Discoveries from Poland World Cinema

During a trip, middle aged couple realises how disappointing their marriage is.

A car mechanic takes a hitchhiker.

Renia runs a massage parlour. An intimate beauty salon does not bring great profits, but its clients are a unique gallery of human individualities. Broken hearts, neurotic souls, lost singles. Some during the massage shed streams of tears, others reveal their secrets in the fumes of the oil.

One of the classes of the Warsaw high school boycotts the test in chemistry lessons. A schoolgirl who has not succumbed to pressure from her peers becomes the target of their revenge.

A well-known actor, Bogumił Kobiela, appears on the beach in Sopot, where he does various strange and funny things for sunbathers, incl. changes into winter overalls and goes for a walk in skis, pretends to be a lifeguard controlling the possession of swimming cards, says goodbye to accidentally met sunbathers as a departing vacationer.

A paint-on-glass film about the extraordinary, passionate, and sometimes sorrowful nature of tango.

Polish province. 20-year-old Stan quits his job at a car repair shop. He joins his friends, Gobi, Meta and the pack leader Anka, who live by mugging people and robbing stores. One evening Joanna, who is returning home late, falls victim to the gang. Under pressure from the group, Stan, wanting to prove that he is as tough as the rest, rapes the girl. Shortly after the incident, the boy breaks his leg and is taken to the hospital. In one of the nurses he recognizes his victim. However, the girl does not know who he is. A sense of guilt grows in the boy.

To say of Kantor that he is among Poland's most outstanding artists of the second half of the twentieth century is to say very little. Kantor is to Polish art what Joseph Beuys was to German art, what Andy Warhol was to American art. He created a unique strain of theatre, was an active participant in the revolutions of the neo-avant-garde, a highly original theoretician, an innovator strongly grounded in tradition, an anti-painterly painter, a happener-heretic, and an ironic conceptualist. These are only a few of his many incarnations. Apart from that, Kantor was an untiring animator of artistic life in post-war Poland, one could even say, one of its chief motivating forces. His greatness derives not so much from his oeuvre, as from Kantor himself in his entirety, as a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk that consists of his art, his theory, and his life.

In Robota, Verena Blok highlights the machinic power of the muscular, hyper-masculine body in motion, and draws attention to its former idealization and eroticization in Soviet propaganda. The artist reveals how, in Poland, a climate of precarity and economic hardship has allowed xenophobic rhetoric to fill the void created by the decline of socialist ideology. Recording herself in conversation with the men, Blok shows how they simultaneously propagate and suffer from prejudice, and gravitate toward the same nativist policies that limit their own freedoms.

Set in Polish high school in the year 1969, a story about a group of first year students who are trying to get through the year by finding a way around an eccentric history teacher.

Patients with serious lung diseases, who are now in a sanatorium, tell us about their thoughts and feelings.

In the New York apartment of 69-year-old prof. Arendt , 30-year-old Michael Ben Szaked appears, who had previously arranged an interview with her. He introduces himself as a student at the University of Jerusalem, writing a doctorate in philosophy. He is preparing a project to be sent to the university archive and collecting statements of Jewish intellectuals. The starting point is a book by prof. Hanna Arendt's about Eichmann to be published, which caused a real storm not only in Israel, but also around the world.

Julia is supposed to see the forest house her husband bought for the family for the first time today. Joyfully excited, she buys gifts. Unfortunately, luck is about to run out on this day as well.

Fine-arts student Zosia is a young daredevil mural painter who enlivens Warsaw with lovely graffiti. She lives with her mother Roma and grandmother Romy in a beautiful villa that has come under threat from property developers. Romy has long lost the deeds to the house. Will the women lose their home? And will they want to stay there once Roma finds new love and granny reveals a secret from long ago?

Have you ever wondered what happens to all those missing socks? We've all had that experience - we throw a pair of socks into a drawer, closet or laundry basket and then take them out... just one sock! Where do they disappear to? Perhaps they secretly dream of a more fascinating life than serving our feet? Perhaps they would like to become movie stars or politicians? Or maybe, dropping into a corner of our room, they travel back in time to prehistory? Wherever they end up, their adventures are sure to be filled with fun!

The dispatcher of the Medical Aviation Ambulance Service receives a phone call about the need to transport a patient from hundreds of miles away to Warsaw.

In the Ice Age, two families live side by side: a human family in a cave, a mammoth family in a clearing. Both families have one son. The mammoths care for each other as humans do, so a friendship between a boy and a mammoth is possible.

Black docu-comedy from the largest pawn shop in Poland. Times are tough, bankruptcy looms, but then the two choleric proprietors get a bright idea. A hilarious, heartwarming film.

A compelling story about a clash between two powerful personalities - the backstory of cooperation of Bayer Full frontman with a Polish-born Chinese businessman. Will the most popular disco polo band make it big in China?

Ada decides to play in a pornographic film. During preparations for the production, the girl slowly loses confidence. The situation gets complicated when the protagonist gets a call from her ex-boyfriend on stage. Ada tries to delay her performance but the pressure of the environment becomes stronger and stronger.

A visual experiment composed from simultaneous displays. Collage-type parallel of images becomes a sign of modernity, based on the chaos of multiplicity and excess. The collapse of linear forms leads to a complete degradation of borders, while the exhaustion of homogenous vision of the world – to the aesthetic eclecticism.

After watching a Bollywood film, a woman yearning for excitement begins to question the storyline of her own life.

The writer Jan Kellert - the author of the widely known book "The Legend of the Vistula", which is part of the canon of pre-war middle school reading, comes from Lublin to Żmurki, where he spent the occupation. The division of the Żmurki estate is to take place the next day. The welcome dinner becomes an opportunity to exchange political views and a critical view of the manor's inhabitants on the current situation.

