Discoveries from Poland World Cinema

"Beavers" is the name of a punk band that no longer exists. They released one demo, then broke up, and each member forgot about music, dreams and a great career. Martin has just returned from Ireland and, with a sense of defeat, decides to end his life. He is stopped from suicide by a chance event - an ad for the sale of his old guitar. He decides to get it back and reactivate the band. He finds his band mates: Klock, whose way of life has become peddling psychotropics straight out of a psychiatric hospital, and Smrod, who has taken over the family business.

Piotr tries to committ suicide after his wife leaves him. His friend Marek takes him on a trip to seaside resort Sopot to find love again. After many misadventures, Piotr tries to kill himself again, but finds love at the last moment.

Contemporary Szczecin. Kasia, a single mother working on a cruise ship, is waiting for true love. One day she meets handsome Piotr, an incorrigible seducer. It turns out that they have met before and even spent the night, but the man remembers neither the circumstances of that meeting nor the woman's name. However, Kasia, despite her disappointment, hopes for a lasting relationship.

Two former classmates (one an honest working man with a wife and children, the other a conman) meet at a train station. The conman comes to stay with his old friend and slowly begins to assume the role of master of the house, taking the place of the father and husband. Made for television with a screenplay by Marek Nowakowski. The film sat on a shelf for 9 years, and was shown only on the wave of solidarity in 1980. Awards: 1981 - 8 Polish Film Festival, Gdańsk, special jury prize.

Andrzej and Michal are two young teenagers who come together every summer in Siemiany, a small tourist village on the countryside. Their friendship has grown into years of great memories. However the boredom of the countryside and the feeling of unity amongst the boys take their friendship to a new level of sexually loaded intimacy.

At her father's funeral, eleven-year-old Tosia meets his mistress and her five-year-old son, Kajtek. Tosia tries at all costs to chase away the funeral's unwanted guests, and eventually turns on Kajtek. It turns out, however, that the boy Tosia perceived as an enemy becomes a link between her and her deceased father, helping her to overcome this difficult experience.

The cook prepares the soldier's favourite dish. The soldiers learn that the products come from the Majdanek camp.

A pregnant 22-year-old with a dreary job, a difficult home life and an absent boyfriend learns to love her life and share this love with the child in her womb.

Ala is a frustrated housewife and mother of three children. When she suddenly gets killed in a car accident, her family have to learn how to cope with the new situation.

The Lone Detective arrives in town to unravel a murder mystery.

The hero of this perverse comedy is Jerzy, a completely incurable romantic, who finds the love of his life in the voice coming from the navigation system in his car. Jerzy is a gadget-head, and loves all kinds of electronic devices – he gives them names, and then talks to them. This makes him fall in love with Carmen – the voice from his car-navigation system.

Follows a bear cub and his papa bear as they embark on an adventure to find the Golden Land which is believed to harbor an endless source of honey, so they can prepare a birthday cake for the little one.

A barrier grew between Staszek and Alina, and the intimacy disappeared as time passed. He locks himself in a shed with his rabbits and sorrows. She indulges in relaxing baths. Everything changes when Alinka takes a job as a cuddler at the Honey Bunny salon.

Since early childhood Anna has loved animals – she taught biology at school and worked in the zoo. As a woman, she realised quite soon that she had to be physically strong too. That is why, at the age of 40, she embarked on a career of a power triathlete and soon became a multiple world champion and the strongest woman in the world. Using the power of social media, she ran a campaign for animal rights, opened animal shelters and looked for new families for dozens of stray dogs and cats. When Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Anna went on to help wounded and abandoned animals.

Aleksandra, an uncompromising mixed martial arts fighter, and the painful path to achieving her goal of qualifying for amateur world championship in Las Vegas.

Detective thriller about a killer loose in the crowds. The film follows a sniper on his rounds looking for victims, while a police inspector, with few clues in hand, has to figure out the motive for the killings as well as who the psychopath is and where he might strike next. He uncovers that the mentally deranged sniper can't stand seeing people happy together in public places.

A Pole incorporated into the Wehrmacht deserts, hiding in a coal mine ...

The Borejko family has four daughters — Gabriela, Ida, Natalia and Patricia. Most concern causes the red-haired Ida, whose unusual ideas often end badly, though the girl has the best intentions. Her father, who works at the university as a classical philologist, gives her the idea to found a group called ESD. They want to try out the theory that you are more successful if you send out more positive signals to the environment. Soon this theory will be put to the test. Ida's mother has to go to the hospital and the entire burden of household chores falls on the children.

The historical events of September 1939 are used as a canvass for the plot and the emotional structure of the script. Its composition centers around the three stages of the defense of Warsaw, accompanied by the rhythm of the Polish Radio.

A collection of mechanical-biological hybrids from the artist's workshop and a variety of rules written on different boards, gathered in order to secure projects and for entertainment.

