Quintuplets
(A Yaro Ghillis Project)
a film by Jarek Kupść
Docufiction, 2019, 90 min.
SF3 2019 Best Feature Film
Highly Commended Award Winner
Quintuplets
Short Synopsis:
Five identical brothers embark on a life-long struggle for personal independence from one another.
Long Synopsis:
A story of five identical brothers searching for personal self-expression. Born in Communist Poland to an American mother, the brothers struggle to develop their unique traits and personalities.
Escaping the economic uncertainty of Poland in the 1980s, the family relocates to the United States. Nearing adulthood, all five brothers pursue different identity-defining goals: art, music, sports, farming
and commerce. In time, driven by nostalgia and business opportunities, four of them return to Poland. The fifth brother stays close to the mother, whose health is deteriorating. Now in their middle-age, the quintuplets must decide if maintaining their unique identities is worth the price of shattering their family ties.
DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
The "Quintuplets" project began as a challenge: can I make a feature film all by myself using a smartphone as my only camera? I had no money to pay anybody, I was new in town. I decided to go for it, since there was, quite literally, nothing to lose.
Knowing my weaknesses and strengths from prior professional film work, I crafted a story around accessible locations and themes with which I was somewhat familiar.
I've always been puzzled by the idea of how we make choices in life. Every decision has consequences, but what if you can simultaneously experience the effects of multiple, mutually exclusive decisions? As if you had, for example, five versions of yourself to work with...
That's how the idea for a movie about five identical brothers was born.
As a narrative filmmaker, I took formal inspiration from classic documentaries – I let my subjects tell their respective stories without the intervention of a narrator. I shot the interviews with each brother and recorded scenes from their daily activities. For more visual variety,
I included archival photos and graphics.
In "Quintuplets," I'm inviting the audience to ponder the theme of personal identity and the price we must pay for finding our individuality. Is the sum total of our decisions what makes us unique? Is defining your own personality worth the effort, or should we remain indistinguishable from each other? The story of "Quintuplets" is told from multiple perspectives, as if the emotional truth hovered above, waiting for the audience to absorb it into their own imagination.