Discoveries from Poland World Cinema

Reproduction of the Nuremberg trials using transcripts, made for Polish TV.

Stanisław Maria Rochowicz, a bumbling art historian, is falsely accused of stealing a painting. The alleged thief faces five years in prison. Desperate, he decides to hide in disguise as a woman until he can paint a copy of the stolen canvas. Lacking means to live, he takes jobs as a maid for a variety of colorful characters.

This film was created by combining and shortening the films Kierunek Berlin (Destination Berlin) and Ostatnie dni (The Last Days). It presents the final phase of the great offensive of 1945, which ended with the capture of Berlin, from the perspective of a private soldier of the First Polish Army.

The director of the Warsaw operetta has problems with putting together a team. He cares very much about acquiring the star of the stage - Jadwiga Janowska. However, she is currently in Paris with her husband, diplomat Henryk de Fontana. It turns out that Ambassador Rossi falls in love with her. Jadwiga goes to Warsaw, where in her apartment her friend Apolonia trains a young adept Wanda to play on stage.

Marta is a romantic and a loser in school. She shares a room with her sister Kasia and grandma, who tells her granddaughters insurgency stories instead of fairy tales. In the room behind the wall, the parents - Tadek and Elżbieta - live their married life. He is an intelligent constantly humiliated by the state, he also makes his own moonshine after work and silently envies his prosperous brother in law. She is the leader of the "Solidarity" union at work, with the need for freedom and a dream to get out of Poland. The real adventure for the family starts when they manage to get their dream orange Fiat 126p. Ela and Tadek discover their appetite for trading and trips abroad, and the growing Marta will fall in love for the first time.

Polish animator Anna Błaszczyk’s humorous short—a collage of drawing, cut-out, and computer animation—was inspired by Stanisław Lem’s 1961 novel Return from the Stars, a time-paradox tale of an astronaut who returns to Earth after many years away.

Adrian plans to marry Wanda and, with that intention, visits his fiancee's family house by the lake. Tensions rise when he is faced not only with Wanda's sisters but also with their mother's expectations.

A young peasant girl, Antonina, emigrates for bread to Canada. She stays with her uncle, who offers her marriage, but Antonina does not accept the offer. She marries a farmer from a nearby village, surreptitiously puts away pennies to pennies and sends to Poland, her son to build a house. When her husband finds out, he catcalls her in a rage and throws her out. She returns to the country, and what does she find?

14-year-old David could one day become a judo champion - if it wasn't for his explosive temper and aggression, which he finds hard to control. And this is the only legacy he received from his violent father, currently serving time in prison. David tries to live up to his mother's expectations while taking care of his 9-year-old brother. He gets a chance to change his life when he is invited to an important judo tournament.

Robert is a reserved symphony orchestra musician raising his ten-year-old son alone. His orderly life is disrupted when vibrant fitness star Marta bursts into his summer routine. As their contrasting personalities and views on love collide, they discover affection in the unlikeliest of circumstances.

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.

1944. Communist militiaman take a post in a little town in the east of Poland. He has to stand against his own men that are not happy with new authorities.

The tale about last years of the legendary Home Army commander, General August Emil Fieldorf "Nil".

Daniel has just been released from prison and is trying to make a new life for himself. Between taking care of his alcoholic mother and finding a job, he might be able to find some happiness and normalcy in a new relationship.

In a Polish shtetl, two young men who have grown up together betrothe their unborn children, ignoring the advice of a mysterious traveler not to pledge the lives of future generations. Soon after, one of them dies, and the wife of the other dies in childbirth. The children grow up in different towns, without ever knowing of the betrothal, but the power of the vow leads them to meet each other when they are marriageable. The young woman, Leah, is promised to another man, but Channon, the son of the father who died, is a practitioner of mysticism, and seeks to win his bride through sorcery.

Asa, a young and cheerful dreamer, returns from his Russian naval service to his sister’s nomadic family on the desolate Hunger Steppe of central Asia, so that he can begin his own life as a shepherd. But before he can tend a flock of his own, Asa must first win the hand of the only eligible girl for miles—his mysterious neighbor, Tulpan.

In 1866, as Austria faces war with Prussia, 19-year-old Ludvík Machl joins a secret Czech resistance group. When he is caught with stolen funds and a weapon, the police commissioner spares him from prison on the condition that he work as an informant. Trapped by fear and betrayal, Ludvík is forced down a path that leads inexorably toward his own destruction.

A young girl, her new friend and his dog try to find a long-lost Picasso painting in an abandoned house before a gang of burglars seize it.

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...

