Discoveries from Poland World Cinema

A forty-year old man, destroyed physically and mentally by life experiences recounts his life.

First days of September 1939. The government decides to transport the Polish gold stored in the treasury of the National Bank of Poland out of the threatened Warsaw. A convoy is formed under the command of the man for special tasks, Major Bobruk. A string of trucks and city buses travel along crowded roads under relentless attack by aircraft. The convoy makes its way through Lublin to Romanian territory, where the gold will be reloaded onto a train. Prime Minister Calinescu, disregarding the threats of the Nazis, agrees to the transit of the precious bullion through his country. The evacuation of the gold is threatened all the time by a special German sabotage group under the command of Second Lieutenant Rudolf Lang.

Reportage from the set of the film "Everything for Sale", focusing on the director - Andrzej Wajda. At one stage of the filming, Wajda planned to include all the documentary material shot by Ziarnik in his film. Ultimately, however, he changed the concept.

Izabella, a beautiful young woman, works at her aunt’s shop in a small town in Poland. She uses her hands to create unique small objects for the shop, but in the night she has the strange habit to feed bats.

Made in one-shot, tells a story of two women coming from different worlds, who meet unexpectedly and despite unfavorable circumstances they eventually help each other.

Old friends come to the reunion of alumni, for whom the meeting after many years is an opportunity for memories, but also comparisons of who have been most successful in their lives.

A smart teenager Adam Cisowski is asked by his teacher to help him solve the mysterious case of robbed house doors in his mansion.

In this mixture of fiction and documentary Krzysztof Zanussi invites a number of Poland’s great actors—Maja Komorowowska, Daniel Olbrychski, and Jan Nowicki—to "revisit" characters they played in the director's earlier works.

After graduating from maritime school, Marek goes on his first voyage.

A chance meeting at a dinner table reveals the culprit of an old thought-to-be-solved murder.

A documentary revolving around the Polish situation on an industrial level at the tail-end of the 1960s: it alternates between stark images at a metallurgic foundry and a board-room meeting among the various executives involved in its management.

A story of Belarusians who were subjected to repression. The film was made on the basis of 25 interviews with victims and chronicles. The film shows the path of a detainee at a protest in Belarus: march and detention, a ride in a prison truck, registration at a police station, trial, prison, release, and reflection on the experience.

What does an athlete do when the applause dies down? He creates a garden. Stanisław Chemicz, former coach of Cracovia and Wisła Kraków, is creating a garden in a Kraków housing estate filled with sporting memorabilia, plants and objects from days gone by.

Ania, after years of absence, comes to her hometown to spend the last months of her life with her mother, Mara. The girl finds Alek in the village, with whom she experienced her first adolescent love. The meeting of these two will trigger a series of unexpected events, and for Mary, it will be one of the most difficult challenges in her life.

A middle-aged man wants badly to change his life and go back to the times when he was young, happy and in love.

After 50 years, Zofia and Ania are deciding to go on their last journey together to fight for their old love.

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.

Grodno, the eastern border of pre-war Poland. On September 1, 1939, German planes bomb the city. One of the bombs hits the school of Leoś, Ewelina and Tadek. Literally and symbolically, the world of a carefree childhood, fun and first crushes ends.

The year is 1750. Europe is in a ravaged state following a plague. Victor Moritz and Rufolf de Sevre are gamblers, frequenters of elegant casinos and fashionable brothels. Rudolf is a young aristocrat, charming and charismatic. His degenerate behavior has an animal intensity. Victor, though leading the life of libertine, remains to one side. He is a man of a refined taste despite his low birth and buys his noble title thanks to his gambling skills. Victor and Rudolf have been inseparable friends for years. Then two young, beautiful and innocent people - a brother and sister - enter their life...

A performance based on Stanisław Wyspiański’s dramatic epic poem, first presented at Teatr Laboratorium, Wrocław, Poland, October 10, 1962. Filmed in 1968.

