What is HOME for me? – Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art

On this December evening, U–jazdowski Cinema invites you to a special screening of the documentary HOME, followed by a meeting with the director, Mela Hilleard [Elżbieta Piekacz].

HOME is an attempt to answer one of the most vital questions in our lives: what is HOME?

The film focuses on family, identity, emigration (through the example of Polish, Irish, South African and English relationships), as well as the circle of life, death and rebirth. The story revolves around a home which brings people together, gives shelter, which is like a cocoon where human lives transform. It is also a ‘living character’ that undergoes its own transformation.

The film was inspired by a seven-year collection of film and photographic footage showing the lives of a small group of people expelled from their own cultures and homes, who make a home and find love in the house of 90-year-old, bedridden writer Elizabeth, in Hampstead Garden Suburb, north of London.

The protagonist is the Narrator, a woman who is going through a process – a kind of ‘family constellation’ – together with the other inhabitants of the house. They are women from Poland, aged around 40, most of whom have found themselves in the UK after a separation. They become Elizabeth’s companions and, under the wings of the house, can finally look at and unpack the traumatic experiences they are fleeing from and put themselves back together.

HOME was inspired by the photographic project Rainbows, which became an integral part of the film, dividing it into four chapters linked by excerpts from the book Południowa Droga [The Southern Way] by Ewa Ka and a monologue by the Narrator. The work evokes Jonas Mekas’ narrative films, including As I Was Moving Ahead Occasionally I Saw Brief Glimpses of Beauty.

After the screening, we invite you to a discussion about the film with director Mela Hilleard [Elisabeth Piekacz], where we will talk about the different definitions of home and the ways in which they are expressed through the art of film.

The discussion will be hosted by Head of Cinema Department and Curator of the film programme Klara Da Costa.

Mela Hilleard [Elżbieta Piekacz]

Her first encounter with art took place at the age of eleven, when she starred in a short film at the Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School. The Double Life of Veronique inspired her to study at the Department of Puppetry of the AST National Academy of Theatre Arts in Wrocław. She has collaborated with Nowy and Studyjny theatres in Łódź and Dramatyczny, Narodowy (National Theatre), Scena Prezentacje and Teatr Na Woli theatres in Warsaw. She began to express her sensitivity through the language of film, both as an actress and on the other side of the camera, as an assistant director, cinematographer, co-author of screenplays and adaptations.

She received the award for the leading role in The Double Portrait at the 20th Festival of Film Debuts in Koszalin. The film was awarded ‘for seeking new forms of expression’ and the Young Jury Award at the 26th Polish Film Festival in Gdynia and received the Pegaz Award.

During a four-year film tour of Asia, she began taking photographs and, back in Warsaw, studied at Europejska Akademia Fotografii [European Academy of Photography]. She has published in National Geographic, Newsweek, Kino and The Guardian as well as art photography magazines: Silvershotz, Eyemazing, PhotoArt, Photoicon. She moved to London, where she started a long-term photography and film project called HOME. She graduated from the London Film School. Her graduation film, At Dawn the Flowers Open the Gates of Paradise, which was awarded the Jury Special Mention at the Milano Film Festival for its script, premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival as part of the main programme.