| The Debt | |
| Director: | Krzysztof Krauze |
| Starring: | Robert Gonera Jacek Borcuch Andrzej Chyra |
| Country: | Poland |
| Language: | Polish |
| Runtime: | 107 minutes |
The Debt (Polish: Dług) is a 1999 Polish film directed by Krzysztof Krauze. It is based on a true event that took place in Warsaw, Poland in the early 1990s.
After looking for financial backing to start a business importing Italian scooters, college friends Adam and Stefan meet businessman Gerard. While initially very helpful, Gerard soon turns violent, and begins to blackmail the pair for increasingly large sums of money while psychologically terrorizing the two men. Unable to find help from the police, the two men plan to kill Gerard.
The movie is based on the true story of Sławomir Sikora and Artur Bryliński, who were later pardoned by the President of Poland because of exposure from the film.[1]
Critic Piotr Zwierzchowski compared Krauze's The Debt to Michael Hanecke's Funny Games writing that both films are similar in that they convey the same sense of "powerlessness of the main characters as well as the viewers against the morality-defying spectacle of violence".[2] Katarzyna Taras considered The Debt, alongside Robert Gliński's 2001 film Cześć Tereska, to be "the darkest portrayal of Poland's reality after 1989".[3]
In 2000, the film received Polish Academy Award for Best Film. In 2019, Andrzej Chyra, who played one of the main characters in The Debt, received the Special Zbigniew Cybulski Award for Lifetime Achievement, the jury having emphasized in its verdict his role in Krzysztof Krauze's 1999 film.[4]