The iconic Polish film trilogy about the most famous neighbourhood dispute will get a prequel. The film ‘All Friends Here. The Beginning’ is set to hit Polish cinema screens on 16 February 2024. The film’s co-producers reveal that from the latest instalment we will certainly find out the genesis of the story that entertains Poles to this day.

We will see on screen, among others, Anna Dymna, Zbigniew Zamachowski and Mirosław Baka, but also Adam Bobik and Karol Dziuba. Apart from them, the movie will also feature Paulina Gałązka, Weronika Humaj, Zbigniew Zamachowski, Katarzyna Krzanowska, Wojciech Malajkat, Janusz Chabior and Adam Ferency.

The film will be directed by Artur Żmijewski. “I want it to be a completely new, universal story about us as we are every day, with all our pros and cons. Regardless of where we live”, says the well-known Polish actor, who this time will be behind the camera.

He wrote the screenplay for the prequel ‘All Friends Here. The Beginning’ (based on the book Everyone lives like they can, as well as all other parts of the saga, written by Andrzej Mularczyk). The story of repatriates from the East including the Pawlak and Kargula families, is inspired by real events. One of those who left their homes in the Borderlands, which today lie in Ukraine, was Jan Mularczyk, the uncle of the excellent scriptwriter and writer.

Many years later, he became the prototype for the character of Kazimierz Pawlak, well known from the trilogy ‘All Friends Here”, ‘No one can do’ and ‘Love or leave’. Jan Mularczyk, settled in Tymowa, near Lubin, in Lower Silesia.

In this part of the story of two families, one goes back to the childhood and youth of the adored characters to learn about the events that took place before they moved to the new, post-war Poland. It was this chapter of the story that was to be written first, but the political circumstances of the 1960s were not favourable. “No one would have allowed the production of a film that portrayed the ‘brotherly’ Soviet nation in a negative, somewhat ridiculous way”, says Tomasz Kubski, the film’s producer.

Arkadiusz Słomczyński