Rooftop Films: Tricks (Event Over)

Fri., August 29, 2008

Tricks
An award-winning, pitch-perfect new comedy about a six-year-old boy and his sister playing games with fate and searching for their destinies in a sleepy little Polish town.

Venue: On the lawn of Automotive High School
Address: 50 Bedford Ave (Williamsburg, Brooklyn)
Directions: L to Bedford or G to Nassau
Rain: In the event of rain the show will be held indoors at the same location
8:00 PM: Doors Open
8:30 PM: Sound Fix presents live music by Trio Zeybek
9:00 PM: Films
11:30PM - 1:00AM: After Party - Free Drinks at Sound Fix Records courtesy of Bison Grass Vodka.
Tickets: $9 at http://going.com

Presented in Partnership with:
IFC.com, New York Magazine,  Automotive High School, and Lenka New York. 

“Andrzej Jakimowski's take on childhood summers is a fresh yet classic addition to a timeless genre. Anchored by an award-winning performance from Damien Ul, Jakimowski's second film unfolds with warmth and a knowing humor, sprinkled with a dash of magic realism. “
--Alissa Simon, Variety

Tricks (Sztucki) (Andrzej Jakimowski | Poland | 1:35:00)
Six-year-old Stefek is clearly not a typical little boy. Uninterested in the other kids his age in his little Polish town, he spends much of his time playing by himself with toy soldiers, hanging about the train station and learning the secrets of raising pigeons from the elderly locals. Most of all, he loves the company of his older sister Elka and her patient boyfriend Jerzy. His mother is distant—nearly absent—from their daily lives, and it is plain that Stefek and Elka yearn for something—or someone.

Stefek’s beloved sister Elka is an ambitious and increasingly impatient young woman, and she is desperate to learn Italian so that she can get a good job so that she can leave her melancholy village behind. Frustrated by the perfidies of small town life, she invents semi-magical games that she plays with fate, making little wagers with the world and using the outcomes to convince herself that her decisions are sculpted by some power higher than her own whims.

One warm summer, Stefek notices a man who transfers regularly from one train to the next at the railway station nearby. Convinced that this man may be his long-lost father, Stefek takes a cue from his playful sister and begins to toy with fate, convincing himself that each small coincidence is further proof that he has actually found his dad and that destiny is slowly conspiring to bring his broken family back together. He decides that with each imaginary wager he wins, it becomes more and more likely that his family will be reunited, and he sets out on a mission to bribe fate with small sacrifices in order to bring his father back home.

The second feature by Polish director Andrzej Jakimowski, Tricks is an amusing, engaging, and wonderfully poetic film grounded by the charming minutiae of contemporary small- town polish life. It won the Europa Cinemas Label prize for best European film in the independently programmed Venice Days sidebar and has been received warmly by audiences in Europe, and we are proud to present it for the first time here on the lawn of Automotive High School in Greenpoint, right on the edge of New York’s largest Polish community.