Rysiek is an escapee from a reform school. Julek escapes the anger of a fire brigade in a small town from which he embezzled. In search for food Rysiek breaks into a villa and discovers a bundle of cash in the freezer. They team together in Warsaw and decide to go on a rampage through the city.

TV presenter Katarzyna has been a teetotaller for a year now. She attends regular AA meetings and even takes care of a novice there. Will she really manage to stay sober?

Based on true events, the movie tells the story of two men who want to start a scooter business but don't have the required collateral for a bank loan. Then one of them runs into a former flat neighbour who offers to lend them the money. The guy turns out to be a thug and starts to extort them. Their life goes downhill from there.

During the 1920 Silesian uprising, seven brothers take part in the struggle with the Germans to keep the region in the Polish hands.

A policeman gets killed and the short-staffed police chief sends for a few experienced officers to support him in his fight with organized crime. Meanwhile, a conflict between local gangster groups escalates.

A group of street thugs assault a man, causing temporary blindness. One of them, Romek has a change of heart after this incident and decides to turn against his former friends.

Inspired by the tale of Telemachus in Homer’s Odyssey, young Adam’s mother is persecuted by the state police because his father fought in WWII as a pilot before disappearing. Adam fantasizes about his father and one day, while watching Godard’s Contempt in the cinema, finds himself transported into the dressing room of Brigitte Bardot and into a world where he meets a coterie of her contemporary celebrities.

The Countess Cosel is based on the true story of the beautiful Anna Constantia of Brockdorff, a German noblewoman who became a mistress of Augustus the Strong, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony in 1704.

Alex and Andre are two hit men who face death and violence every day but also understand the gentleness of love. They would like to start a new life, but their involvement in the criminal underground is too deep. Alex and Andre move about in a world of expensive hotels, cars and discothèques frequented by drug dealers and thieves who would double-cross you as soon as look at you.

Kaytek, an unusually stubborn twelve-year-old, is brought up by his grandma and dad. One day, the troublemaker discovers that he’s got supernatural powers, which completely take over his life.

The happiness that has passed away will never return - this is exactly what a young Polish man learns when, in the immediate post-war period, he recalls how he fell in love with a charming Jewish girl before the outbreak of the war. He manages to find her, only she is already married and has a child.

June 1999. Bogdan has to buy alcohol for his wife's 50th birthday. His job is made much harder by the Pope's visit in Poland and the resulting prohibition. A simple search for vodka quickly turns into a metaphysical odyssey.

Set in a small Polish town just after the war, the story of an unruly teenager who constantly taunts the old priest. One day the youth has a horrible accident, which the villagers call divine punishment.

A period film, set in 19th century China in the Polish community who are there building the railway. A woman enters into an extramarital affair with a painter.

Actress Olga's political idealism and hopes for a better tomorrow are put to the hardest test. The authoritarian, omniscient communist power decides to break the woman when her father is hospitalized and fighting for his life, and her husband is in custody. Olga must find herself in a new situation and make an impossible choice.

Parallel stories connected through an intimacy with death. The living and the dead communicate through visions, memories and reality.

Through the fate of the boy - whose hunger drives from his home village , and who receives a severe school of life , going through different social environments in order to become conscious , revolutionary activist - creators show a realistic panorama of conflicts in pre-WWII Poland.

A man seated next to the body of his young wife thinks about their brief life together. Suicide has been the only escape for her... Dumala's technique creates a dark, claustrophobic atmosphere, entirely suitable for Dostoyevski's novel "A Gentle Spirit" on which it is based.

Two neighbours with similar names, Paweł and Gaweł, meet a violinist girl Violetta who pretends to be a child. When Paweł learns she's not a child anymore, he falls in love with her. And vice versa.

Franz Maurer, a compromised cop, former officer of the criminal department of the Warsaw's police, is released from prison where he was doing time for his brutality and murders. He is awaited by Nowy, a former police colleague. Franz tries to go straight starting hard work in a steel mill. Nevertheless, he must leave the factory as a criminal with an uncertain past when he doesn't join the strike organized by the workers' union. At the same time, a merciless war continues in former Yugoslavia. Wolf and William, two high rank officers, come to Poland in order to organize a network selling and smuggling arms to Yugoslavia by way of Albania.

A Jewish town is burning. The figures of the dying inhabitants are inscribed in organic sculptures. A male choir sings the 'S’brent, unzer sztetl brent' (Fire, our town is on fire) song by Mordechaj Gebirtig.

Documentary about those who in 2002 visited Zary. How they looked like, how they behaved, what created the mood, what they said.

