Pola Negri: Life is a Dream in Cinema | |
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Directed by | Mariusz Kotowski |
Produced by | Heidi Hutter (executive producer) |
Written by | Lynn Moran |
Starring |
Hayley Mills Eli Wallach A.C. Lyles Cyndi Williams (narrator) |
Music by | Frédéric Chopin (composer) |
Cinematography | Simone Zimmerman Elke Stappert John Schaaf (assistant cinematographer) |
Edited by | John Larsen |
Production
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Release date
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2006 |
Running time
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89 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Pola Negri: Life is a Dream in Cinema is a feature-length biographical documentary film by Polish-American director Mariusz Kotowski released in 2006. The film chronicles the life of Polish silent film actress Pola Negri, as told by those who knew her and those who have studied her life and films.
The documentary is the first directorial work of Polish-born director Mariusz Kotowski. Kotowski had previously worked as a dancer and dance choreographer, and invested three years of work and a considerable personal fortune into producing the Pola Negri: Life is a Dream in Cinema documentary. He has gone on to direct the Holocaust film Esther's Diary (2010, originally released as Forgiveness [2008]), which featured a lead character built strongly on Pola Negri, and the erotic psychological thriller Deeper and Deeper (2009) starring David Lago (The Young and the Restless). Kotowski also went on to author a Polish-language Pola Negri biography entitled Pola Negri: Legenda Hollywood (English title: Pola Negri: Hollywood Legend), which was released in Poland in 2011.
The most notable interviews in Pola Negri: Life is a Dream in Cinema are with film stars Hayley Mills and Eli Wallach. Mills was starring actress and Wallach supporting actor in the Walt Disney film The Moon-Spinners (1964), Pola Negri's final film. In the documentary, both actors retell their stories of working with Negri in that film.
Others interviewed for the film included Jeanine Basinger, professor and author; A.C. Lyles, producer for Paramount Pictures; Alfred Allan Lewis, ghostwriter of Pola Negri's autobiography Memoirs of a Star (1970); Emily Leider, author of Rudolph Valentino biography Dark Lover; Anthony Slide, film historian; David Gasten, webmaster of The Pola Negri Appreciation Site; and Scott Eyman, author of Ernst Lubitsch: Laughter in Paradise.