One night, the lives of an old man, his wife, and a young boy who enters their home intertwine. Zbigniew, near death, reveals a lifelong secret, while the stranger’s presence becomes a catalyst for confessions. Song of the Night is an intimate tale of love, solitude, fear, and courage at life’s end.

A woman goes to a party thrown by a person close to her. On the spot she realizes that nothing will remain the same again.

Well-known fencer Paweł Kaczmarek makes an important decision in his life – he decides to quit drinking. Unexpectedly, he receives information that his ex-wife is staying in Austria with his child. He immediately sets off for Austria, finds Anna's apartment, and kidnaps his own son.

After the doctor's refusal to perform abortion on a 17-year old girl, she and her boyfriend have to cope with the new situation. They both need to learn to take responsibility for their decisions, in spite of numerous hardships facing them.

At the annual car race in Monte Carlo the Polish team consists of driver Piotr and his pilot Jan. They compete with other teams as well as with one another - for the feelings of one woman.

Documentary about Polish poet and Nobel Prize winner Wisława Szymborska.

A budding playwright is thrilled to find out that his play will be performed at a prestigious theater, but a series of problems pile up, along with the general feeling that opening night will be disastrous.

Therapy session opens memories from five different places and times. Traumatic experiences come back in expressive and suggestive images. Slowly, chaos becomes calmer and changes into peace. The film is a story about loss, thanks to which, an opportunity to find power and hope emerges.

Tonia lives with her father and grandmother. Her mother is dead, her father is an alcohol abuser and he lost his job. His grandmother decides to send him to work on a construction site in Italy for three months. Tonia will do everything in her power to foil this plan.

Hilda and Augusta - mother and daughter - live in a nursing homei. Daughter feels Pole, and mother - German. Thus they are not liked by surrounding people. Augusta decides to return home after many years. But it is not so easy...

1. A ring of retired provincial PRL dignitaries plots to steal their party’s banner from the Museum of Communism as an ideological relic, only to have their scheme complicated when one conspirator’s son enlists an Italian collector in a profit-seeking joint venture. 2. A young homeless couple squatting in an unoccupied Balaton dacha is caught by the elderly ex-communist official who now runs a Budapest nightclub—and agrees to keep silent about their trespass in exchange for forcing them into a public “wedding night” performance for his patrons.

The outsider returns to her childhood house to check on her ailing father, but as tensions with her younger sister resurface, the past unravels, distorting time and memory in a place that no longer feels like home.

Does doctor Jan Terelak belong to an “elitist” group of the most unethical experimenters? The Polish scientist tested boundaries of human mental resilience in extreme conditions of solitude in Antarctica. The starting point for Piotr Jaworski's documentary is the psychologist's journal. The project from forty years ago was focused on studying the mental condition of polar explorers at the Polish station. Men were in the situation of confinement, comparable to a space mission. The film reconstructs these events, referring to the then contemporary context and changes in the perception of science.

Young people living in Poland in the late 1960s had to face difficult times and make tough choices. Some of them were forced to leave their country for having Jewish origin. And for political reasons.

Amid December’s festive glow, refugees remain hidden in forests along the Poland-Belarus border. This powerful documentary gives voice to their silent cries.

An exhausted militant wants to take a break from the incessant frenzy surrounding him. His country’s dictatorship is on its last legs and chaos reigns. His wife Sylvie leaves their country for France. She writes about the new democracy struggling to be born back home. His daughter Joyce must hide out in the deserted childhood home in the solitude and infinity of the Black Beach. Several adversaries – the militia of a hazy regime in his native land and the Paris police – wage a strange game of chess in which he is the pawn. Threats abound and he’s haunted by his past, his fears, dead friends. He has three allies: his wife, his daughter, and an old girlfriend from his fighting days.

Sandra and Dawid are about to get married. First, however, Sandra has to terminate her pregnancy due to genetic defects in the fetus. The dramatic event calls into question their future as a couple.

