Projects
Detour
A politician needs to bring his mother on the campaign trail. Her Alzheimer’s makes it a bumpy ride.
Tobiasz (39) faces a turning point in his political career. He travels across the country in a campaign bus to talk about his ambitions for a wonderful and prosperous Poland. Unexpectedly, his mother Hanna (66) turns up at an election rally. She wants to reforge their bond, broken many years ago. In response, Tobiasz puts her on the first train home. Hanna doesn’t take no for an answer. She returns, wanting to campaign by his side and fight his political opponents. Her actions lead to riots and Tobiasz becomes a national meme. Hanna admits she suffers from Alzheimer’s. She wants to spend the little time she has left with him, while she still remembers she has a son. Uncharacteristically, Tobiasz puts his flagging career on hold to embark on a journey with Hanna. The awkward distance between them turns into a bizarre closeness. Tobiasz finds solace in his mother’s increasingly preposterous reality. Eventually, in a moment of lucidity, Hanna realises that Tobiasz is using her to regain voter support. She leaves him and moves into a nursing home. On election day, Tobiasz fulfills his mother’s deep desire and takes Hanna out for Christmas dinner with her family. It is a beautiful day in May and their relatives are hired extras. Reality blends with fiction.
It all started innocently: my mother was invited to an event at a hotel. With suspenseful music in the background, the master of ceremony announced that she had won the lottery. Her name popped up on a large screen. She delivered a thank you speech. Her prizes were two mattresses, a food processor, pillows for healing and relaxation, and discount vouchers to be used in hotels all over Poland. The considerate man showed her where to put her signature and helped her load everything into the car. A few days later, it turned out that she had signed a loan for a couple of thousand euros and the hotel chain did not exist. I’m almost sure the audience consisted of extras hired for the show. Soon afterwards, my mother was diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s. We want Detour to be a dark comedy, which will tell the story of two people who create their own world, suspended between political fiction and the weirdness of the disease, and eventually find a true emotion they have lacked for years.
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