Discoveries from Poland World Cinema

A look into the life of a college student over the course of one month

A recording of a fabric play proposed to children in Łódź by visual artist Wiesław Karolak. The simple titular play encourages everyone to jump, run, climb, and explore the possibilities of the fabric.

An immigrant couple living abroad faces tough times. Their relationship and plans are put to the test when their dog has an accident and needs costly surgery. With light humor, the film explores the challenges of immigration and quirks of the human condition through the relationship of the main characters.

Short work by Barbara Rupik

Short work by Barbara Rupik

A monograph about a leech, a member of the ringworm family. The film shows their living conditions, structure, reproduction, and presents some of the 300 known varieties with particular emphasis on the medicinal leech, due to its practical application in medicine.

a Leszek Komorowski Cartoon

In an episode of his programme, Mieszko Boligłowa takes a closer look at the filmography of David Lynch, as well as his connections to the city of Łódź.

Fathers Antonello Cadeddu and Enrique Porcu are of Italian origin. They went on a mission to Brazil, where they live in the poorest neighborhoods. Father Antonello was the coordinator of the Charismatic Renewal in that country for many years. In 2000, both fathers founded the Covenant of Mercy Community, whose goal is to work with the poorest.

When Debby and Timo find out that their beloved greenhouse, along with an archive of videotapes is taken over by a demonic cult, around them starts to happen disturbing events, which divulge the darkest secrets of their relationship.

Left alone in the world, the last survivor, walks around an empty city, wondering what there is to come.

Fear is an internal monster circulating around the body and debilitating its every cell, which takes over human organs and disseminates without control. Is it possible to stop it? Is it easier to control it as you age? What is adulthood about?

A girl wakes up in a familiar, yet dull, environment having only the moon as her companion. Upon hearing a strange sound and finding a wall of ribbons she decides to explore the world beyond them.

What is reality? Who holds the key to truth-humans or our own technological creations? Wojciech Bruszewski, a rebellious force in the realm of cinema, a pioneer in the global video art movement, a relentless researcher, and an intrepid art experimenter, embarks on a journey beyond conventional boundaries to explore cognition and pioneer breakthroughs in language, sound, imagery, and cutting-edge technologies. Through preserved films, archival recordings, photographs, and reactivated devices, we are not only introduced to his endeavors but also encouraged to partake in them firsthand. Serving as our guides into Bruszewski's mesmerizing universe are the man himself and a select group of accomplished contemporary art historians, scholars, artists, media experts, designers, and avant-garde figures in the realm of AI, all of whom contribute to his reimagining. So, the inquiry persists: who is positioned closer to unraveling the enigma of truth?

Kościsław is a little skeleton who wants nothing more than to play his guitar. Unfortunately, his lack of assertiveness is a major obstacle.

Wiktoria Cukt, CUKT’s virtual presidential candidate, was the culmination of the group's projects that used rave parties. The artists created a candidate who was a computer program, so-called Citizen Election Software (OSW, Obywatelski Software Wyborczy). Wiktoria Cukt represented the views of everyone who decided to choose her as a representative of their views. She demonstrated a faith in direct, participatory democracy without unnecessary, harmful middlemen, which CUKT considered politicians to be. Wiktoria Cukt's campaign slogan was: “Politicians are useless”. Each time a campaign office for Wiktoria Cukt was opened, there was a rave party. The parties were an occasion to round up Wiktoria's policies – what people wanted her to say. CUKT members also gathered signatures for her official candidacy and membership declarations for the Wiktoria Cukt political party.

A story about the adventures of a young elephant, sleepy Maciek, and his friends, a hippopotamus and a bear cub.

When in 2002 Jedynka presented Krzysztof Lang's TV series "Prawdziwe psy" about the work of police officers from the Capital Police Station, Commissioner Slawomir Opala and Assistant Commissioner Krzysztof Tkaczyk were among the characters in the series. At the time, both were distinguished officers of the Homicide Department with about 10 years of experience. Within a few months of the end of shooting, dramatic changes occurred in their professional and private lives, and both found themselves at a crossroads in life. Convinced that these changes were related to the series, Krzysztof Lang decided to return to his characters to complete the plot devoted to them. The film is thus a kind of epilogue to that series, and at the same time a psychological portrait of the two operational officers. It shows what a great psychological price one pays for practicing this specific profession, if one wants to do it with integrity.

The countryside of Poland from the perspective of a hitchhiker. Traveling around the country, the director recorded conversations with the drivers who share their thoughts, concerns about their own situation, their environment and of human nature. Among them is a woman who all of her life lived in the same village, never really going anywhere; a singer of “disco polo”, who spent a lot of time on the road; a baker, who has been baking bread for over 50 years and dreams about moving to Mazuria. These intimate portraits are confronted with an ugly, chaotic landscape, full of incongruous buildings and billboards.

In the late 1960’s, four strong men from a local bar in Wroclaw in southwest Poland carried a 150 kg heavy German-made "credenza" from one side of the Zgodna street to the other. Then it disappeared. Against the will of his mother, the filmmaker and son sets out to find the vanished piece of furniture in the place his family escaped 40 years ago, and finds a new perspective on the emigration. In sensitive and tragicomical observations, shot mise-en-scène in one building, this wild goose chase can also be seen as a social experiment about how much we are an oblivious product of history. The background are the mysterious and dramatic spring months of 1968 in Poland - a time that until today evokes a lot of controversy inside Poland while it is largely unheard of outside.

