The film was made at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its main protagonist is Marcin Kołodziejczyk, a front leader who has worked in the Budryk mine since 1996. The authors of the film, Mateusz Paszek, Mateusz Szczepara and Jacek Stefaniak, accompanied him with a camera in the Budryk mine and talked about his concerns regarding the impact of the coronavirus on the workplace. Fears and uncertainties in the first months of the pandemic, after all, were not in short supply, nor were hopes for a safe future.
– If they close the mine, because we don't know how long it will last, we have nothing to go back to. (...) If we close the mine for a month, and you know that the rock mass is working, it will crimp our longwalls, crimp our roadways, crimp our working faces (...) it will be a very difficult start again – said Kołodziejczyk during the recording. Those words were said in March 2020, more than two months before the decision to suspend the normal coal mining cycle in the mine. This was caused by the numerous coronavirus infections in JSW mines, which occurred despite taking special precautionary measures such as changing the work organization and screening tests among miners. In Budryk, for three weeks, work was carried out to secure the mine against natural hazards and to secure the mining faces, which was subordinated to the concern for the health of employees and the protection of workplaces. The film's protagonist apparently intuited this: – No kidding about it, so to speak. We watch over each other, we are brothers at work, this is our second family and this is our second home.
His words – and the work of the authors – were appreciated by the international jury of the FilmAT Festival, which assessed the creativity, style, subject matter, and the way the story was told. The result is the first prize at the 16th edition of the Festival in the category "Corporate Films – Current Issues". The prize is even more valuable as FilmAT is a Polish member of the International Organization of Travel Film Festivals – CIFFT (Comité International des Festivals du Film Touristique) based in Vienna. The aim of the festival is to present the latest trends in documentary films, TV reports, tourism communication, and corporate and institutional films, and to evaluate audiovisual productions according to their artistic level and the possibility of influencing the target group. The festival supports the development of domestic and foreign productions and organizes a separate film competition for Polish films and for films from around the world.
With the number of viewings approaching 19 thousand, "Budryk – an irreplaceable coal mine" is the third most viewed film among the productions of the Communication and PR Department. Several dozen films on current issues, image films and reports from JSW events can be found on the company's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/JastrzębskaSpółkaWęglowaSA.
