Dialogue with director Tomasz Mielnik, moderated by Kathy Lavezzo
Gregorius, the Outcast. As an infant, he was abandoned by his own parents, conceived through the sinful love of a brother and sister. As a young man, misunderstood in a humble fishing village, he imagined the lake as an ocean, a small boat as a throne, and a spear as a royal sceptre. Deep within, he knew he was destined for something greater. Driven by a desire to become a knight and make the world a better place, Gregorius embarks on a journey that reveals the unfathomable ways of God—for within every sinner, there may also dwell a saint. Whether you are an outcast, a knight, a king, a hedgehog, or a pope, beneath the heavens there is ultimately only one true path: the path of a pure heart.
Inspired by Thomas Mann's 1951 novel The Holy Sinner, itself a modern retelling of the medieval verse epic Gregorius by the German poet Hartmann von Aue, Tomasz Mielnik's poetic absurd comedy transports audiences to a long-lost age, when the star-filled sky served as a map of endless, radiant, and irresistible journeys.