Discoveries from Poland World Cinema

The young detective notices a suspicious guy who holds a balloon with a skull on it. The guy buys a few boxes of matches and then tries to lift entire buildings. The boy calls the police. The boy is alerting the policemen. He doesn’t understand why do they handcuff him and then let him go and greet him. The boy doesn't give up and keeps his eye on the guy. A balloon explodes and reveals his prison uniform. An episode from a cartoon series for children titled ‘Na tropie’, written by Andrzej and Romuald Lach. A young detective is the protagonist of the series. The boy first observes the situation, then he goes into action at the crucial moment. Usually, he is guided by his imagination. On the other hand, he often feels responsible for the society. The series doesn’t include dialogues or commentary, the music was composed by Waldemar Kazanecki, who adjusted it to the mood of the story.

A story about szeptuchy and szeptuni (whisperers), practitioners of folk medicine who carry on the tradition of healing incantations passed down through generations in Podlasie region. It’s a tale of folk ilnesses, healing, magic, and witchcraft, but most of all, of human desires and expectations. In the film, we ask questions that experts, anthropologists, ethnographers, psychotherapists, and the people of Podlasie seek to answer. Who exactly are these szeptuchy and szeptuni? Why, in today’s modern world, do we still turn to the methods and remedies for body and soul once used by our grandparents? How does contemporary psychology view these healing incantations from Podlasie?

King Ćwieczek II's daughter Beatka plays in the garden. She was interested in flowers growing behind the wall and despite warnings from her babysitter she goes outside. That's where she's kidnapped by the dragon Maok. The King promises half the kingdom to whoever saves the Princess. Three knights take on this challenge. However, none of them succeed. In the gingerbread land, where the dragon takes the princess, the shoemaker Dratewka follows, and succeeds in defeating the beast and returning her home safely.

A film story about a group of musicians from Poland and Sweden who, led by Janusz Prusinowski, met at the end of 2015 to realize a year-long Polish-Swedish musical project. The starting point was joint work on repertoire, musical conversation, searching for answers, similar motifs and musical themes, and an attempt to create material for a joint album.

A story about paintings and drawings created in the Auschwitz concentration camp. The film is a search for an answer to why so many people were risking their lives just to leave on paper a trace of what the morning appeal looked like.

The visualisation simulating the camera movement guides the viewer through minimalist interiors featuring paintings that were also on display at the gallery. Then, we witness a change into an abstract space, filled with shapes generated and controlled by crowd simulation software.

A creative documentary with elements of animation, based on the biography and work of the Polish painter, Jacek Malczewski.

A documentary about the re-enactment of the Stanford Prison Experiment - a famous psychological experiment studying human behaviour in prison conditions, conducted in 1971 by Professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University in California. In early 2005 the artistic radical Artur Zmijewski took the risk of reconstructing Professor Zimbardo's experiment in Warsaw. He tried to recreate precisely the architecture of the simulated prison and its rules. Seven "prisoners" and nine "guards" were selected in a procedure aimed at eliminating mentally unstable candidates. They were offered $40 a day for their role in the experiment. The rooms were equipped with one-way mirrors, and the course of the experiment was filmed by five man-operated cameras and several night vision-enabled industrial TV cameras. In the process, Zmijewski pierces through societal masks and travels to the heart of mankind, where it is still dark.

A brief look into a classroom in Warsaw, featuring mentally disabled students.

A young woman faces difficulties in a foreign country, where bureaucratic systems and language barriers leave her feeling helpless. In a public office, her anxiety takes on a surreal form - rendering her speechless. A story about the isolation, vulnerability, and inner struggle of living abroad in a place where everything feels foreign and communication seems impossible.

Jas Jadczak is growing up in a unique family, both his parents suffer from cerebral palsy, and he is a young, healthy boy. He is just reaching the age when his family's differences begin to bother him. "The Boy Who Runs" is a film about the road to acceptance, showing the process that reveals how, despite their differences, the Yedchaks are a complete, loving family. Are you able to accept differences?

This poetic dialogue unfolds between a young girl and her deceased great-grandfather, intertwining images from a German town where he was sent to a work camp during World War II with a delicate narrative as the girl pens a letter. The past seamlessly blends with the present, and flashes of memory mix with moments of oblivion.

The film about choices and values, it shows the village of Mali Klischi, which has existed since 1790. In 1972, there were 200 houses and 530 inhabitants. Residents of the village have been displaced due to radioactive contamination. The Regional Council removed the village from the register on June 21, 1991. Today, only two inhabitants remain in what used to be the village of Mali Klischi. The Leading characters of the film are a mother and son - Nina (79 y.o.) and Alexander ( 62 y.o.). There is a great misunderstanding between them, despite the fact that they live together for many years. In order to remain in their houses they have paid the highest price - loneliness.

