Contact
Director:
STANISLAW MUCHA
Schloss Gumpertsreuth
95185 Gattendorf
Germany
Tel.: +49-(0)9281-477728
Fax: +49-(0)9281-477731
E-Mail: st.mucha@t-online.de 

Producer:
STRANDFILM PRODUKTIONS GMBH
Dieter Reifarth
Gartenstr. 96
60596 Frankfurt/a.M.
Germany
Tel.: +49-(0)69-96317220
Fax: +49-(0)69-635056
E-Mail: reifarth@strandfilm.com

Ass.-Producer:
PANDORA FILM 
Reinhard Brundig 
Ebertplatz 21
50668 Köln
Germany
Tel.: +49-(0)221-973320
Fax: +49-(0)221-973329
E-Mail: PandoraCgn@aol.com

Worl Sales:
Weltvertrieb:
MEDIA LUNA FILM
Ida Martins
Hochstadenstr. 1-3
50674 Köln
Germany
Tel.: +49 221-139 22 22
E-Mail: info@medialuna-
entertainment.de

Distributor:
PEGASOS FILM
Ernst Szebedits
Zentrale Köln: 
Ebertplatz 21 
50668 Köln Tel.: 0221/97266-16 
Fax: 0221/97266-17 
Filiale Frankfurt:
Egenolffstr. 13 
60316 Frankfurt
Tel. 069/405891-0 
Fax: 069/405891-29


pegasos@pegasosfilm.de

Team:
director of photography: 
SUSANNE SCHÜLE

assistant camera: 
HELGE HAACK

sound: 
EIKE HOSENFELD
MICHEL KLÖFKORN

music: DRISLAK

commissioning editor: 
HR - LILI KOBBE
WDR - WERNER DÜTSCH 
ZDF/3Sat - INGE CLASSEN

co-production: REINHARD BRUNDIG
production: DIETER REIFARTH

director, script, editor: STANISLAW MUCHA

Director:
Stanislaw Mucha - Born in Nowy Targ, Poland on 3.5.1970. After taking final school examinations he studied acting at the "Ludwik Solski" drama school in Cracow, graduating with an M.A. in 1993. Then joined Cracow´s ´Old Theatre´. Studied film directing at the Konrad Wolf College of Film and Television at Babelsberg from 1995-00. Was a fellow of the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart in 2000. 

Films:
1995 DER PUPPENDOKTOR (The puppet doktor), documantary, 16mm colour, 15 min 
1996 /1997 POLNISCHE PASSION (Polish Passion), documentary, 35mm colour, 160 min. 
1998 DER TISCH (The table), short film, 35mm colour, 10 min.
1999 EIN WUNDER (A miracle), documentary, Super 16mm and Beta SP colour, 7 min.
2000 MIT "BUBI" HEIM INS REICH (Back Home to The Reich with Bubi), documentary, 16mm colour, 79 min.
2001 ABSOLUT WARHOLA, documentary, 35mm colour, 80 min.


"Absolut Warhola"
a documentary film by Stanislaw Mucha

Synopsis in brief (3 sentences):
Located somewhere in the middle of nowhere, in the "Ruthenian Bermuda Triangle" between Slovakia, Poland and the Ukraine, is Europe's only Pop Art Museum. Stanislaw Mucha's light-hearted documentary traces the roots of America's Pop icon Andy Warhol whose family heritage can be tracked down to the town of Medzilaborce and the neighboring village of Miková. His clan has always lived here, and they always will. His aunts and cousins have lots of time, they have schnapps, they are out of work, and they have each other, but everyone of them also has a vague idea of Warhol: His name has become a legend, a vision, a tangible link to a world they cannot comprehend, a world so big and so incredibly far away. 


