SYNOPSIS
How can rock music change a political system? Can rock music revive personal freedoms in a totalitarian nation? How can censorship impact the quality of rock lyrics and its sound? Spurred on by the phenomenon of European culture of the '80s, alternative rock music in Poland spins out of control and explodes with a force unseen anywhere else in the socialist bloc. Rock builds its own independent world, which the authorities and censorship cannot control. Music manifests itself against all major currents - the ideology of the communist party, the Catholic Church and the older generation. Narrated by Chris Salewicz, a British journalist of Polish heritage, Beats of Freedom captures this remarkable time in Poland.
CAST & CREW
Wojciech Słota
Director
Producer(s)
Paweł Potoroczyn, Edward Miszczak
Script
Wojciech Słota, Leszek Gnoiński
Director of Photography
Dariusz Szymura, Piotr Trela
Sound
Marcin Dziuba, Piotr Fede
Edit
Wojciech Słota
Cast
Chris Salewicz, Tomek Lipiński, Mirek Makowski, Piotr Nagłowski, Robert Maksymilian Brylewski, Walter Chelstowski, Krzysztof Cugowski
Production company(ies)
Adam Mickiewicz Institute TVN
Wojciech Słota
Director, screenwriter, editor. In the first half of the 90s, he dealt with rock music, organized concerts and festivals. Together with friends, he set up the cyberstudio recording studio. He was the manager of the bands Myslovitz and Nowy Horyzont. In 1997-2000, he studied television creation and production at the Polish National Film, Television and Theater School. He is the author of some films, documentary TV series, works as an editor of feature and documentary films, as well as feature programmes.
Filmography
Beats of Freedom (2010, doc., co-dir.: L. Gnoiński).
Leszek Gnoiński
Director
Leszek Gnoiński
Director, screenwriter, music journalist. Among the musical books that he wrote are: Report on Acid Drinkers (1996), the bestseller The Cult of Kazik (2000), Myslovitz. Life is Surfing (2009). Together with Jan Skaradziński he wrote the The Encyclopaedia of Polish Rock, which has had four editions so far (first edition in 1996). Together with Wojciech Słota he produced a six-episode TV series titled The History of Polish Rock (2008) for the Discovery channel. He wrote, among others, for newspapers Dziennik, Super Express, magazines Machina, Tylko Rock, Muza, www.cgm.pl portal and Dziennik Polski. During this time he conducted hundreds of interviews with nearly all of the most important Polish musicians.
Filmography
Beats of Freedom (2010, doc., co-dir.:W. Słota).
