Discoveries from Poland World Cinema

17-year-old Ala decides to commit suicide. The failed attempt ends with the girl falling into a coma. It turns out that the life of this seemingly ordinary girl was difficult and full of tensions. Alicia's severe condition causes relatives to try to learn her secrets and understand the motive behind her decision.

Beksiński is a gentle man with arachnophobia, despite his hardcore sexual fantasies and his fondness for painting disturbing dystopian works. Beksiński is a family man who wants only the best for his loving wife Zofia, neurotic son Tomasz and the couple's aging mothers. His daily painting to classical music eventually pays off and he makes a name for himself in contemporary art. Good Catholic woman Zofia tries to hold the family together, but troubled son Tomasz proves to be a handful with his violent outbursts and suicidal threats. Their relief is brief when he starts dating women and becomes a radio presenter and movie translator, and the concerned parents must be on constant watch to prevent their son from hurting himself. But Beksiński never believed that family life would always be sunshine and rainbows. As he tapes everything with his beloved camcorder, the 28-year Beksiński saga unfolds through paintings, near-death experiences, dance music trends and funerals...

A group of seven friends come together for dinner. What starts out as a normal evening, evolves into something else when they decide to play a game and read all text messages aloud and answer all phone calls on speakerphone...

Lulek, a hit man, is released from prison and given an offer he can't refuse by the man who put him away. If he kills the chief of the Central Bureau of Investigations, he will earn a huge sum of money and have his record cleared so he can leave.

An alternative version of the famous bandit's story (or maybe that's how it really was). Robin struggles with questions about the meaning of life, as well as with ugly rich people and intrusive poor people who want to build themselves a poor castle. The film is a parody of the fairy tale about the legendary robber Robin Hood, the times of feudalism, and the struggle for money. The narrator introduces the viewer to the world of medieval England, where feudalism reigned supreme. He tries to convey to the viewer an alternative, as natural and true as possible, story of the famous robber and his band - who robbed the rich to give to intrusive beggars for the construction of their own small, poor castles.

Francis, a forty year old engineer, after a mysterious disgrace he retired to live in a village on Lake Iseo. With still little daughter occupies the former family villa, a magnificent Art Nouveau building on the lake shore. In the big house there is, however, another mysterious person, of which only perceives the echo of the respirator that keeps her alive. But other presences no less disturbing, and certainly more dangerous, they move around the villa. What happened to the man and his family? What secrets hide? Marta will know, childhood friend always in love with him, awaken Francis from the torpor in which he has fallen, and free him from the pain? And most importantly, how many succeed they gravitate around the house to escape the danger that threatens their lives? Breaths tells how the pain can profoundly transform a man crushed by memories, guilt, fears. He also wants to show the extent to which an individual is able to accept the existence paths without being a victim.

Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, Witkacy, Joseph Conrad and Bronisław Malinowski, four leading figures among the Zakopane bohemians, wake up after an all-night drunken party. Their hangover headaches are killing them, none of them remembers anything, and finding the corpse of a male stranger on the floor doesn’t help.

The short stories showing the troubles of youth serving in the "Służba Polsce" organisation.

This short film tells a story about the joy of being a child.

The trio of adventurous pals, a man who is a scientist, a fine lady and a former military pilot are in the Indochina jungles looking for some mysterious vase that holds a metal container that is of no mundane origin.

The story of an unemployed journalist who fights overweight and account shortages more effectively than Bridget Jones, and although she knows a lot about men, finding the right one will require a lot of effort. Especially that her adult daughter not only ruthlessly judges her actions, but also counts on her mother's advice in her love affairs.

Agnieszka is the daughter of a famous opera singer. However, her mother gives up her career in order to devote more time to her daughter. She cannot live without music, though. After some time, she returns to the stage, but then it turns out that her daughter is seriously ill...

Under the influence of a boy she met, a student rebels against the old man with whom she lives.

A young couple leave a lake campsite on motorbike at the same time as a bus full of youths. The boy accidently loses a tent along the road which is picked up by those in the bus who offer a trade of the tent for his girl.

In the last days of WW2, Polish military looks for the murderer of prosecutor responsible for storing Gestapo files.

The protagonist of the film is Józek Mikuła, a "peasant worker" who runs a small farm with his mother and makes a living as a truck driver at a nearby cement plant. When one day he wins a million in a toto-lottery, news of his unexpected fortune spreads rapidly through the village. Józek decides to invest the money wisely: he buys more land, renovates farm buildings, brings in machinery. He has a gesture - he funds the village with a color TV, which he installs in the clubhouse. But neighbors are stung by Józek's unexpected wealth.