Twenty animators from the U.S., Switzerland, Poland and China express their friendship with and love of animation in a series of animated variations on the standard countdown.

Three friends, a lazy weekend at the lake.... until the ball falls where it doesn't need to, the pretty girl turns out to be on the side of the opponents, and the carpenter begins to stalk them. Something has to be figured out, and the characters are masters of dismemberment. A story of friendship, adolescence, destiny.... With a wink.

Maria does not understand her husband. The woman goes to the family home where her sister lives.

Klaudia, surrounded by a critical mother, obsessively helps others. Przemek worships Poland and hates stupid people. So everyone. Donatello loves mud turtles, the Actor only himself. Maja lives and chills as Netflix commanded. Everyone takes part in the therapeutic stay under the care of Remek. And they create the saddest comedy of the year.

Shot in the beautiful scenery of the Tatra Mountains, this sensational drama revolves around a thwarted smuggling of art pieces across the Polish-Czechoslovak border to the West. Highlander Jasiek used to be a smuggler, now he is a soldier of the Border Protection Forces, serving in his homeland, in the Tatra Mountains. Under the influence of the educational work of his superiors, as well as his love for Halka, he becomes a righteous citizen. He contributes to preventing the smuggling of valuable works of art abroad organized by a Polish aristocrat and carried out by a gang.

All the ambiance of an old-fashioned circus comes across with great clarity in this otherwise routine psychological tale about a mean-spirited mime and his effects on his colleagues. The small, traveling circus has been sliding downhill for awhile, and unless some new life is infused into its acts, its future does not look very rosy. Into this precarious situation comes a new mime with the uncanny ability to sap the confidence of his fellow performers. If he continues for long in this vein, no one will be able to believe they have any talent left at all.

The story is a duel between criminal-on- the-run and the cop who put him behind the bars the first time around.

A cat lover, Jesus leaving the cross and Christmas carollers holding pitchforks are set against a snowy and icy scenery. ‘Zima’, a psychodelic journey to a small fishing village, collects as if in a lens the behaviour, customs and vices of the Polish provinces. In this small community, different views, the behaviour of people and animals and their mutual relations clash like ice floes on a lake. Maintained in the convention of magic realism, this animation is like a horror playing out to the accompaniment of barking dogs and a punk metal music score.

The lives of a Hassidic young man (Yoyli) and a Polish young woman (Mariola) intersect when they find themselves secluded in a car after he offers her a ride home. This, after Yoyli and his mother picked her up from a street corner in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where Polish, immigrant women wait to be taken to Hassidic homes to help with the cleaning of their house. In the movie they negotiate the labor at $8 an hour. After scrubbing and scouring for a bit, and after observing a world that is completely foreign to her, Mariola succumbs to the toxic fumes of the cleaning agents and falls and faints. After regaining consciousness, she leaves the house in an angry huff. At the prodding of his sister and father, Yoyli goes out to find her and offer her a ride. She accepts not realizing the differences of their worlds that would place the two young people in a tense and heated situation that is never fully resolved.

Professor Damrot and the children come to a land that is not on the maps. At the same time, the little witch is given a task to protect this place from tourists.

Kazimierz Lipecki lives in a small town, with his three children. The mother died during childbirth, the youngest, a four-year-old girl, did not develop normally. When the grandmother, the pillar of home life, is also gone, Kazimierz Lipecki and his two older children, thirteen-year-old Łukasz and eleven-year-old Ula, start a desperate fight to defend simple, superior values - mutual love and family bonds.

Two fairies, Terencja and Felicja are in posession of the Lucky Rain Boots, which they intend to give to the most deserving person in the city of Kraków. However, they consistently fall into the wrong hands, creating a multitude of absurd and comedic situations.

Mountaineering legend Denis Urubko shares his thoughts on what mountaineering is (or isn't). "It's important to get up from the table before you're full at mealtime. Sometimes people try to enjoy life to the fullest. And I'm afraid of it," he says in this interview given to Dominik Szczepański and produced by Jarek Tokarski for Duży Format.

A few hours before the official visit of the communist party representative, the management of the visited factory learns about it. Everything must be prepared to show the guest how well the place is being managed.

A family drama set in a Polish village - a woman recounts her life after her husband's death, focusing on the differences between her two sons and the tragedy that befalls one of them.

The tenth edition of Polish Pride parades a colorful trail of rainbow flags through the streets of Warsaw. Along the route, Antek and his friends line up to warn of the “pink threat” in prayer and edifying hymns. As traditional Catholics, he and his Brotherhood hold deeply conservative views: sex before marriage is out of the question, homosexuality can be cured, abortion is a great evil and Poland is for the Poles. His sister thinks his homophobic ranting is pointless, because in a few years the planet will be destroyed anyway as nobody is doing anything about climate change.

In the sanatorium in Nałęczów, Halina meets Adolf Poświatowski. They both have heart disease.

