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Agnieszka Holland’s “Mr. Jones’’, premieres in Official Competition at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival

Polish film director and screenwriter, Academy Award nominee Agnieszka Holland’s “Mr. Jones’’, premieres in Official Competition at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival which is scheduled to take place from 7 to 17 February 2019.

The latest film by Agnieszka Holland is a  drama film which tells the story of a Welsh journalist Gareth Jones who travelled to the Soviet Union in 1933. He discovered the appalling real face of communism and broke the news in the western countries about a government-induced famine in Ukraine.
Jones’ story was an inspiration to an incredible novel by George Orwell: “Animal Farm.”

Agnieszka Holland said for Variety about her latest production: “We knew, when shooting this film, that we were telling an important timeless story. But only after I realized how relevant is today this tale about the fake news, alternative realities, corruption of the media, cowardice of governments, and indifference of people.”

“The clash of Jones’ courage and determination against Duranty’s cynical opportunism and cowardice is still valid as well. Today, we don’t lack corruptible conformists and egoists; we lack Orwells and Joneses. That is why we brought them back to life.”

The film stars among others Vanessa Kirby, James Norton and Peter Sarsgaard.

Andrea Chalupa, born and raised in California, is the screenwriter of the film. Her inspiration stems from the experiences of her grandfather who came from eastern Ukraine.

Agnieszka Holland is best known for her political contributions to Polish cinema. She started her career assisting to other Polish eminent film directors Krzysztof Zanussi and Andrzej Wajda.
She emigrated to France shortly before the introduction of the martial law in 1981 in Poland.

Her best-known films are Europa Europa (1991), In Darkness which was nominated in 2011 for Best Foreign Language Film at the 84th Academy Awards.
She received Alfred Bauer Prize ( Silver Bear) in 2017 for her film Spoor at the Berlin International Film Festival.

She directed some episodes of House of Cards on Netflix and series 1983. Read more about 1983 in enclosed links below:

Have a look at the exclusive first-look film footage published by Variety here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN6hKp8K-Kw

Read also: https://www.communications-unlimited.nl/polish-british-animated-film-loving-vincent-nominated-for-oscars-2018/

Sources; Variety, Wikipedia, Communications-Unlimited.nl

Photo: https://www.imdb.com