SYNOPSIS:
This trip might take ages and go nowhere. 
At times, the car passes through rain and late winter snow, 
then again the vibrant green of a perfect summer. 
Time seems to stand still. There is no sign to point the way. But the destination is clear:
the "Ruthenian Bermuda Triangle."
It is the name Stanislaw Mucha has given to this deserted region where "everything disappears." Here in Slovakia, the 31-year-old Polish film director has tracked down Europe's only Pop Art Museum, directly on the Polish and the Ukrainian borders, at the place where these three countries meet. Medzilaborce is the name of the town, a place so remote that it wouldn't even be worth learning to pronounce - if it weren't for the town's links to the rest of the world. 
They reach as far as Manhattan.
The museum celebrates Andy Warhol. His family's roots are right next door, in the tiny village of Miková. His clan has always lived there, and they always will. 
They have schnapps, they have each other, and they are out of work. 
In their relaxed way, they drink to the film crew, their health and to the memory of Andrijku, the eternal. Trying to realize just what sort of person that Andrijku, alias Andy, actually was inspires the imagination of his surviving relatives. 
A few venerable churchgoers confirm that he was "a writer" and "worked in America."
One young man even knew that Andy had painted pictures and that he himself was "perhaps related" to him. They are all related, even across the Seven Seas. Cousin Jan admits that for a long time he thought the painter had only painted houses. And old Aunt Maria, holding a picture of her nephew with his weird haircut, confides, "He looks like a monkey."
A self-appointed "Warholic" has scribbled more precise information on a tattered piece of paper, and a veritable lookalike shows up wearing a shaggy wig.
Melting ice and snow leak through the roof of the museum where the true experts have gathered to appeal to the generous would-be donators of the Western art world. Then they complain that people prefer to throw away their money in bars instead of "experiencing their catharsis by meditating in the museum."
Finally, they present their treasure: devotional objects (Andy's christening robe, his glasses and a sport coat are among them). But there are also original drawings and prints: the cow portrait, Lenin with the red background, Ingrid Bergman as a nun, "Absolut Vodka." The curator explains that these works were selected, because their themes specifically touch the lives of the local people. 
To them, Warhol is a name that stands for the world. Everyone has their own vision of the region's most famous son. Nobody knew him, but everybody talks about him. 
What they say is colored by their nebulous awareness of the past ten years, the modern political era, which nobody really seems to understand here in "the western part of the East and the eastern part of the West." (Mucha)
Beneath the modest surface, the radical changes taking place have been devastating. So much has been lost that nobody really cares about lost art. 
Warhol, the famous hometown boy, sent original works of art to his unsuspecting relatives back home, but they made them into toy trumpets for their children. Some of his works were ruined by a flood. A female cousin confesses, "We threw everything away." Her faraway cousin kept sending her colorfully decorated high-heeled shoes which she wore until they fell apart.
At first, Stanislaw Mucha's lighthearted documentary concentrates on finding one of those shoes, but it soon develops an unstoppable and strange momentum: it turns its attention away from Pop Art and Andy Warhol to the people and their "art" of coming to grips with life despite poverty and hopelessness, people with a healthy supply of apathy and a cheerful take-it-easy attitude towards life.
Works of art done by a modern master and worth millions of dollars were destroyed at a place where the name Warhol has become a myth, a vision, a phantom. 
Miková and Medzilaborce have now found their indelible spots on the map of the present. 
thu 


"ABSOLUT WARHOLA"
a film by Stanislaw Mucha

Press Release:

1990. Democracy had triumphed, but in Poland there was still no beer worth drinking. As always, quality was produced exclusively for export.
To get a good beer you went over to nearby Ruthenia (Eastern Slovakia). That meant, taking a little hike across the heavily-patrolled Polish-Slovakian border, an undertaking which was not only risky, but downright illegal. 
By putting two cats in their backpacks, the 'beer brigade' avoided getting caught by the border patrol, or, more precisely, by their dogs. The moment the border patrolmen approached, the first cat was set free, thus diverting the attention of the frenzied dogs, which, in turn, diverted the attention of the policemen.
The second cat was kept for the return trip.
One morning, I also embarked on a similar mission and left the country. I loaded my backpack with bottles of beer at a mountain bar in Eastern Slovakia. But where was the cat I'd saved for the return trip? Had it really run away? It had white fur and grayish-green eyes. It was beautiful and proud. Perhaps that was why it showed no interest in the profane work of a smuggler's accomplice and vanished amidst the never-ending white of the snow-covered mountains. 
Unfortunately, I was unable to return without the cat, so the owner of the bar told me to search for a substitute in the next town. That was the first time I'd ever been to Miková.

But nobody was interested in cats in Miková.
Everything revolved around a particular Andrijku, the town's - no, the region's, the country's, the entire Eastern Hemisphere's 'most famous son.'
I had heard some things about Warhola. I knew that he was an American pop artist and his name was really Andy Warhol. To be honest, I'd always thought he was Polish. Unfortunately, while I was there, I also mentioned my mistaken belief, which is essentially why no one was willing to lend me a four-legged travel companion.

No human being is born a hero, and since I felt very queasy about being left at the mercy of the border patrol, I decided to eliminate my numerous bottles of beer on location. 
Thus I discovered that Andy Warhol was a "Slovakian through and through," and everything he had ever done had to be outstanding, because his family's roots were in the Carpathians.
This is where his relatives lived, the proudest people under God's son; at least, ever since they'd heard on TV that Andy wasn't just a house painter in New York, as they'd always thought, but an artist of world renown. 
In the end, we were even able to reach a compromise in regard to Warhol's nationality: Andy Warhol was a Ruthenian, which practically means, he was half-Slovakian and half-Polish.

Ten years later, I was once again in the area, doing research for a new film. Suddenly I recalled the white cat with the grayish-green eyes...

Stanislaw Mucha