Tomek comes from the so-called good family. However, she cannot find a common language with her parents. They are not very interested in what their child is doing. Tomek falls in love with nurse Ania, who becomes pregnant. He is friends with Mariusz, who is a member of his team. Mariusz lives in an orphanage. There he has problems with a certain drug addict. Tomek wants to help him, but his parents don't like it. They want Tomek to break off contacts with Ania and Mariusz. They believe that this is not company for their son.

After moving from the countryside to the city, an old man cannot find himself in the new reality.

A character study of a group of people stuck in each other's company during a long night in a small roadside garage.

In the Carpathian mountains, a community of highlanders keep their ancient culture alive, from their style of dress to their craftsmanship.

The story of the tumultuous relationship between a Jewish girl called Noemi and a Polish art student named Kamil is set at the outbreak of World War II.

Two friends are released from prison. While one goes back to the criminal path, the other tries to live an honest life.

A man tries to find love through a lonely hearts column.

Two kids bring in a rock-and-roll fugitive from another world pursued by merciless bounty hunters, and in order to save his life they have to find a way to send him back to where he came from.

In the northeastern corner of Poland, on the edge of a lake, stands a house of women – mothers, daughters, and sisters. From generation to generation, the women pass down their inaccessibility, steadfastness, and family secrets. Twenty-year-old Łucja will be able to begin an independent life only when she confronts the truth about her family. An old clarinet leads Łucja to a story long erased from the pages of a family album.

Documentary recording of one day of children's play in the yard of a Warsaw housing estate.

The film follows the exploits of Stefan as he fights against the Nazis as a RAF pilot.

Andrzej, who lives in the lowlands, comes to Zakopane. He rents a carriage and orders himself to be taken to the Strążyska Valley.

Shortly after World War 2 a young man arrives on the Recovered Territories and starts a romance with a young woman, all the while evading the ghosts of his past.

The first and—paradoxically—the final part of the triptych. The city, which is its subject, grows not only in space but, most importantly, in time. With all consequences.

A film in the experimental convention of a documentary fairy tale, in which reality merges with the world of the imagination of a poet in love.

A son, overwhelmed by a religious zeal, embarks upon a crusade to convert his father. It is a highly daunting task – mostly due to the personality of the latter. His father is Andrzej Rodan – an author of scandalous novels published in the late 1980s and an avowed atheist.

The Polish village of Stare Juchy has been pulled apart. A third of the population left to work in Iceland, and those who stayed behind—most of them from the older generation—are hoping for their return. But by now their children and grandchildren are settling into new lives on the other side of Europe. The distance separating them is great and the journey expensive, so they don’t get to hug each other very often. The best alternative is intensive contact by Skype.

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.

Tichy is caught by a storm on the side road, and therefore forced to seek shelter in strange looking house. He is welcomed by Profesor Zazul, who devoted his life to cloning experiments. Based on a short story by Stanisław Lem featured in Memories of Ijon Tichy.

The film reveals a number of the Amway corporation’s secrets (including obvious violations of Polish law). To prevent these seeing the light of day, Amway obtained a court ban on the film, preventing its release. Director Henryk Dederko and producer Jacek Gwizdała were sued by Amway several times on various counts. This was the first case of preventive censorship in the history of Polish cinema after 1989. The defendants were cleared of disseminating untrue information. This acquittal did not enable the ban on the film to be revoked; the court ban on its release remained in force for 12 years.

"Ladybug," "Silent" and "Cobra" are 19-year-old young men who have everything, but want even more. They are smugglers working for "Black" - the head of a Szczecin smuggling gang. Unexpectedly, a certain Chmielewski, the richest man in Szczecin and former boss of "Black", gives up his illegal business. The good "deals" with customs officials come to an end. The boys decide that they will continue to manage on their own. However, in order to continue doing "business", they need to hire someone with a "clean" passport. The choice falls on Robert - the class primer.

A reconstruction of the capture of Polish serial killer Zdzisław Marchwicki – the Vampire from Zagłębie.

Story of a girl from Surrey who visits Jozef, a Slovenian artist living in Poland, and embarks on an affair.

Maciek (35), tricked by his boss, steals his boss's car and goes on a desperate joyride across. He drives across the interior of Poland, where people are preparing for a celebration of an unspecified anniversary. In the meanwhile, Magda (35), a Town Hall employee in charge of the anniversary events, Highly committed at first, gradually notices all the dirt and corruption around her. At some point, she must choose between her career and integrity, whether she should accept it or risk her career and leave. Finally, on the celebration day, Maciek and Magda finally meet. Will it change anything for them?

A huge alarm clock takes care of a happy planet. It is inhabited by dwarfs wearing suits and ties. When the alarm clock breaks down, the dwarfs try to repair the huge mechanism.

The marital argument is interrupted by a phone call with a desperate cry for help.

Warsaw at night. Two young people, Eve and Chicor, are walking through the city after a wild party. Both have had something to drink. The girl coquets her partner, provokes with the promise of a "reward" for a nice evening. Chicor accepts the challenge and walks Eve home. The girl invites the boy to her apartment. A few minutes pass drinking wine and increasingly frivolous flirting. Everything seems to be moving towards a rapprochement. But this night will not end with easy, non-committal sex. Both parties are hiding under different masks. Eve is amused, seems confident and consistent in her ambiguous game with her boyfriend. Sometimes she resists her admirer, at other times she provokes and tempts him again. Chicory is intrigued by the girl's behavior, but slowly realizes that Eve is not just another prey, a woman for one night.

A fearless sea captain, Dr. Rebecca Gomperts, sails a ship through loopholes in international law, providing abortions on the high seas, and leaving in her wake a network of emboldened activists who trust women to handle abortion on their own terms.