Mists drifting among the cottages, a barn, a hearth, water from the stream, bread. And then again: hay in the barn, pitchforks in the field, potatoes and sour milk. The even rhythm of nature and the rhythm of human work and human life inscribed in it. A life in common. As in Kraszewski's poem: "There was a grandfather and a grandmother, both very old" Only the punch line is different: "My life is good. I don’t want a different one”. A warm, intimate portrait of two old people.

Sports competitions hold an extraordinary status in our country. Athletes who achieve success are elevated to the status of gods, though even minor missteps can change the attitude of the masses. The director presents the customs and habits of Polish fans in a satirical manner.

This film tells the stories of several people connected by the tragedy in Bucha, which took place during the Russian occupation near Kyiv in 2022. We find them at the point where the first "dust" of the drama unfolding before the eyes of the world has already settled. But is the terrible thing in their lives really over?

Documentary on the Malta mall, located in Poznań, Greater Poland Voivodeship

Philosophical grotesque. During an anatomy lesson, a butterfly sits on the page of a butterfly atlas and is immediately "classified" on its pages by the teacher. The teacher begins to cover the graphic lines and turns into a drawing in the anatomy atlas.

Let the elders speak. Where they are from, remains a mystery. In the end only the trout will make it out alive (at least for a while), because „Temepstas“ is a film about the weather and how it will kill us all. Let the sunshine in. Deep.

A short documentary about the art of playing, featuring some easy puns and a dancing ghost. Kim Kardashian has a small cameo as a distorted version of herself, sliding through eternity.

A documentary on the photographer Jan Saudek

On the screen, divided into two symmetrical parts, we see almost identical, seemingly abstract images covered with black salt. After a while, we see the silhouette of a woman and a man in the shapes, and atmospheric music complements the image of their relationship. The images, painted with salt on both halves of the screen, begin to appear. However, at some point they may differ slightly, just as the images created by each partner differ in this relationship.

The film was born out of observations of the social situation in the vicinity of the decommissioned Debiensko mine. It tells the story of one day in the lives of three "restructured" miners and the security guards protecting the post-mining remnants. The three former miners, who have to take care of their families, planned to steal a useless electric cable. While cutting a section of the cable, they are caught by security guards. During the chase, one of the former miners is beaten and loses his bicycle. The miners decide to take revenge on the security guards. As a result of the revenge, the security guards lose their company car and are consequently fired from their jobs. They join the miners' "company," adding to the ranks of the unemployed.

Jan takes risks on a daily basis, but a single moment forces him to confront his limits: the entangled complexity of his world reflects fears, courage and the question of his true identity.

In the interiors of apartments filled with objects, the final vestiges of the scents left by their inhabitants are disappearing.

Liliana lives in a world where no longer only sex - but also intimacy, tenderness and acceptance - is treated as a commodity available to all, with its own price. The woman, in her longing for intimacy, decides to get to know Adam, a man from the app.

A little boy and a dog discover an old cannon in the sand. The boy imagines past battles.

Two little boys watch how to fix leaky faucets.

Eager to learn, the boys go to a photographer after their unsuccessful attempts at taking photos.

Polish land taking in the Jewish dead. Beneath the streets of Warsaw, under the garden of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, are the lost writings of The Ash Kodesh (the holy fire), Rabbi Klonimus Kalmish Szapiro, a Chassidic master who was imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto. His lost aphorisms float through the hallowed trees and shadow architectures that sheltered jewish fugitives during the Shoah. In the forests, unmarked graves await commemoration; through glitch and balagan we are pulled into subterranean landscapes that emerge as fragmented archives of silence.

Grotesque. The filmmakers point to the adverse health effects of new inventions.

Nothing could be simpler than quitting smoking, faced with the specter of total defeat in a total war with a wife who is totally helping to defeat the addiction...

A disturbing experiment combining elements of violence and the abyss, a profound abstraction of primal instincts.

Poetic tale about Kazimierz Dolny, a town by the Vistula river - true pearl of Polish urban architecture - told by its dwellers, historians Tadeusz Pałka and Tadeusz Michalak.

Six-year-old Junior is an exceptionally emotionally mature child. He expresses original, rather skeptical, existential thoughts. He has a dignified, masculine voice and loves to smoke cigarettes. In the cigarette smoke, he ponders his family and its psychological complexities. When his father, a famous pilot, crashes in China under unexplained circumstances and is accused of treason, Junior sets out on a journey to unravel the mystery of his mysterious disappearance. Written in the style of a crime novel, fairy tale, and magical realism, Junior's journey to Shanghai and the rocky Malacca Mountain triggers a series of questions about his famous father's secret life.

An attempt to characterize Alexander Lukashenko's rule. Belarusian intellectuals speak out, drawing attention to the phenomenon of this presidency. Lukashenko, one of the most active opponents of communist rule and an excellent speaker, managed to gather the most talented politicians around him. At the same time, he made excellent use of the Belarusian mentality, skillfully using the media to proclaim the threat from the West and other populist slogans, including promises of universal prosperity. Despite repeatedly violating the constitution, he enjoys unwavering support among ordinary people. But is he a dictator in the full sense of the word?