Hrabiny
Not chavs, nor cougars, real girls you could pass on the street.
This is how the story about the Wrocław Countesses – “Hrabiny”, Polish Champions or just a girl’s softball team, begins. But the fact that they’re “normal” is not really entirely true, too.
When we met, what we knew about softball was that it was kind of similar to baseball, which we really did not know what it was about as well. It was a matter of honor for girls, so they made it perfectly clear: they are raising money to go to Italy to win the European Cup and get revenge for last year’s failure. They needed a good argument.
What connected us was 5 days of shooting, 11 hours of material in over 400 shots and something else entirely, something more: the belief that when something is done with true passion, it always comes out best. It’s not terribly difficult to shoot a movie about a corporation, based on a picture already painted by some PR expert. It is, however, a real challenge, to tell a true story about passion – in a special way.
ClientHrabiny Softball WrocławAgencyOMI Media HouseYear2018ServicesCreation, production, postproduction
With every passing day of shooting, we got to know each other better and better and the motif of warriors in the clip came to life on its own. We were shooting with the entire team involved, without any external help. We were on fire! At night, surrounded by artificial smoke, we were shooting the group material on the field, in the evenings we would cosy up with the teammates individually in their natural habitats.
Wojtek’s mum played…herself, in her own apartment. The Nadodrze Railway Station was the stage for Asia, who travels to a military unit daily. Emilka’s pugnacious spirit was captured at a housing estate in Wrocław, surrounded with large blocks of flats. We also took a walk with Asia and her four-legged patients on the Wzgórze Skarbowców. We visited Martyna at her workplace to then move all the action to the locker rooms in her own primary school no. 83.
Will the movie work and let the girls take part in the tournament? That we do not know. What we do know is that it showed a true transformation in every one of them. Exceptionally patient, edgy, on the field they become unpredictable. They look like beauties – they play like beasts.
We could talk and talk about the Hrabiny forever, because it is a domain of people who are full of life. But the truth is, it is worth to come and see them play, meet them in person.
