This film has such an important message to a particular age group that attends Manhattans Short.

I am really happy to take part in Manhattan Short because people that usually attend film festivals are mostly film buffs, which is only 2% of the population. And from what I understand, it’s a completely different distribution with Manhattan Short.

Where did the idea for Echo come from? Is it inspired by a true story?

It’s loosely based on a true story. I got particularly interested in this one case that happened in the United States, in Alabama. I remember all the gruesome details. It was a really cruel crime committed by young people and I started to become very interested in how someone that young could do something so brutal.

How old where those kids?

16, 17 and one was 18. I even tried at one time to send a letter to one of the criminals who committed the murder and was on death row, but he never wrote back to me. So the inspiration to write Echo came out of that one case. Another inspiration was the bad television crime reconstructions that they often do in Poland. There had to be a better way to show that on film. I think that today we live in a world that is too easily divided between good and evil. They try to explain in news articles or short TV fragments these horrible crimes that happen among young people. But there has to be a different way. Everyone should probably take one more round of thinking and realize we are all human beings and we all possess a darker side.

Why did you title the film Echo?

It’s the echo of a crime. It’s the echo these characters live in. It’s the echo of a thing that changed their life. And what we see in the film is the echo of the actual happening.

The acting was sensational. How did you cast the two kids and the detective? The detective looks like he’s seen it all. How did you come across him?

The detective looks like Gollum from Lord of the Rings. He is quite known in Poland, but mostly as a theatrical actor. I did not have an actor for this part until two weeks before shooting. One of my college professors recommended this guy. I called him up and he agreed pretty quickly. I was really lucky because later I learned how difficult it was to get him and my call was the first one he ever answered directly.

Before the last scene, what notes did you give to the leading actor?

I rehearsed that scene only once without the parents, three weeks before the shooting, just to see if he could go there. Then, I told him he had to do exactly the same thing on the day of shooting and that made him so nervous, it really fed the energy to that scene. The night before shooting, I locked him in a room for 24 hours. He did not get to see anyone before he stepped into that room for the final scene. He was so scared that he would not be able to deliver, he cried and that was the main energy for the scene. The other actors were professionals, especially the woman. She is a great actress in Poland and so she just fed from what he delivered. And that scene was filmed in a documentary style. We just placed the camera on the tracks and rolled it forward to get the close-up and rolled it back to get the wide angle. I think I spent just as much energy as the actor did on that scene. You get as much as what you give. I believe in that.