Bozenka, a worker from a large bank, believes that only those who buy, truly live their life. And there is always not enough money! The reason for her frustration is also her husband, Stasiunek, who should be a devilish lover of the most beautiful women in the world, but in fact he is a lazy bumbler. And then one day she gets a chance…

A touching story about the most important human matters: love, loneliness, sacrifice and courage, around the life of Ewa, a woman who works looking for families for orphaned children.

Until now, they have stood on the sidelines. They have not appeared before the cameras. They have not taken part in public discussion. It is mainly to them that the documentary film by the well-known journalist Ewa Ewart was devoted. It shows the face of the Smolensk catastrophe through the eyes of the victims' families. April 10, 2010 went down in the memory of Poles as a day of national drama. But for the characters in the film, it was the day of their greatest personal drama. Along with the presidential couple, their loved ones passed away in shocking circumstances. For most, the time passing since the Smolensk catastrophe does not bring relief. Ewa Ewart and her film crew accompany the families at various stages of their struggle with difficult emotions. The film is in the process of being made and will include sequences and stills that have not been used anywhere before.

For 16 minutes and 3 seconds, we enter the life of a young woman, who experiences a strange and utterly disturbing situation on the road when driving her car. Unaware of the danger, we travel with her emotions until the unexpected and scary reveal at the end.

The Polish artist Julia and her husband Piotr, a talented and successful composer, live in Kraków. When Julias's mother, Barbara falls ill with stomach cancer, the life of the family is falling apart. Julia accompanies her mother to death, but her husband Piotr is at rehearsals in Cologne and leaves her to cope with this difficult situation. Only her friend Adrian is at her side. Her father Jurek is also overwhelmed by the impending loss of his beloved wife. After the death of the mother her father takes comfort from alcohol. Shortly after the father dies. Julia found only in the arms of Adrian to rest, but this in turn destroyed her marriage to Piotr. After the loss of the parents and break up of the marriage she is now alone in the world with an uncertain future where Adrian is of little help

Her ex-wife won’t meet her. Her daughter rejects her. Her mother still calls her “son.” As Marianna transitions from male to female, she is abandoned by her loved ones, alone in a world unwilling to accept her true self. This multi-award-winning documentary is an intensely sympathetic and powerful account of one individual’s struggle to gain acceptance—even in the midst of profound physical hardship.

Forst is a wealthy, well-organized man. When we meet him, he seems like the king of life. One day he abandons the corporation where he is vice president. The devastation he leaves behind gives no hope of returning. The forest, 4 am a few years later. A semi-feral forest grandfather, overgrown, dirty, in rags, sets snares for animals. We recognize: it's the same man - Forst. He lives in the forest, in a dugout he built himself. For company he has a three-legged dog. He feeds on the meat of hunted game, lives in harmony with nature. One day, thirteen-year-old Jadzia stands in front of the door of his solitude. Forst once again has to change his life....

A knife thrower practices on a target girl.

Jagoda and Zuzia giggle in the opening scenes in the way that only 11-year-old girls can. Together they are the center of their own changing world. On the face of it, not much happens in the lives of these Polish best friends, but big changes are on the way. The end of primary school is in sight, and the girls are impatiently awaiting first love, budding breasts and first periods.

Teenaged Beata, disgusted with hypocrisy around her, runs away from home.

In the midst of WW I, a doctor and a lawyer team up to turn a ramshackle old mountain chateau into a sanatorium/health spa that caters to the afflicted from most every stratum of European society, most of whom show up with false hope in their hearts and plenty of equally false identities. Even the proprietors have a few deceptions, chief among them is the part of the resort where they provide shelter for dying and horribly maimed soldiers. Still the atmosphere of this high-class convalescent home is that of great gentility that thinly disguises the seaminess of the guests' secret activities. Though much of the film is a quirky comedy, tragedy comes creeping in when people begin dying of unnatural causes, and not even the pure mountain air can save the owners and the residents.

Three small-time thugs from Warsaw's Praga district decide to celebrate a successful car theft in one of the city's Asian bars. They feel like kings of the world, but what they don't know yet is that the bartenders there are not to be messed with...

A young architect is locked up in prison. He recalls his uncompromising youth and gradual sliding into the moral swamp of compromises. He was not alone. A group of his friends, dreamers and glass house builders, accompanied him.

Paweł and Grzegorz, two disabled Poles in their twenties, decide to set up a new radio station for young people. Their friendship is tested when they face disagreements and challenges on how to run their new internet radio show.

University student Anna and her boyfriend Tomek use a precious photograph to trace and unveil the complex wartime and post-war past of their parents.