A group of young people go to the Mazury to relax. They do not know that in the forest lurks a deadly danger in the form of a masked murderer with a machete.

The story of a small Esterhazy and his research of Bunnies's Paradies that truly existed between East and West part of the Berlin Wall.

After many controversies Poland's biggest military intelligence and counter-intelligence agency (commonly known as WSI) is liquidated, but its place is immediately taken by a new, secret military organization. Forced to deal with obscure cases, Its three members soon begin to doubt both their mission and the people they work for.

A man walks down the exterior staircase of building of flats; he's dressed to go out, taking care to wrap a scarf around his neck. He pauses as he passes a small window that's about eye high. He ventures to look in, and there a young woman stands at a washbasin, drying her hair,

This romantic comedy is about a mother and daughter and their entertaining adventures in love. The mother, Anna, is an energetic and attractive 40-year-old with a great sense of humor, a great sense of fashion, and an easy going personality. Her 19-year-old daughter Kasia, on the other hand, is an atypical teenager who is serious, shutters at the thoughts of parties or boys. Instead, she focuses on eating healthy, practicing yoga, and having a practical approach to life. What will happen when two eligible bachelors, Michal and Pawel, encounter these two lovely ladies?

To the surprise of the village residents, all of a sudden, the stone figure of Virgin Mary starts moving, leaves the chapel and begins to walk ahead. Soon, it is joined by other animated sculptures. Miracles do happen and they fascinate the most a little boneless girl.

A para-documentary film about the holy war that has been going on for years between the peasants of a small village and the management of the State Farm.

A journey into time, landscape and consciousness: The Southwestern United States in the black-and-white moving images and unsettling instrumental music. Entropy of the American dream.

Inge has an unconventional profession and an equally unconventional personality. Her job involves ripping various sounds to illustrate radio broadcasts and advertising spots. One day on the street, Inge is approached by a mysterious Stranger who wordlessly kisses her on the lips, hands her a bouquet of flowers and... disappears. Inge is so shocked and surprised by this strange incident that she loses her voice. Thus begins a funny and poetic love story directed by Ewa Pytka.

A color-coded testimony of a bygone era. In the documentary, director Jerzy Hoffman presents the magical world of a folk marketplace. As a result, groups of imposters, specialists in black magic, home-grown inventors and charismatic healers are gathered among the stalls. Wonder Fair is a colourful world full of figures of the Blessed Virgin Mary, gingerbread hearts and ointments for all ailments. The documentary, awarded at the 1967 Tourfilm Competition in Warsaw, gives up irony or big-city paternalism, presenting the characters with sympathy and warmth.

A reportage created by a well-known duo of documentary filmmakers - Jerzy Hoffman and Edward Skórzewski. The men and their Polish Film Chronicle crew went to Armenia. Breathtaking, mountainous landscapes and historic cities remembering the first centuries of our era – it makes us aware of the importance of the area.

Documentary about the phenomenon of Polish video game magazines in the 90s. Times when magazine pages were put together with glue and scissors and original games were a scarcity. A unique journey to the classic Amiga and PC titles accompanied by an extraordinary soundtrack.

Leopold Trepper, a former Red Army officer and hero of the anti-Nazi resistance, faces a Kafkaesque struggle in 1970s Poland as the demons of anti-Semitism resurface. Stripped of his job and under constant surveillance, Trepper leaves with no hope of return.

Szymek, a young man at clash with his home village takes up a job as a geologist and marries a girl whose parents dissaprove of him.

A lonely Piotr Płaksin, who makes a living from part-time jobs, lives his dreams of a trip to the Easter Islands on a self-built yacht. One day a man learns that he has become a father.

The protagonist of "Passerby" is writer and filmmaker Tadeusz Konwicki. His story, which reflects the paradoxes of the 20th century history, is commented by means of fragments of his films, documentary newsreels and stage productions.