A united smile in Gdynia
The World Smile Archive has been associated with Polish cinema, Gdynia Film Festival and Polish filmmakers for 11 years. As every year, the filmmakers’ smiles will be presented during the Festival in an exhibition at Multikino, actors will visit a children’s hospital, while Marek Wysoczyński (the project’s originator) will be “hunting” guests at the Musical Theatre and ask them to draw a smile on a festival poster.
This time, to mark 40th edition of the festival, the film smiles will reach not only patients in Gdynia but also patients in New York and around the world. It will be possible thanks to the film notebooks designed with a special smile by Marcin Władyka, who designed this year’s festival poster. The notebook features forty smiles created by directors, actors and people of the film industry.
The smiles will not only be present in the Gdynia Festival typical place, that is, the Musical Theatre, but also will reach children in the hospital. The Vincent de Paul Hospital will host the meeting of children and actors – Ewa Błaszczyk i Olgierd Łukaszewicz – as well as the Gdynia City Mayor Wojciech Szczurek. On Wednesday, at 11.00 AM, children will be the hospital stars: with the help of the special guests, they will draw smiles for the children of New York. Adults will have the opportunity to smile as well. On Saturday, the last day of the Festival, at 11.30 AM, the 40th Festival family photo will be taken. All the filmmakers will form the U letter to create a huge smile with the Gdynia Film School at Grunwaldzki Square in the background. In this way, Big Apple will receive not only the smiles drawn by Roman Polański, Jerzy Skolimowski or Andrzej Wajda but also those of the whole family of the Polish Cinema.
At the invitation of the Permanent Mission of Malesia to the United Nations in New York – the United Nations Smiles exhibition will be presented by the World Smile Archive at the General Assembly. The curators: Dolly Unithan – an artist from Malesia, Jaqueline Taylor Basker – an artist from the US, Geza G. Schenk – an architect from Germany and the originator of the World Smile Archive, Marek Wysoczyński, will choose the smiles which will be presented in the main headquarters of the United Nations.
From 8th to 16th September, the exhibition of smiles by the most well-known personas from the whole world will be presented together will the smiles created by artists.
In New York, smile workshops will be held in children hospitals, schools and social care houses, as well as meetings with sportsmen, actors and singers. A huge photo with the New York panorama in the background will be taken, including children, young adults, firemen, policemen, United Nations employees, sportsmen and tourists. Smile not only supports treatment but also is a bridge towards conversation, thinking and problem solving.
Smile at the Gdynia Film Festival, in the United Nations headquarters in New York and in the oncological hospital always remembers that the tear is right beside the smile – therefore, let the world be united by ONE GREAT WISE SMILE.
