As an introduction to the long, warm Documentary Summer with films from Restart’s distribution treasury, in Zagreb’s Dokukino KIC we are expecting the premiere of the darkly humorous comedy ‘The Pawnshop” directed by Lukasz Kowalski, premiered at the prestigious CPH:DOX. After the premiere screening at Dokukino, scheduled for Thursday, June 1st, with an online interview with the director, Zalagaonica is going on a tour of independent cinemas across the country.
Jola and Wiesiek are a pair of eccentric businessmen from Bitom, Poland. Together with their three employees, they run the largest pawnshop in Poland, and probably in all of Europe. The town where they live and run a business was once a large industrial center, but after the closing of the nearby mines, the town sinks into ruin, and its impoverished residents pawn increasingly absurd and useless items in a popular pawnshop. The inhabitants of Bitom bring their problems along with their junk, but neither Wiesiek’s crazy marketing ideas nor Jola’s tender heart are able to sustain the business, which is doing worse. Although the pawn shop makes losses, it becomes an important center in the life of the local community, where customers more often get a word of comfort for their problems than engage in buying and selling. When the pawn shop is on the verge of bankruptcy, Jola and Wiesiek find themselves on the brink of disaster, and they have no choice but to try to save their business and their love with the help of their fellow citizens.