Agnieszka and Marcin's love is blooming, just like Kasia and professor Wolanski. Grandma Solska only dreams of the wedding of her only grandchild - However, his former lover, Bozenka, stands in the way of the happiness of young Zawada. Mrs. Wolanska decides to radically change her life and disappears in mysterious circumstances. Peace of Piotr and Marlenka is disturbed by the unexpected visit of his mother from overseas – And some very compromising photos trigger an avalanche of events. The real end of the world is underway.

When her daughter vanishes under suspicious circumstances, a perfectionist architect must confront harsh truths—and seek help from the ex-husband she left behind.

An international group of women traffickers is increasingly active in Poland. At a Warsaw dance school, they tempt young women with the possibility of being cast by an American film studio. What the gang doesn’t know is that among the students, there is a secret police agent.

Twelve year old Krzyś who supports his unemployed parents by collecting scrap metal was a hero of the film “Hercules”. After they had seen the film, the two young people, Sergiusz and Kasia, were so moved by the boy’s fate that they decided to help him. They took him on holiday, first to Warsaw where they live and then to the seaside. The odds are that it was not a one-off example of help and the boy’s fate will improve considerably in the future.

Janusz, a self-confident 60-year old, an incredibly active person and an accomplished diver, suffers a stroke which leaves him paralyzed. Rehabilitation and assistance of his partner Asia help him regain mobility and improve his functions. He is still struggling with speech and the only person who understands what he says is Asia who interprets him for the world. What keeps Janusz going and motivates to carry on is his big dream - he would like to dive again, despite major hazard for his health and life. His goal is to travel to beautiful but perilous Blue Hole in Dahab, Egypt which poses a challenge even to fit divers.

A brilliant but undisclipined ski jumper prepares for an event while also trying to win a beautiful singer's heart.

Officers of the 5th Horse Rifle Regiment of the 1st Armored Division go to Brussels, where they meet Joachim Lelewel. To verify the story, the press officer of the division goes to Brussels.

A heartwarming story about a precautious, 8-year-old girl exploring the world with her globetrotting father and growing up in an unconventional family.

A picture of the broken world at the end of the century. A couple of contemporary young Polish intellectuals, artistic souls. They are sensitive beyond mediocrity, hence the daily hustle and bustle is not an excuse for them to live: they want to give it a meaning and shape of their own choosing. They search for their "roots", only to find out once again that, apart from natural tenderness, they have nothing in common with their families. There is no question of rebellion, of generational strife. Today's 30-year-olds face only technical, not sentimental, obstacles; childhood memories of parents not seen every day sink in, the image of a child living apart indifferently.

Mamele embraces the entire gamut of interwar Jewish life in Lodz--tenements and unemployed Jews, nightclubs and gangsters, religious Jews celebrating sukkot--but the film belongs to Molly Picon who romps undaunted through her dutiful daughter role saving siblings, keeping the family intact, singing and acting her way through the stages of a woman's life from childhood to old age.

One June evening, a Krakow prostitute nicknamed Rączka is accosted by a bloody man who wants to spend the night with her. The girl agrees, but when the next day she learns that a gruesome crime has been committed near the place where the mysterious customer accosted her, she reports the night's meeting to the police.

A dying man, influenced by a neighbor in the hospital room, decides to enjoy his life.

The story concerns the enlightenment of the Christian King Roger II by a young shepherd who represents pagan ideals. Kasper Holten’s production (The Royal Opera’s first) of Król Roger (King Roger) brought the opera back to the London stage after an absence of almost 40 years. Karol Szymanowski’s masterpiece powerfully presents the dilemmas of culture versus nature and man versus beast, and movingly depicts King Roger’s inner struggles as he moves from an impossible life of repressed desires to the other extreme, giving in to his own demons. Meanwhile, Roger’s people, seduced by the promises of the mysterious Shepherd, are drawn towards totalitarianism and repression. Antonio Pappano conducts Szymanowksi’s opulent and beautiful score, with a cast including Mariusz Kwiecień as Roger (one of the greatest interpreters of the role today), Saimir Pirgu as the Shepherd, and Georgia Jarman in her Royal Opera debut as Roger’s loving queen Roxana.

This intimate drama follows a prisoner serving his sentence who gets the chance to attend his mother's funeral. Instead of a warm welcome, however, he is greeted by coldness and mutual hostility in the family circle.

The Polish Army fights to liberate Kołobrzeg from the Germans in the final months of World War 2.

Wacław Kaczmarski has been breeding pigeons for many years, which is a family tradition (his grandfather and father bred pigeons before him). The birds are an important part of his life; he spends every free moment with them, and they are his escape from everyday worries. Kaczmarski and his family live in Targówek in old apartments that are scheduled for demolition. He gets a new apartment in Ursynów, where he immediately installs pigeon boxes on the balcony. The neighbors are outraged.

A documentary about a teenage girl living in a youth foster center and taking care of sick children