Ola Jankowska

Mika arrives in Poland to pay a hospital visit to her father, who is suffering from severe brain injury and memory loss. It's the first time they have met in many years, yet her father thinks they still live together and she's a teenager. For a brief time Mika becomes her father's companion in his befuddlement gently guiding him through the labyrinth of his fading mind. And as she does so, she sets off on a journey through her own life.

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Do you want to be in a documentary? A bunch of Englishmen have turned up at the casting for a film that turns out to be the one we are sitting and watching. A mixed gallery of characters, who paradoxically are hoping to be cast in the roles of themselves. 'I was Here' is a social experiment with brains, a heart and underplayed humour. The many attendees are as diverse as people are in the real world. Young and old, funny and bitter, self-confident and nervous - what are they hoping to find by taking part in a film? The obvious answer is the simplest one: themselves. We look on from the other side of the camera, as they take part in the experiment. The contradiction between authenticity and performance is not just a question of identity. It is also one of the basic conflicts of modern documentary filmmaking, which Ola Jankowska and Nathalie Bianchieri turn into both a premise and a method.

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Mika arrives in Poland to pay a hospital visit to her father, who is suffering from severe brain injury and memory loss. It's the first time they have met in many years, yet her father thinks they still live together and she's a teenager. For a brief time Mika becomes her father's companion in his befuddlement gently guiding him through the labyrinth of his fading mind. And as she does so, she sets off on a journey through her own life.

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