Latido Films lands sales rights to Polish horror film Playground

Last Updated on August 5, 2021

Polish documentary filmmaker Bartosz M. Kowalski has moved into the world of fiction with his latest film, the horror movie PLAYGROUND. He hasn't strayed too far from his documentary roots, however, as the story of PLAYGROUND is inspired by true events.

What exactly those true events were isn't clear, but it is known that Kowalski's PLAYGROUND, which he also wrote with Stanisław Warwas, is "a portrait of disaffected Polish youth and the disconnect between its young protagonists and their parents." It 

depicts the lives of three high school students — two cocksure boys, one girl — in a small town in Poland as they have breakfast, then attend their school’s end-of-year speech day. After callously humiliating the girl, the boys head for the local shopping mall to play video games. What happens next is inspired by real events which, occurring over a decade ago, traumatized Poland.

PLAYGROUND is now seeking worldwide distribution, and the world sales rights have been acquired by Spain-based sales agent Latido Films. 

Latido executive director Antonio Saura implies that the film is so effective that it might take multiple viewing sessions to make it through the entire running time: "This is not a movie that leaves you untouched. Once finished — if you can finish watching it in one go — it makes you think about the world we are creating for our children."

I don't know what happens in this movie, but I'm intrigued to find out and suspect that it's probably quite disturbing, something along the lines of the Welsh film CRUEL SUMMER.