Film School Radio hosted by Mike Kaspar

Academy Award nominated Short Doc, Our Curse, Director Tomasz Śliwiński

Our Curse film poster

Our Curse is the very personal film of director, Tomasz Śliwiński and his wife, Magda Hueckel, dealing with a very rare and incurable disease afflicting their newborn child, Leo, – the Ondine’s Curse is also known as CCHS, congenital central hypoventilation syndrome. The very, very rare disease causes its victims to stop breathing during sleep and require lifetime mechanical ventilation on a ventilator. Tomasz’s first short movie The Curse was presented at many film festivals, such as Nowe Horyzonty in Wrocław and Etiuda & Anima in Kraków (where he received a distinction of FICC Jury). His next film Our Curse premiered at the 66th Locarno International Film Festival and was screened at over 45 international film events, winning 30 prizes including awards at International Festival of Short Films Aspen Shortfest, Raindance Film Festival, Sheffield Doc/Fest and nominations for the Silver Eye Award at East Silver Market 2013 and Best of IDFA at IDFA – International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. Together with Magda Hueckel (as Muzungu-art group) he creates a subjective, personal photographic document from various travels all over the world. Tomasz joins us to talk about his very personal decision to film his family life and the intimate conversations between he and his wife, Magda, have as they come to terms with a challenging new chapter of their lives.

For news and updates on Our Curse go to: leoblog.pl/en/our-curse-the-movie/

Awards:

Oscar nominated, Short Film Program, Documentary

Official Selection – Festival Del Film Locarno

Nominated for IDFA Award for Best Student Documentary 2013

Audience Award for Best Short Film – Indie Lisboa

Winner – Sheffield Doc/Fest – Student Doc Award 2014

Winner – 2014 Heartland Film Festival