Tricks [Sztuczki] – Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art

The 6-year-old Stefek and his 17-year-old sister Elka live in a squalid tenement in Wałbrzych. Their mother works in a grocery store, and Stefek doesn’t remember their father, who disappeared years ago. All that is left of him is a badly damaged, scrawled photograph.

One day, at the railway station the boy sees a man wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase who resembles the figure in the photograph. Will the eponymous tricks – small games with fate – allow Stefek and Elka to change the course of events and retrieve their lost father?

Tricks is another production, following the award-winning Squint Your Eyes, in which Andrzej Jakimowski chose to show the world from a child’s perspective. The film had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, where it won the Europa Cinemas Award for best European film. Tricks was also awarded the Golden Lions for best feature film at the Gdynia Film Festival.