A fascinating look at a Polish philosopher who makes his living by participating in TV game shows.

"That's how it is, and it's fine," says the main character in Jozef Cyrus' documentary - a lonely, ageing farmer who endures daily inconveniences without complaint and runs a traditional rural farm. "(...) The field cannot stand, you have to work all the time," he explains. The camera accompanies the efforts of the protagonist, who - although the 1970s are coming to an end - does not have any agricultural machinery at his disposal and works like 19th century peasants. His only helper and faithful companion is the eponymous ox. Gradually, in successive shots, we learn about the protagonist's world view. This is the testimony of a man from a different era, who refuses even to sleep on a mattress because he was 'born on straw and will live on straw'. The successive parts of the film, including the scythe, the yoke, the birthday, the hayride and the autumn, are the elements that give rhythm to the main character's life.

The film tells the story of Natalia, an immigrant from Belarus who leaves for Poland to escape persecution for taking part in street protests. Natalia was studying acting at the Theatre Academy but has to work as a cleaner. To achieve her goal of performing on stage, Natalia has to face her fears: after getting out of prison, she is afraid of bright lights. In Poland, the girl makes new friends, but being too naive, she is almost victimized by a man who only pretends to be a do-gooder.

A lonely man notices an exotic flower in the cracked, dry ground. He begins to take care of it. He systematically brings a handful of water to water the flower. The flower grows tall and green.

Using Aspergillus niger mold, we observe culture breeding and the formation of spores. Microscope images show the structure and method of mold reproduction, the properties of which are used in the production of citric acid.

The story of three buddies who decide to carry out a robbery on a rich businessman. Unfortunately, not everything goes according to plan and the fate of the heroes begins to get complicated...

A film about Barbara Szlachetka.

A Polish animation

A film about Hungary today, including the large demonstration in support of Viktor Orbán's government, which took place on January 21 in Budapest with nearly a million people in attendance.

The classic fairy tale about a miserly fox who served a stork his dinner on a flat plate and the stork who returned the favor by serving his dinner in a narrow jug.

Animated epigram about pigeons ...

From the heaps of rusted scrap metal, a metal, fully functional figure shapes up, trying to get out of there to reach the horizon. He is aiming high. Puppet animation directed by Jerzy Kotowski.

An Andrzej Krauze Cartoon

Frustrated Mantegna's Rabbit leaves his undistinguished place in the painting and makes a tour through various paintings in the National Gallery and beyond. His journey is full of unexpected and amusing transformations.

Film created from the Polish Educational Archive materials, telling the story of a matriarchal family through the eyes of a child grappling with the reproduction of ideological and representational systems. Originally created as didactic and propagandist tools in communist Poland, the footage is repurposed as a locus of auto-fictional memories, with their scientific register shifted towards a treatment of images themselves as specimens.

This film is a kind of experiment conducted by Artur Żmijewski on representatives of four social groups in Poland. He invited people associated with the left wing, elderly ladies strongly expressing their pro-church stance, young representatives of the Jewish minority, and members of the Młodzież Wszechpolska political group to participate in this project. The first task for each group was to create a symbol of the Polish state as they understood it. These symbols were then placed on T-shirts distributed to the project participants. This was followed by a confrontation between all the groups, together with the boards they had previously created with the symbol of Poland, during which further tasks received from the director were performed. Representatives of a given group could, for example, add something to another group's symbol or remove something from it, etc.

An intimate portrait of an indestructible bond between a mother and daughter in the world of gymnastics. A tale of perseverance of will, hope, dreams and love.

A portrait of Polish contesting youth entering adulthood under martial law. It is an evocative picture of the lives of members of subcultures and people from the social margins: punks, anarchists, hippies, drug addicts - all those who could not and did not want to adapt to the prevailing order. Their attitude and motives were brilliantly characterised in the film by one of the priests working with these young people.

The reunion of a young couple, recently split, stirs up intense emotion as they relive their relationship's troubled past during a theatre afterparty. The deeper they delve into their past, the harder it becomes to resurface back into reality.

A fisherman dreams of catching the biggest fish but reality can't rival his daydreaming.

He has made 21 appearances for the Polish national hockey team and has travelled all over the world with the national team thanks to his love of the sport. "Swapping a roll for a hockey stick is just a matter of fitting the hand to the stick," the film's main character modestly comments on his situation. Jozef Derezinski combines playing in ŁKS Rogowo with his daily work in the bakery and kneading thousands of breads and rolls. He does this because he wants to secure his future existence.

Young and ambitious Kamila lives in a world where overweight defines the ideal of beauty and determines social status. The more you weigh, the more you are respected. When Kamila’s thinness is exposed, she is fired from work and dumped by her boyfriend. She abandons the disguise that made her look fat, decides to face up to reality and gain weight.