"Rewers" won a plethora of Polish awards, but has been shunned internationally Courtesy of Syrena Films

The film “Rewers” (“Reverse”), directed by Borys Lankosz, was the big winner at the 2010 Polish Eagle Film Awards last week. The movie won in eight categories: Best Film, Best Actress (Agata Buzek), Best Supporting Actress (Anna Polony), Discovery of the Year (director Borys Lankosz), Best Screenplay, Best Soundtrack, Best Costumes and Best Design.

Set in the 1950s, “Rewers” shows the terror of the Stalinist period in the style of a black comedy. The story centers on a woman in her early thirties, whose mother tries to find a husband for her and whose grandmother rates the candidates. Then one day she meets a man whose presence changes the lives of the three women.

This year’s second-most successful film was Wojciech Smarzowski’s “Dom zly” (“The Dark House”), which won four statuettes.

These triumphs at home might help soften the blow caused by the absence of the two movies at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival (Berlinale). The lack of any Polish films in the official selection led to a public dispute between Tadeusz Sobolewski, a film critic at daily Gazeta Wyborcza, and the Polish Film Institute.

The sole Polish contender for this year’s Oscars, which were held last Sunday in Hollywood, was “Królik po Berlińsku” (“Rabbit á la Berlin”) by Bartek Konopka and Anna Wydra, nominated for Best Documentary Short. The film tells the history of the Berlin Wall from the point of view of thousands of wild rabbits who inhabited “The Death Strip” between East and West Berlin.