Although it premiered in 2024 during the Warsaw Film Festival, Błazny found its distributor practically a year later. Believe it or not, it was worth the wait.

Enter Gajda, the famous middle-aged director, whose film just had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. He’s now working on a brand-new project and everyone just wants to be a part of it. It’s an experimental one and Gajda wants new faces, inexperienced, not yet drenched in the industry’s dark side. This is why he arrives at the Łódź Film School to do a casting and complete his new cast. Students come to meet and greet him, excited about the opportunity. However, no one knows that abusive Gajda is going to put them all through a violent ordeal, which will test their friendships, relationships and the entire trust they have for each other. The group will no longer be.

This drama is actually a final school project for the entire class, which makes it quite a metaphysical experience: all of the students are playing in a story about them (an acting collective looking for new acting opportunities), but they are not playing themselves, which makes the experience even more fascinating. Therefore, we can treat Błazny as a platform for all those young actors. One that is so needed in times of essential networking, nepotism, and gatekeeping in the Polish industry. 

Muskała serves as a tutor in Łódź and it means she knows them more than well. It enabled her to get the best from each thespian. Each performance is poignant and evocative at the same time; this is how you direct your actors! Sebastian Dela, Jan Łuć, Magdalena Dwurzyńska, Justyna Litwic – these are the names to remember. 

Muskała’s debut enables us to understand that this profession, although related to stardom and many financial profits, is far from the idealized image we all have in our heads. Instead, it’s a job, which requires luck, strong mental health and some sort of competitiveness in your DNA. Błazny gives us an insight into the eerie world of young actors, a place that reminds us there is no fame without pain. Feel invited to join this pity party.

Photo: Mówi Serwis, still from the film

4/5 stars

Author: Jan Tracz