It will already be the third year in a row that the Tofifest IFF starts with a film music concert. Coming to Torun to add splendour to this event will be Wojciech Waglewski, an icon of modern Polish music, Anna Rusowicz, a singer experimenting with all kinds of vocal arrangements, and Tulia - a phenomenon of 2018, which stormed the Internet with their adaptations of songs by Depeche Mode and Dawid Podsiadlo translated into folk music. The entire event will be directed by Steve Nash , composer, producer, pianist, and a three-time DJ world champion, whose extraordinary music interpretations packed with new rebellious sound will take us on a film and music journey into the unknown.
We have a real music bomb up our sleeve for you to experience on the very first day. This year, a concert by Steve Nash & Film Orchestra will add splendour to the opening ceremony of the festival, being a direct continuation of the rebellious perspective on film music offered by the festival organisers, seen as the element that adds dynamism, character, agility, tempo, and often even an identity to a film. For many long years, Tofifest has proven that the most interesting art which introduces a creative turmoil in the heads of viewers is the one that emerges from the crossing of many different perspectives and seemingly distant artistic paths.
For example, can one imagine “Cold War” by Pawel Pawlikowski without “Dwa serduszka” (“Two little hearts”), a song sang by Joanna Kulig? Would “The Art of Love: The Story of Michalina Wislocka” by Maria Sadowska be the very same film, if it was not for a song “W co mam wierzyć” (“What should I believe in?”) performed by Anna Rusowicz and Mitch & Mitch, which is a leitmotif in the film? Would we remember “The Skylights” as intensively, if it was not for Wojciech Waglewski and Katarzyna Nosowska, both of who performed “Piosenka kobieca”? The answer is: no. Without these songs, they would be entirely different films – worse, spiritless, and pale.
And as much as it is difficult to imagine the mentioned films without these songs, it is equally difficult to imagine a concert dedicated to film music without the visualisations specifically prepared for the occasion, which will accompany the performers and musicians performing on stage in Torun. As for the artists who will present the greatest hits of film music, they are people particularly sensitive to both music and images, although their artistic paths are perfectly separate, coming from entirely different music genres and traditions.
And for that very reason it will be Steve Nash to take the audience on a music and film journey into the unknown, as it has become his trademark to break music standards and uniquely merge genres – it gave him the “Mateusz Trojki” Award in 2017. While on stage, he will join forces with Wojciech Waglewski, a brilliant composer and producer, leader of the cult band Voo Voo, Anna Rusowicz, an experimenting composer madly in love with the 60s and the 70s, who has already achieved two gold records, and the four girls from Tulia, winners of Konkurs Premier (Premières Contest) in Opole, who have won the hearts of listeners with their folk interpretations of “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode and “Nieznajomy” by Dawid Podsiadlo (the latter of which has already achieved 6 million viewers on YouTube).
Each of the artists will use their individual performances to remind us that film music has nothing to do with a boring illustrative background to events happening on the screen, and the songs will come with new music arrangements to create a passage to both joy and reflection, just as the festival itself does, making it the two most significant values of TOFIFEST.
Tickets are already on sale! You can buy tickets on tofifest.pl. Join us on 20th October 2018, at 7.00 p.m. at The Cultural and Congress Centre Jordanki.