A movie about a couple of semi-estranged brothers who at first feel they've been screwed by their father having the gall to die, leaving the bulk of his estate to the church. Only to then learn that they've been willed a car that may have been owned by the pope.

A family of anti-Semites lives in Lodz. The husband is unemployed and poor. He believes that only true Poles can improve the situation in the country. His quiet wife believes what her husband does and says, while their son - the future of the nation - hates people who are different from himself. One day, the husband learns that his parents were Jewish. What's more, a distant relative from the US left behind a fortune to inherit. In order to get the money, the hero and his family must return to their roots. Their world is turned on its head...

Witek and Krysia, a married couple, move to Warsaw and have nowhere to stay. They rent a room in a house with many other lodgers. Witek dreams of their own house and draws a sketch of their future home, marking the place where his wife will sleep with the word "treasure". The other lodgers find the draft and a frantic search for the treasure begins.

The true story of Wanda Rutkiewicz, the first woman in the world and the first person from Poland to climb the highest peaks on earth, told by herself.

A young scientist Anna Waterman is kidnapped after making a scientific breakthrough in a research project.

Alojz is a Silesian miner with a strained relationship with his wife and kids. Those relations begin to flourish after he's left disabled, while rescuing a colleague from a dam burst.

A businessman must balance personal and professional obligations after his father is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

The action takes place in the second half of the 19th century in a small Californian town in the Wild West. Hans, a German émigré, opens a shop on one of the streets. To his annoyance, his fellow countryman, young and beautiful Lora, sets up a shop on the opposite side. There is fierce competition. Lora decides to take Hans to court. However, unfamiliar with German, the judge mistakenly marries them.

A young priest comes to a town to help the old provost in pastoral ministry. It early May, the parish prepares for the First Communion. Unexpectedly, the provost is admitted to hospital with a heart attack. Priest Piotr is on his own now in a completely new place. At a catechesis, one of the girls catches his attention. She’s sad, introvert and sometimes even aggressive. Marta is a daughter of the richest man in the town. During her confession, the priest feels she’s hiding something. When the time of Sacrament reception comes, Marta runs away from the altar. After hours of searching, priest Piotr finds her hidden in a vestry. The girl tells him the horrible truth.

A documentary celebrating the work of Walerian Borowczyk, a director of unparalleled sensitivity, revered in the 1970s, who was later labeled as a maker of erotic movies.

Bearing traces of the old Anton Chekhov play The Wedding, The Contract is set during an "arranged" ceremony. The bride and groom barely know each other, but this matters not at all to their tradition-bound families. At the last minute, the bride balks. Only slightly nonplused, the groom's father, a status-seeking doctor, decides to go ahead with the expensive reception anyway. Polish director Krzysz Zanussi uses this scenario to stick it to capitalist corruption, and to society's destruction of the individual spirit. Leslie Caron, the one recognizable member of the cast, is outstanding as a wealthy, over-the-hill ballerina who happens to be a kleptomaniac.

When Kuba finds out his girlfriend Ewa is pregnant, he reflects on life and wants to prepare to do everything he can to be a great father and provider. Kuba wants to be a responsible man but he isn't sure what is the ideal way to live. He visits his three uncles seeking their advice on what he should do. As they all have their own perspectives, each of his uncles guides him in new directions.

Lucjan Bohme is a ruthless debt collector working in a post-industrial Silesian town. In the land of unemployment and misery, he's got a lot of work and no mercy at all. Until something happens.

How can the flames of desire be rekindled after 25 years of married life? Izabela Plucinska’s erotic comedy, made entirely through the use of modelling clay, delves into the private lives of Alice and Henry, a couple in their fifties numbed by routine, who are holed up in a rococo-kitsch hotel room…

Ewa is a beautiful, happily married woman. One day she meets a young woman claiming to be in affair with her husband. Ewa, shocked, doesn't know whom to believe any more.

A 16-year-old girl goes to extreme measures to care for her younger siblings when their mother is diagnosed with a fatal illness.

An actor returns to Poland after 12 very unsuccessful years in the United States only to find himself entangled in a noirish situation reminiscent of California in the 1940s.

