Urszuła Antoniak Discusses Code Blue, Catholicism, and Female Sexuality in ARTMargins Interview

Polish-born filmmaker Urszuła Antoniak explored multiple themes in a July 2011 interview with Natascha Drubek published by ARTMargins Online. The conversation occurred during the 46th International Film Festival Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. Antoniak discussed her film Code Blue, which was co-produced by Lars von Trier's Zentropa and premiered at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. She examined the symbolic role of hospitals, describing death as Western society's sole spiritual portal. The director addressed unconscious Catholicism and analyzed windows in art alongside voyeurism in her work. Antoniak contrasted Berlin hospitals' cleanliness with the perceived absence of female sexuality. She revealed that permission to use a Doctor Zhivago DVD cover in Code Blue was denied. Born in Czestochowa, Antoniak studied film production in Poland before graduating as a film director from the Netherlands Film and TV Academy. Her previous film Nothing Personal, produced in Ireland and the Netherlands in 2009, won several awards.