siberian gulag, then the ordeal of getting out of Russia.   Stan is consumed by the mission not to let the Siberian suffering of millions of Poles and other nationalities to be forgotten.

I met Stan two years ago and was intrigued by charisma, cheerful personality and the psychological price he has to pay to recall the horrors of the past.  The documentary tries to capture his division between remembering and forgetting.

"A Lucky Boy" in itself is a trailer of sort for a feature film based on "Escape from Russia".  The feature will continue my exploration of "tragic memory."