{"id":204681,"date":"2025-11-28T11:53:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T11:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/204681\/"},"modified":"2025-11-28T11:53:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-28T11:53:12","slug":"cold-war-star-joanna-kulig-on-isola-and-pawlikowskis-next-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/204681\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Cold War’ Star Joanna Kulig on ‘Isola’ and Pawlikowski’s Next Film"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIt has been a while since the \u201cCold War<\/a>\u201d craze and its three Academy Award nominations, but its Polish breakout star Joanna Kulig<\/a> will soon reunite with director Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski<\/a> once again.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m singing in his next film,\u201d she says. In the anticipated drama, starring Sandra H\u00fcller, known as \u201c1949\/Vaterland,\u201d Pawlikowski will explore the life of Thomas and Erika Mann in post-war Germany.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis will be our fourth collaboration. I\u2019m so proud this film exists, especially in these difficult times post-pandemic and strikes. Cinema is still fighting back.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tKulig\u2019s extensive run on the awards circuit \u2013 which coincided with her becoming a mother to a baby boy \u2013 raised her international profile, but she resisted the pressure to pursue solely U.S. projects. At Torino Film Festival<\/a>, she\u2019s presenting Nora Jaenicke\u2019s psychological thriller \u201cIsola<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cRight after \u2018Cold War,\u2019 things got a bit crazy. I know some people expected me to stay [in the U.S.], but one reason why I\u2019ve always admired Pawe\u0142 Pawlikowski is that he has his own, very specific way of developing films. You have to find something that works for you and brings you peace and joy, instead of listening to all these external voices,\u201d she notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c\u2019Cold War\u2019 opened me up to multiculturalism and so many new opportunities. They probably wouldn\u2019t have happened if it wasn\u2019t for that film. However, I also want to have a family life, and I think I\u2019ve achieved that balance right now.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing Berlinale opener \u201cShe Came to Me\u201d and Apple TV+ miniseries \u201cMasters of the Air,\u201d she\u2019s focusing on European productions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey\u2019re much closer. With \u2018Isola,\u2019 I could do so many things in Warsaw. I\u2019ve always wanted to have a base, a permanent place of my own, and I\u2019ve managed to build it now. It\u2019s funny, because people in Poland keep asking me: \u2018Oh, so you\u2019re back?\u2019 I never left!,\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe Poles are incredibly open to learning new languages and entering new working environments. There\u2019s still this thought at the back of our head that we\u2019re not good enough, which is a remnant from the communist era. My generation believed that the West was better somehow, but it\u2019s time we learnt to appreciate ourselves.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBefore Pawlikowski\u2019s latest, Kulig gets to sing in Jaenicke\u2019s film as well, where she plays the much younger wife of a dying man, also named Joanna. Stuck on a remote island, she\u2019s happy to welcome new caretaker Ada (Fanny Ardant), but Ada\u2019s affection soon turns into obsession.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJaenicke explains: \u201cIt was a Sicilian song because at first, the film was supposed to be set in Stromboli. We needed a brief moment when they could connect. They don\u2019t need words; they just look at each other. This song really moves Ada and she gets to see a wild side of Joanna that wants to break free from being just a wife.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I got to know Joanna [Kulig], her character rewrote itself, in a way. She has this intense gaze and she can look so angelic, but then there\u2019s a shift. I saw a little bit of a devil in her too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIsola\u201d is produced by Manish Mundra, Ariens Damsi and Jaenicke for Drishyam Films International and Eliofilm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJaenicke, who is making her feature debut, also wanted to show Ardant in a different light. \u201cWe haven\u2019t really seen her in a role like this before. Fanny said she liked Ada because \u2018she isn\u2019t likeable.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThen again, nobody is likeable in \u201cIsola.\u201d According to co-star Marco Rossetti, playing Joanna\u2019s love interest, Jaenicke\u2019s film has a noir feel, with all the characters inflicting psychological and physical violence on each other and ultimately being united by their \u201cambiguous morality.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s almost like some archetypal story,\u201d the director sums up.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAda comes into Joanna\u2019s life when she\u2019s already thinking about breaking free from her pattern: she always ends up with people who try to control her. In a way, it\u2019s a feminist story. But then it\u2019s another woman who suddenly dominates her, just like a man.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It has been a while since the \u201cCold War\u201d craze and its three Academy Award nominations, but its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":204682,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[44278,18,117,19,17,112604,112605,327,112606,111376],"class_list":{"0":"post-204681","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-cold-war","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-isola","14":"tag-joanna-kulig","15":"tag-movies","16":"tag-paweu0142-pawlikowski","17":"tag-torino-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115627190049676670","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}