Netflix Polish Tribeca winner ‘The Hatter’ – snaps global rights for diversity

Netflix has bought the worldwide rights to the Polish feature “The Heater”, which won Best International Narrative Feature at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

The film will be available worldwide except Poland from July. According to a Netflix spokesperson, Polish subscribers will have access to the film, which is “planned for March 2021, with the license window allowed.”

Directed by Oscar-nominated “Corpus Christi” filmmaker Jan Comasa, the film depicts a society whose communist past and European present are at odds. It follows abusive law student Tomek (Mackiez Musiaowski) who is trying to get the attention of childhood friend Gabir (Vanessa Alexander) and gain the respect of his progressive family.

To impress Gabby when he takes a job at a high-profile but morally bankrupt PR company, Tomek sees that he was asked to orchestrate social media in political games – even if it comes at a high price.

“The Hatter” is written by Matthews Passagevis and produced by Naima Films (Poland). Canal Plus, TVN Poland and distributor Kino Swati co-produced. Producers include Jerzy Kapusinski and Wazcich Kabarovsky.

Tribeca announced its award winners on April 29. The festival was originally postponed to March 15-26, but it was revealed that it would go ahead with the Jurassic Awards, which were finally announced on Instagram.

Distributed by Kino Swati, “The Hatter” is the first Polish film to qualify for Tribeca’s Best International Narrative Feature Award, which was awarded in 2010 to South Korea’s Bora Kim’s “Housing Hummingbird”.