Jerzy Skolimowski; photo - PAP

Jerzy Skolimowski, director of the Venice festival award winning film Essential Killing says that though the subject matter of the film touches on the Afghan war, the movie is “not a political statement”.

Essential Killing – which tells the story of an Afghan picked by NATO troops and accused killing of a US soldier – won the Special Jury Prize at the Venice festival at the weekend.

The Afghan character, played by American-Italian Vincent Gallo, escapes the clutches of the US when he escapes when being transported through the snowy forests of Eastern Europe. In an interesting coincidence, the Venice film award for Essential Killing comes just days after a CIA internal report alleged that a terrorist suspect had been tortured when imprisoned in northern Poland.

Skolimowski has told TV journalists on his return from Venice that initially he did not want to make the film as it was potentially “too political”. Poland has over 2,500 troops stationed in Afghanistan. But in the end, the director decided the story was simply “a contemporary fable about the struggle for survival".

The director – known for films such as Moonlighting and The Shout – said the movie was planned at the outset as a modest project on a shoestring budget from the Polish Film Institute.

“But I showed the script to producer Jeremy Thomas - a very well-known producer who has got a lot of Oscars for his films with Bernardo Bertolucci . Impressed by the script he said I should not be so humble,” Skolimowski said.

In the end the movie was a Polish-Hungarian-Norwegian-Irish production.

The film goes on release in Poland in October. (pg)