In a post-State gmina Osiek, on August 15th the plaque commemorating the liberation of the town from the hands of the Bolsheviks in 1920 will be unveiled. Vogt wants the event to be festive and to contribute to the promotion a the forgotten gmina. He needs a veteran, but where will he find a veteran of the 1920 war? Marian, a village shopkeeper, promises to “find” a veteran in excha

A married couple is unsuccessfully trying to have a child. The woman decides to bring her husband closer to another woman.

Based on real events story of stealing methyl alcohol causing mass poisoning in town.

In 1905 partitioned Poland, a bomb moves through the anarchist underground as revolutionaries prepare to strike against Tsarist rule.

The adventures of a couple who try to put together one family from two different worlds. Other people's children, ex-spouses, pushy grandparents. Will Ania and Grzesiek survive the invasion of their families who are trying to fight the relationship of their adult children?

A story of nineteen years old girl who is trying to become a model.

The movie consists of two satirical novels based on the same idea: both the "gangsters" and "philanthropists" end up in the courtroom.

A drama inspired by true events in which good fights evil. Twenty-something mother Anna raises her seven-year-old son alone, barely making ends meet.

A documentary project about what the filmmakers claim to be the greatest, unfulfilled dream of Polish cinema, the 1970s science fiction epic "On the Silver Globe".

Ada is an American journalist of Polish origin. She has just moved to Hamburg with her partner and is struggling to find her way in the new reality. One day, a mysterious package arrives at the editorial office where she works.

Hania is a young journalist who suddenly discovers that she is more connected with dancing than she could ever imagine ...

Rita is twenty-four years old and has never had an orgasm. All she remembers from her first sexual experience is disappointment and a kitschy painting of peonies hanging on the wall before an old sofa creaking beneath her.

Poland, 1978. Edward Srodon, a zootechnician, makes an accidental stop at the Dziabas family farm, located in the remote area of the Bieszczady Mountains. Years later, on a winter day during Martial Law, a People's Militia investigation team examines a crime scene.

A story about the search for an ideal in a world devoid of values. It is a surreal parable about human nature, played out in the convention of a Western, in which the myth of the Wild West is put to the ultimate test of endurance. In the Wild West's most demoralized town, Rio Bravo, love is hotter, crime more cruel and poetry more poetic than Byron himself. The minds of the residents of Rio Bravo are consumed by venereal disease, leaving behind an uncontrollable longing for Eucalyptus. The film's protagonist, Sony Holiday, a mythical figure of the Wild West, is known not only for his fast revolver, but also for his possession of an unusual bird. This bird, an object of worship and envy, fuels a spiral of crime and gruesomeness in the town.

Marek is a promising athlete having his share of affairs with women. One day at masquerade ball he meets a an enigmatic Jowita and becomes obsessed with her, even when he finds seemingly true love in Agnieszka.

In the last days of World War 2, people of various ethnic background meet in a Polish military hospital in a small German town, whereas a Nazi SS division hides in the local forests and tries to move westwards.

11-year-old Mickey House is no longer a child. But who is he? He doesn’t know. He’s friendless. He doesn’t understand his mother. He hates what’s happening to his body. Reality and imagination come together in a toxic mix. Events escalate to extremes… at home and at school. Mickey has to find the strength within him to put a stop to what’s begun. Where will his encounter with his own maturing body take him?

A young landowner, Michal Rajecki, falls in love with a beautiful country girl, Warszulka, with reciprocity. During one of their trysts, Rajecki gives the girl hope for a future together. Eventually, however, he begins to realize that a misalliance would cost him too much. He follows his friend's advice and tells the girl to accept the proposal of the peasant who is trying to get her. When he begins to realize that he has made a mistake, it is too late.

A producer celebrated for the idealized families she depicts on screen must make some changes when she realizes her personal life is in total disarray.

Tadeusz Krzakoski, the director of a failing state-owned company, is married with problems. His mistress, the daughter of a Communist party bigwig, says she's pregnant and Tadeusz knows he'll have to marry her to save his reputation and his job. But divorce is never simple and Bareja's screwball comedies are never boring.

A story, warm and full of humor, about Maszenka, an 11-year-old girl from an orphanage in the Bieszczady Mountains who loves ballet. The first stage on her road to fulfilling her dream is the entrance exam to the ballet school in Gdansk. To make it there in time, she escapes from the orphanage, taking newly hired educator Kordula with her. They travel all the way across Poland, hiding from the police and meeting people who help them in need.