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The long-awaited movie debut of Leopold Tyrmand’s prose – RedDeer.Games celebrates the Polish premiere of the film adaptation of Philip’s novel

RedDeer.Games – one of the leading publishers of games for the Nintendo Switch console, winner of the award of the fastest-growing gamedev company in Central Europe, and owner of the license for the production and release of a series of games based on the crime novel The Evil One : The Man With White Eyes by Leopold Tyrmand – congratulates the team of Michał Kwieciński for the Polish premiere of the film – Philip.

I am extremely happy to see that Leopold Tyrmand’s prose is gaining more and more visibility not only in Poland but also in the international arena. As RedDeer.Games, we are part of this history and participate in spreading the classics of the Polish novel to new media, including the popular world of games – says Michał M. Lisiecki, CEO and co-founder of RedDeer.Games.

— I look forward to the public reception of the autobiographical movie Philip’s at this time, and I would like to sincerely congratulate Mr. Michał Kwieciński on the excellent screen adaptation of Tyrmand’s novel – he adds.

The Evil One: The Man With White Eyes – is the most widely read crime story written during the communist era. In 2022 RedDeer.Games acquired a license – granting it the right to prepare a series of games in which the book’s detective story, The Evil One: The Man With White Eyes, will be translated into engaging gameplay. The publisher will use all images of characters, events, proper names and overall plot solutions.

Archival conference material about The Evil One: The Man With The White Eyes project

— Working with RedDeer.Games is a great opportunity to familiarize the wider public, especially the younger generation, with my father’s work. The plots and characters from the novel The Evil One: The Man With White Eyes are the perfect material to bring them into the virtual world and create an unforgettable experience for gamers – Matthew Tyrmand, son of the writer, Polish-American economist, publicist and social activist.

The film adaptation of the 1961 novel Philip by Leopold Tyrmand has joined the ranks of creations inspired by his works. The movie directed by Michał Kwieciński will be released in Poland on March 3. The film already won two Golden Lions for Best Cinematography and Characterization, as well as a Silver Lion for Direction. Philip made its world debut onto the silver screen on September 15, 2022.

MOVIE TRAILER – PHILIP

Philip tells the story of a young Polish Jew who decides to start all over again – after losing his entire family in Poland. Hiding his origins and risking his life, he flees into the heart of Nazi Germany.

His new French identity, and his job as a waiter in the restaurant of an exclusive hotel, allows him to enjoy all the charms of life. However, the war and the following events, in which more people close to Philip die, cause the whole world he has built around himself that begins to crumble.

More information about The Evil One: The Man With The White Eyes project can be found on the official website and Facebook.

 


 

About Leopold Tyrmand (1920-1985)

Leopold Tyrmand is a Polish writer and publicist, considered quite controversial in Poland during his lifetime and reluctant to be published. However, he was certainly an expert and popularizer of jazz.

Leopold Tyrmand was born in 1920 in Warsaw, to an assimilated Jewish family. In 1938, he graduated from the Jan Kreczmar Gymnasium in Warsaw and left for Paris, where he studied architecture at the State Higher School of Fine Arts. It was there that he first encountered American jazz music and Western European culture, which left a lasting imprint on his work. The outbreak of war surprised him on vacation in Warsaw, from where he made his way to Vilnius. There he established contacts with one of the underground independence organizations, for which he was arrested by the NKVD in 1941 and sentenced to eight years in prison. He managed to escape and, after producing false documents, reported for labor in the Reich. In 1944, he enlisted as a sailor on a German ship, intending to cross to neutral Sweden. However, he was captured in a Norwegian port and imprisoned in the Grini concentration camp, where he lived to see the end of the war.

After the war, he began working as a journalist at the Press and Information Agency and later at the editorial office of Przekrój. He published in “Przekrój,” “Express Wieczorny,” “Tygodnik Powszechny,” “Rzeczpospolita,” “Dziś i Jutro” and “Ruch Muzyczny.” He specialized in music, theater and sports reviews. During this time, the first collection of his war stories, Hotel Ansgar, was published. He became famous, however, for his sensational novel about post-war Warsaw, The Evil One: The Man With White Eyes, which is a detective story with a love plot in the background. A little later came the monograph On the shores of jazz, which is a compendium of knowledge about jazz, and a collection of short stories The bitter taste of Lucullus chocolate. Due to Tyrmand’s uncompromising nature, he suffered repression after 1958, and the censors stopped his subsequent novels. His last book to be published in Poland was Philip, depicting the fate of a young Polish man whose wartime paths lead him to Frankfurt am Main. This novel is based on biographical elements. Tyrmand emigrated from Poland in 1965 – first he traveled in Europe, then went to the United States.

Tyrmand’s books were published abroad, such as the novel Seven Far Voyages, set in Darłowo; the novel Social and Emotional Life stigmatizing Warsaw’s creative intelligentsia community and its servility to the Communists; the collection of essays Dilettante’s Notes, telling the story of America as seen through his eyes; the pamphlet on communism Civilization of Communism; and Diary 1954. He died in 1985, and his Diary 1954 did not receive its first Polish edition until 1989, in a heavily censored version.

Leopold Tyrmand also has to his credit an unfinished mini-novel, Wanderings and Thoughts of Lieutenant Stukułka, a drama, Poles, or the Pack, and a draft of the screenplay for the film Heaven. His texts printed in the Polish press between 1946 and 1963 were published in the collection Peace to People of Good Will.


 

About RedDeer.Games

RedDeer.Games (RDG) is an independent video game developer and publisher. Awarded in the “Fastest Growing Gamedev Company in Central Europe” category. RDG is according to “Forbes” ranked among the Top50 Polish game producers.

In recent years, RedDeer.Games released titles like: PID, Fluffy Horde, Cat Tales, AAA Clock 2, Space Tail, She Wants Me Dead, Reky, Broken Universe, League of Enthusiastic Losers, Pro Gymnast Simulator, EleMetals: Death Metal Death Match and Bit Orchard. At the moment, RedDeer.Games is working on games from licenses such as The Smurfs, Lucky Luke and many others.