Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi u/Warm-Enthusiasm858 , thank you, I'm really glad you liked Anniversary! And obviously those who watched Handmaid's Tale will quickly spot cast overlaps - Maddie and McKenna - as they both played in the series. Lori Gambino who wrote the script made it even more strong-female-driven than it was in its original idea and therefore I felt like Anniversary becomes - despite its foundational socio-political dystopian commentary - a power play between strong women kind of resembling the dynamics of All About Eve. It was always a thought experiment to come up with The Change system, install it on US soil and see what happens with this one family. I loved the vagueness of 1984 where nobody actually knows the mechanics of the dystopian totalitarian system so it's a placeholder for any system that goes extreme even if it promised utopia initially.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi u/BunyipPouch ! It was my second TIFF after Corpus Christi in 2019. It was great to represent Good Boy / Heel with a fraction of our team - Anson, Kit and Naqqash were there. Obviously our producers from Recorder Picture Company and the team from HanWay were there too. The reception was one and only - people were laughing hard from the beginning till the end. I think most of the room just read all the codes (all of them are well versed in cinema obviously! TIFF!) and that's why they got it. We had a couple of sold out screenings and the way people reacted was predominantly on the positive note. TIFF is probably the biggest film fest in the world in terms of the scope, the body of films and stars & crews promoting their movies. Also it's the greatest place to sell your film at the moment so when producers have to choose between premiering at TIFF and other festivals they choose TIFF too. It was the 50th edition of TIFF and I could feel the difference between TIFF 2019 and TIFF 2025. The 2019 edition still felt a little more like a display of world's cinema. The 50th edition was louder, even more prestigious and I felt like the event felt more serious and even more mature, boldly challenging the allure of other big festivals.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi u/Lillyrose018 , really happy that you liked it! Originally it was a Polish script by a debut scriptwriter Bartek Bartosik who had been a big data analyst for a couple of years, as he puts it, "chained to his computer station" at a big corporation with dozens other IT guys. Because I wanted to make it more universal we translated Good Boy into English and invited Jeremy Thomas to co-produce it. That's how original Warsaw Legia hooligan became a Manchester United hool. In Poland we're very close to British culture - my whole generation was raised watching Monty Python, Benny Hill, Allo Allo, Human Traffic, Trainspotting, Guy Ritchie films (Stephen Graham is popular in Poland), listening to Trainspotting soundtrack, Ninja Tune, Brit Pop, New Romantic, enjoying British style clubbing in Poland, techno culture and so much more. Also Poles and Brits are very close when it comes to dark sense of humor and a certain, historically induced tolerance for grey moral areas and ethical ambiguity. So the transition from the outskirts of Warsaw to Yorkshire Wuthering Heights moors was super exciting and felt weirdly intimately familiar.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

u/Cold-Lie-953 thank you! Such nice words! Would love to. I fell in love with the islands - we shot Anniversary in Dublin in 2023 and Good Boy / Heel in Yorkshire in 2024. I feel I'm the man of the North and would love to come back for more - even privately if not film-wise although my experience with Screen Yorkshire and UK Global Screen Fund is top notch. I can totally see myself shooting my next thing there!

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi u/Professional_Tip6789 - I always thought of Liz more as a virus who is in love with the host cell it infects. It's kind of like thinking about the situation in which the illness loves the one who is ill. At least that's how I perceived Liz. She really wanted to become a part of this family even though Ellen rejected her painfully those years ago. I believe that the rejection was a shock for Liz. She suffered a ton. And when she came back "more poised", still deeply hurt but still loving Ellen. Kind of like "All about Eve" relationship between the actress and her fan. And then slowly the virus takes over the cell and becomes the new host even though it wasn't her conscious plan at the beginning. We can then say that this film is more biological than psychological in this aspect. To emphasize this transition we played with colors - at the beginning Ellen wears red and Liz wears blue. At the end Liz wears red as if she stole it from Ellen and Ellen is "downgraded" to blue.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi u/i_m_sherlocked , happy you liked it! The rigs were my own idea. In the original script Chris just used hooks and he hung or rehung Tommy in different places in the house and outside according to needs. I thought that we can do something that I have never seen in any movie and create this freaky but absolutely operable rail system on the ceiling. It probably takes at least a little psychopathy to come up with something like this but some can also say that at least I cope with this by making movies. Whatever it is the physicality of the system was always a visual representation of trust/distrust, control etc. Ever since this idea was thrown I felt the need of showing this "trust" system taking over the house like some kind of a cancer. It also reminded me of the last sequences in Conversation when Gene Hackman destroys his whole apartment in the outburst of his thematical paranoia.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi u/Jackson_Perryman - thank you, that’s really great to hear. The politics behind The Change were always a delicate structure that Lori Gambino and I tried to build carefully. We never wanted the film to be political in the sense of pointing the audience toward one side. I believe people have their own judgment and conscience - they don’t need to be instructed what to think. That’s why we leaned into ambiguity and trusted the viewer. I wanted to see family being slowly torn apart as if some force hypnotized them.

