Estonian premiere
The Peasants
Breathtakingly painted intimate and mesmerizingly sonic drama about seduction, yearning for love, infidelity, slander, and retribution over four seasons. It took Dorota and Hugh Welchman four years to produce an awesome blend of painting, animation, splendidly arranged Polish folk songs, and lively dance performances.
125 painters from Poland, Lithuania, Serbia, and Ukraine joined the directors of the award-winning “Loving Vincent''. In the Lithuanian studio, eight painters worked for two years to oil paint at least six frames of each shot before the digital painting animators applied their magic. Perfectionist Dorota made corrections and changes even after the world premiere in Toronto, but now she will have a chance to draw attention from the Academy Awards.
A graphic novel by Nobel Prize winner Władysław Reymont leads to the village of Lipce. Gorgeous Jagna is forced to marry a much older wealthy widower Maciej Boryna, but she secretly desires his lustful son Antek, who betrays his wife Hanka and their children. A confrontation between libertine Antek and tyrannical Maciej evolves into the whole gossiping village turning against the adulterous Jagna.
Edvinas Pukšta
DK Welchman studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw and the Warsaw Film School. DK Welchman (formerly known as Dorota Kobiela) directed the shorts "Chopin’s Drawings" (2011) and "Little Postman" (2011) and co-directed the features "The Flying Machine" (2011) and "Loving Vincent" (2017), the world’s first and only fully painted feature film, hand painted by over 100 oil-painting animators. The film was nominated for an Oscar, a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. The film made $52m at the global box office and is the most successful Polish film of all time at the international box office. "The Peasants" is her latest film.
Filmography:
The Flying Machine (2010, co-dir), Loving Vincent (2017, co-dir), Chlopi (The Peasants, 2023, co-dir)
Hugh Welchman graduated from Oxford University with a degree in PPE and a vague notion of wanting to make films. He supported himself by teaching history, selling carpets, and even selling fish while he joined various grassroots film cooperatives in London. After a few disastrous experiences where the drama was all behind the camera instead of in front of it, Hugh sought out training at The National Film & Television School. His graduation film, "Crowstone", won the Cinefoundation Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. He got his first professional experience producing short films for Monty Python and then set up BreakThru Films. In 2008, Hugh was awarded an Oscar for BreakThru’s first major production, "Peter and the Wolf", which premiered at a sold-out Royal Albert Hall accompanied live by The Philharmonic Orchestra. After falling in love with Polish painter and director, Dorota Kobiela, Hugh also fell in love with her film project, "Loving Vincent", and has been working with her ever since.
Filmography:
Loving Vincent (2017, co-dir), Chlopi (The Peasants, 2023, co-dir)
Award for Best Baltic Film, grant of 5000€ from Piletilevi
