“Underage Engineers” was chosen as the best documentary at the Satisfied Eye International Film Festival. Ignacy Rejmak, a physics teacher teaching students in Wejherowo and Lębork, one of the main characters in the documentary, received the Jury Prize. This is an exceptional situation because this award is usually granted to films or filmmakers.

The justification for the award for the best documentary film stated: Entries for this year’s festival showed what point our world has reached. We have seen a lot of misery and gloomy scenes full of despair. I am pleased to present the Film Award for Best Documentary to “Underage Engineers”. I am glad to be able to reward something that was so uplifting that it made those leaving the cinema feel better. It is a wonderful film with a great storyline.

When awarding Ignacy Rejmak, Chris Hastings, the President of the Festival Jury stated, among others: The film “Underage Engineers” shows a teacher that I think everyone would like to have. He is simply a great person in terms of how well he understands what young people need. He understands that they want to be seen as adults and not looked down upon. We could not reward anyone other than Ignacy Rejmak.

The film also won the Best Documentary Award at the Delco Film Festival in the United States.

“Underage Engineers” has already been screened at the Zlin International Film Festival, Millennium Docs Against Gravity and the DEFF Film Fest. In November, it will be shown at the Polish Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Inspiration

The protagonists of the production are students from a Lębork middle school whose paths cross with an extraordinary physics teacher. Ignacy Rejmak looks like a leader of a rock band and, what is more, he forbids students to bring textbooks to his classes, he does not want to give “As” for correctly solving tasks and is opposed to learning formulas by heart. He also jokes a lot: both about himself and his students.

At one point, he contacts a team from the Astronautic Student Research Group of the Faculty of Power and Aeronautical Engineering of the Warsaw University of Technology, who are building the PW-Sat2 satellite. In their project, the WUT students intend, above all, to test an innovative deorbitation sail, which will significantly shorten the time the satellite stays in orbit, thus reducing litter in the outer space.

Students start listening to stories about the satellite under construction, they watch the work on the project, read the technical documentation, try to create their own sail model and run their own tests.

PW-Sat2 becomes an inspiration for the students to learn physics, take an interest in the outer space, discover a flair for engineering and simply make their dreams come true.

Out of the ordinary

“Underage Engineers” is an observational documentary. Its creators watch students between 12 and 15 years of age — in a particularly important time for their development. They have chosen ordinary children, so that the audience can identify with them. What they see, however, is out of the ordinary.

The film directors are Aleksandra Skowron and Hanna Polak (Academy Award nominee). The music for the documentary was written by Jan A.P. Kaczmarek (Academy Award winner).

The film is co-produced by Mediolia, TVP (Polish public television), Filmoteka Narodowa-Institut Audiowizualny (National Audiovisual Institute) and Mazowiecki i Warszawski Fundusz Filmowy (Mazovia and Warsaw Film Fund). The film was made with the support of the Polish Film Institute.

The main partner of the film is PKN Orlen, and the remaining partners are PPL and the City of Lębork.

***

For more about PW-Sat2 and PW-Sat3 currently under construction, visit the dedicated website and the Facebook fanpage

More about the film “Underage Engineers”