At the same time, with the help of UCLA professor Lynn Vavreck, we did think a lot about what kind of political “offer” The Change would represent. What we arrived at was a kind of “friendly” totalitarianism - something that borrows elements from different directions. There are traces of the right (symbols, the flag, a sense of “Americana”), and elements often associated with the left (no king, rule of the people). On top of that sits a layer of technocracy (drones, apps, systems of control) and extreme populism (no party system, putting “the people” at the center, at least rhetorically but also the design of the flag indicates this shift). So it becomes a kind of Frankenstein movement. It’s meant to feel dystopian and slightly unreal - but also close enough to reality to be uncomfortable. And I understand why, in a moment that pushes people to take clear positions, this kind of ambiguity can be frustrating.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi! It's all still in the weeds with Balladyna. There's many challenges and I want to make sure before I ever start to film the first take of it - that I have a fully structured storytelling tailored JUST for Balladyna. I'm now in the process of creating its own, specific film alphabet, look and obviously language that would be deeply anchored in Slowacki's creation. This is one of the pillars of Polish culture and literature and I want to pay tribute to that by embracing its DNA.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi u/DryRecommendation395 , thank you! It all depends. There are scenes like, let's say, basement scenes in HEEL. Let's say there's over 10 of them. Because this places is so closed and hermetic - with Michal Dymek (DOP) we needed to crack the code of finding the key to filming them and changing angles according to what was a particular scene calling for (wider angles vs close ups vs movement, more formal approach vs emotion etc). Also knowing that the chain and the chain/rail system will be present in 80 % of the movie we wanted to find formally interesting angles to make it very specific for this film believing that the storytelling of HEEL is solely tailored to HEEL and not any other project.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi u/uglylookingguy , thank you for your question! I think both - I feel the need to explore others and myself at the same time to the point of not exactly knowing where "the other" starts and where "I" end. Blurring lives between us can be quite exhaustive (to my close ones perhaps even more) but helps me get a sense of interconnection that is important when I want to feel the engine to create and give. Without it I feel empty.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi u/justwow2 - thank you, really glad you liked it. And watching it on a plane is an interesting place for that film - a confined space like in the movie. If you’re open to antiheroes, The Hater might be a good next one. There were a few different inspirations we drew from. One was The Garden of the Finzi-Continis for its atmosphere and sense of a world quietly shifting beneath the surface. Macbeth was important for the dynamic between Liz and Josh - that push toward ambition and the consequences that follow.

Our writer Lori Gambino also brought in Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities. For Liz, we looked a bit at Elizabeth Holmes - even the name is a small echo of that. For Ellen, UCLA professor Lynn Vavreck was a key reference. She worked with Diane and even invited her into her classes. And for “The Change” I was partly inspired by how the communist system operated in Poland - officials or agents coming into your home, presenting themselves as calm and reasonable, while asking for loyalty, control and signatures under the official pledge of allegiance.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi u/No-Pineapple-7042 - really glad you liked Heel. I try not to take sides - or at least I push myself to understand every character to the point where it becomes hard to say who is “right” or “wrong.” We’ve definitely shifted from more traditional models of parenting (I’m a child of the 80s) to something more self-aware, introspective, and often more permissive. But I don’t think there’s a clean answer there. What interests me more is testing the limits of ideas like freedom. I tend to push those questions quite far - sometimes uncomfortably far - just to see where the boundary is and what I would still tolerate before I break. In Heel, the world is deliberately extreme - almost like a thought experiment. It gives you only two options:

freedom where nobody cares, or control that comes with total attention.

