The Malta Independent on Sunday
The uniting power of Chopin’s music
Chopin: I Am Not Afraid Of Darkness premieres in Malta on 1 November. The producers and director of this powerful documentary talk about its inception and the challenges they faced to bring it to fruition.
When Polish TV production company Inbornmedia embarked on a project with their Korean partners, they looked for a subject that would be common to both countries and would resonate with a global audience. “Chopin was a Polish composer who is also extremely popular in Korea, which felt like a good start, but we needed a ground-breaking concept,” explains Maciej Pawelczyk, documentary producer and CEO of Inbornmedia. “After many brainstorming sessions, we decided to follow three pianists preparing for a series of performances where nobody would expect to hear live music.”
Chopin: I Am Not Afraid Of Darkness’s tagline is “three countries, three wars, one music”, perfectly encapsulating the film’s theme. “The concerts are, firstly, a meeting between human souls,” says director Joanna Kaczmarek. “It is a meeting with music that soothes pain and brings hope. This film should be felt as much as watched and heard, especially in 2022, when we are surrounded by more division and suffering than ever.”
Chopin, who was a political refugee, was the natural choice. “We chose Chopin for three reasons: he is a well-respected composer in both Poland and Korea, is recognised all over the world and, ultimately, we just love his music,” says Pawelczyk. The search for three pianists who would fit the bill was not as easy, both because of time constraints and because they had to be able to tell the history of their respective countries.
“Fares Marek Basmadji was born in Syria to a Syrian father and a Polish mother, and emigrated as a teenager,” explains Pawelczyk. “He Jae-Yeon Won is a South Korean award-winning classical pianist who lives in Paju, near the border with dictatorial North Korea, and Leszek Możdżer is a famous Polish jazz composer and pianist with a metaphysical approach to life. They could tell the history of three countries and three different wars and connect them through the magic of Chopin’s music.”
The challenges did not end there. Filming coincided with COVID-19 and the lockdowns that followed. The team had to navigate border closures and a strict set of shooting dates which could not be negotiated. Marta Krzeptowska, Executive Producer at Inbornmedia, recalls the difficulties they overcame in order to be able to shoot at a Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon. “It was thanks to Ambassador Przemysław Niesiołowski‘s help in Beirut that we managed,” she says. “Visiting that refugee camp with Fares was a shocking and moving experience. His family fled Aleppo during the war, and Fares now lives a privileged life in London, so seeing his compatriots who were not as lucky as he was proved very demanding and difficult for him.”
Apart from filming Fares as he spent time with the refugees, the film shows the pianist playing his concert in the centre of Beirut, just one month after the 2020 explosion in its port devastated the city. “Parts of people’s clothing, toys, food were still on the streets after the explosion,” Krzeptowska remembers. “To this day, I don’t know by what miracle we managed to find a piano in destroyed Beirut. I remember the acousticians tuning an instrument that was standing in the ruins on the street, and people crying at the echo of the music played by Fares.”
Filming in Auschwitz presented its own challenges, as director Kaczmarek would discover. “It was very difficult to convince people that filming and performing in this special place was a good idea,” she recalls. “Many people feared that something bad could result from such a combination, but quite the opposite happened.”
The result of Chopin’s beautiful music in places steeped in suffering is haunting and moving, while the film itself offers scenes of stunning beauty in countries which are very different from each other. “I am thrilled to bring the film to Malta because I love it here,” shares Pawelczyk. “Malta’s a unique country, and during my frequent visits I have had the pleasure to meet the Maltese Film Commissioner Johann Grech, who is open to co-productions. I can already see opportunities for Polish-Maltese film projects, among other collaborations – in fact, international screenings like this one are being held thanks to the Polish National Foundation.”
Pawelczyk admits that producing Chopin was a long and arduous task, but the project enjoyed the support of many. “This project wouldn’t have been possible without the help of RAPA (Korea Radio Promotion Association), as well as that of co-producers Kim Seong Hwa and Jongseo Park from Play Button Media, Polish Public Television, The National Cultural Center and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute,” he concludes.
‘Chopin: I Am Not Afraid Of Darkness’ will be showing at Spazju Kreattiv on 1 November at 7:30pm and 11 November at 6pm. Maciej Pawelczyk will be participating in a Q&A panel after the 1 November screening.