Gehenna

It’s a cold night at the suburbs of Rome. A single mother seeks help in handling her sons murderous tendencies.

Director Biography - Antonina Rzyska

I used to rise at dawn to watch a movie before school, escaping into another world. Since childhood, I have been studying, creating, and most importantly, experiencing films. My name is Antonina Rzyska, I am 21 years old, and I am from Warsaw, Poland.

In high school, I landed my first job as a movie archivist at the smallest cinema in my country, Cinema Amondo. In the basement, there was a dark room with a small TV and a worn-out leather sofa. One afternoon, in the same box as my favorite film, Roland Joffe’s The Mission, I discovered Fitzcarraldo. I inserted the disc and pressed play. When my boss came down to inform me that we were closing, he found me captivated by Fitzcarraldo’s journey, enveloped in Giuseppe Verdi’s music. He smiled and left me the keys, telling me it would be a long, emotional night and that he was envious because he wished he could experience Werner Herzog for the first time again. It was the most significant cinematic experience of my life. I realized that I too wanted to express my sensibility and perception through film, hoping to move someone as Herzog moved me. Thus, I decided to study directing in the city of cinema—Rome. Over the past two years, I completed a one-year directing program at an international film school and began a BA program in cinema at the Rome University of Fine Arts. I have produced, filmed, and edited three shorts while also working on my classmates’ sets, gaining extensive experience in every possible role on a movie set.

I might not be a director with years of experience, but I am one with heart.

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