It’s not every creative doc that has a global fashion icon playing a significant supporting role, but the story of Leon would be incomplete without the involvement of Manfred Thierry Mugler, boyfriend of the eponymous hero. Director/producer Wojciech Gostomczyk and creative producer Anna Stylińska pitched their project at Krakow.
Krzysztof Leon Dziemaszkiewicz (aka Leon) is a radical performative artist who sees no boundaries between life and art. Highly sensitive and expressive but unable to adjust to the norms of society, his desire/need for artistic authenticity/integrity brings him into conflict with those he loves, especially his adult son. The only person who seems to understand Leon is his boyfriend, the famous fashion designer Manfred Thierry Mugler.
In Krakow, director Wojciech Gostomczyk explained what first piqued his interest in his extraordinary main character. A few years ago he was at a wedding of one of his friends, an artist. During the ceremony, one of the guests suddenly took off his clothes and started to dance completely naked.
“He said ‘it’s a gift to the bride and groom, it’s a wedding gift, a dance of the senses,’” Gostomczyk explained. “You know, some guests where amused, some guests were disgusted and the bride, she started to scream ‘you ruined my wedding.’ Then I felt like, oh my God, who is this guy? I love the guy. He was, breaking the social norms, he is different. He is weird…strange.”
The director had encountered Leon, 58, once a very successful performance artist, now living in Berlin. What’s more, the man had a very famous boyfriend, Manfred Thierry Mugler. “Then I knew, I have to make a movie about Leon.”
Producer Anna Stylińska takes up the story. “So we meet Leon at the twilight of his career when he decides to make his last big show, his opus magnum. So he sets off on a journey to convince his old colleagues that once admired him to join him with this last performance. So it’s going to be a road movie across Europe, across a landscape full of contrasts from a very poor village where he grew up to the very fancy jet set fashion shows in Paris. And we will quickly realize that it’s going to be actually a [re]joining to the past.”
In the film, Stylińska continued, Leon will reflect on his life, on his art, questioning whether he was a good son, uh, whether he is still a good artist and most of all, if he has been a good father. [The producer showed a difficult scene between Leon and his pained and disappointed son.]
The film is 90% shot, said Stylińska, and the production team is working on a rough cut. The budget is €229,600 of which €80,000 is needed, with delivery expected February 2022.
“What is really unique is our access to Manfred Thierry Mugler, who hasn’t appeared in any films for many, many years,” said the producer, who was looking for festival, sales and broadcast interest, “and anyone who would feel so passionate about this extraordinary character.”
The production notes underline how Leon is not only an intimate portrait of a troubled artist but also a film about passion, determination, love, and bravery to live on your own terms. And above all, about the price one has to pay for that.
“I was really fascinating by Leon, you know, his craziness and freedom,” added director Gostomczyk in Krakow. “But I also quickly realized that this has a dark side as well, like loneliness, alcoholism, insecurity, economical dependence and all the complicated family relationships. So it turns out that the price you have to pay for freedom is very high.”