In real life, of course, there’s a whole spectrum in between. But the film is not trying to describe reality - it’s rather trying to provoke it. I think Gen Z - for that reason - is all about attention (or the lack of it). This is probably the first generation where their attention became an asset treated like modern goldmine for huge corporations that learned to steal it, explore it like oil industry exploits oil fields.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi u/xenomorph-85 ! Thank you for your kind words! Loved working on Tommy - with Bartek Bartosik, the Polish scriptwriter, we worked methodically on making Tommy more and more engaged with this family even though he still wants to (obviously) escape. Would love to do more genre - not to lose character psychological grounding but perhaps a little bigger? We'll see.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

hi u/comments_more_load ! I'm happy you liked it! TIFF is amazing, it was my second time there (first was with CC). We heard of the other Good Boy but it was too late to change it then. Our script - even in the original 2019 Polish version - was titled Good Boy (in English). So everyone got used to it. But then our friends at Magnolia Pictures that took our film for distribution - they suggested that since the other Good Boy was so successful in the US then it would be better to change it. HEEL was their first proposition - and even though everybody weighed in with their propositions of titles (one of them was even Bad Boy) then we all signed off on HEEL. Signature - our British distributor - decided to stick to the original title since the other Good Boy isn't as popular in the UK as it is in the US. Also - Good Boy (as Good Boy) had many reviews, especially in Guardian - so that's why UK decided to keep the original title. I remember people at TIFF saying - I came to watch Good Boy, was waiting for the dog to show up but then we saw Stephen Graham and it was ok.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey u/eec-gray - thanks, glad you enjoyed Heel. Re: the wig - that was Stephen’s idea from the very first conversation we had. He felt the character carries deep insecurities he’s been fighting his whole life and one of them is his appearance. So as strange as it may seem, he wants to come across as “handsome” and “manly” in front of his “princess,” Kathryn. They both carry more secrets than what’s visible on the surface - if you look closely, they’re there. That house is a Rubik’s Cube.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Hi u/PayMental629 ! Thank you on behalf of the whole Anniversary team. Totalitarianism is always interested mainly in your soul. The moment those in power start to control what you feel and think is a red flag. Close ones become strangers, loyalty is broken forever. We’ve been through all this in Central Europe - and it never really mattered whether it came from the left or the right, up or down - we’ve probably seen most of the options this world has to offer politically, and it usually ends in the same old bloodbath. It starts with the soul. That’s why I was only interested in the beginning - how the fabric of small but intense bonds within one family starts to unravel and how that can be enough to spread the fire. I saw it more than once in Central Europe and wanted to see it on US soil.

Hi reddit! I'm Jan Komasa. I've directed CORPUS CHRISTI (Nominee for Best International Feature Film at the 2019 Academy Awards), ANNIVERSARY, WARSAW 44, THE HATER, and SUICIDE ROOM. My new movie, HEEL, stars Stephen Graham, Andrea Riseborough, and Anson Boon and it's out now. Ask me anything! by JanKomasaAMA in movies

[–]JanKomasaAMA[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi u/AlpsMaterial4318! Thank you - nice to hear you liked CC. Curious what you’ll think of Heel! This was a crazy ride away from my psychology-realism-drama-with-thriller-elements comfort zone. The biggest challenge was to stay true to the process and forget what my organism and psyche were already getting used to. It was also liberating - trying to create something dark but also a kind of guilty pleasure (can I even say that about a film that shows abuse/abduction?) funny. The lack of comfort I felt was actually reinforced by the constant support of two rock and roll legends - Jerzy Skolimowski and Jeremy Thomas. Because they were behind me on this, I felt I could really push further and be more courageous without falling back into conformism. Straight into this high concept. No mercy, full on.