Sala samobójców

Poland

Synopsis

Dominik is the product of a success-driven marriage between businessman Andrzej and CEO Beata. With only 100 days to go before the final school exams, Dominik is on target to graduate with top marks and gain entry into the finest university. However, 100 days to go still means 100 days to conform to school social rules. Through a series of humiliating events involving another male classmates Dominik's world comes crashing down. He sees the online comments his classmates are making about him on various social networks. Daunted by the thought of returning to school he reverts from real life and logs into the virtual world. Cloaked in his avatar, Dominik meets Sylvia, a would-be suicider who hasn't left this world in years, and joins her friends in the "Suicide Room'. Sylvia draws him into a dangerous game. The game gets out of hand as the Suicide Room serves more to shock outside world than to comfort and heal. Soon enough Dominik struggles to decipher what is real as common virtual experiences bleed dangerously into reality. Not only do the lives of those around him become threatened but Dominik's own life is at grave danger.

Director's Statement

Of all beautiful themes in global art, I was always greatly inspired by love during puberty. It was no different during the production of SUICIDE ROOM, where love, puberty and rebellion became intertwined with the hysteria of the internet communities, addiction to illusion, unrestrained obsession with another person, unlimited and in effect deadly dangerous possibilities of auto creation in the virtual world, and in truth, a great longing for love. Our team looked for inspiration mainly in Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther and Shakespeare's Hamlet- in both cases these creations, when clashed with the digital world, took on a new, very modern meaning. Werther is a boy whose feelings for a girl lead him to insanity, and Hamlet is a young man who puts on a mask of madness to begin a very dangerous game with everyone around- both of these attitudes describe the main character of Suicide Room - Dominik, a representative of our times. In a world where everyone's learned to express their needs and fight for oneself and everyone knows how to speak, not everyone wants to listen. As a result of these insane transformations, the modern man is lonely and in peace with loneliness. A man who kills himself like a suicide victim, every day, little by little, out of loneliness and lack of love, but one who is too busy to notice that. As it is believed, souls of suicides wander the Earth, looking for consolation. "Suicide Room" is a hymn for all those who kill themselves every day, a hymn about stopping for just a short while and listening, since this could let one live for at least a second longer.
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Cast & Crew

Directed by: Jan Komasa

Written by: Jan Komasa

Produced by: Jerzy Kapuściński, Wojciech Kabarowski

Cinematography: Radosław Ładczuk

Editing: Bartosz Pietras

Production Design: Katarzyna Filimoniuk

Original Score: Michał Jacaszek

Cast: Bartosz Gelner, Jakub Gierszał, Roma Gąsiorowska, Krzysztof Pieczyński, Agata Kulesza

Nominations and Awards

  • Feature Film Selection 2011