The world premiere of the “My Moonlight Sonata” documentary will occur during the 35th  World Congress of Audiology in Warsaw and Kajetany on April 10-13, 2022. Directed by Barbara Kaczynska, in collaboration with Professor Henryk Skarżyński, the documentary tells the story of Grzegorz Płonka, the talented winner of the 1^st  International Music Festival for Children, Youth and Adults with Hearing Disorders “Beats of Cochlea”. This extraordinary story presents the most splendid achievements in science. Thanks to the elaborated treatment method, the profoundly deaf patient operated by prof. Henryk Skarżyński, developes musically and became a medical phenomenon. The documented story of Grzegorz Płonka became an inspiration for the “Sonata” motion picture creators.

Grzegorz Płonka has been a patient of Prof. H. Skarżyński and the Institute since 2007. For many years the boy was incorrectly diagnosed. Only at the age of 13, he was diagnosed with severe sensorineural hearing loss. Before that, he was suspected of autism and profound mental retardation. Prof. Henryk Skarżyński admits that “implanting a cochlear implant in Grzegorz was one of my most difficult decisions in medicine, even though I have already performed surgeries on over 215 thousand ears”.

“When I got the implant, it was something I never expected – I heard birds singing. And I wanted to listen to them all the time.” – Grzegorz recalls. – “After the implant was placed, everything changed; everything was new. I started listening playing with sounds, and I just fell in love with music. Thanks to the implant, today I can hear the whole orchestra, flutes, high notes.” Through hard work, he learned to play Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata”. He became the winner of the 1^st International Music Festival for Children, Youth and Adults with Hearing Disorders “Beats of Cochlea” in 2015. Grzegorz graduated from primary music school, underwent IT courses, released his own album, and ran his channel on YouTube. He is interested in photography, taking pictures of plants and mountains. He learned how to tune a piano on his own. However, for Prof. Henryk Skarżyński and his team, Grzegorz will remain first and foremost an ambassador of achievements in the treatment of hearing disorders owing to progress in sciences and medicine.

In 2017, during the NURT Festival of Documentary Forms in Kielce, the documentary received the Annual Special Award of Radio Kielce “for the artistry of sound in a documentary form”.

Barbara Kaczynska is the Artistic Director of the International Music Festival for Children, Youth and Adults with Hearing Disorders “Beats of Cochlea ” and the Scientific and Music Program “Music in Human Auditory Development”. In 2017, she graduated from the Film Directing Faculty at the University of Social Sciences in Warsaw. Before, she studied music, journalism and Polish philology. She is also an opera singer (mezzo-soprano).