Discoveries from Poland World Cinema

A young actor preparing for the part of Macbeth recalls his wartime memories connected with his mentor.

A firsthand experience about bureaucracy's stark-naked truth, inside the microcosmic reality of an office where a lot of unexpected things may happen long before the coffee break.

An elderly man is attacked in his home by a group of nationalists

In one elementary school children are told to learn Julian Tuwim’s poem “Science” by heart as homework. The poetic phrase is sometimes incomprehensible, some words require explanation, but parents come to their aid. Unfortunately, not all metaphors can be explained in an unambiguous way and poetry clashes with the prose of life, in particular when a football match of Legia Warszawa is broadcast on television. Some will get Bs, some will fail, but everyone will learn something from this lesson.

The film Survival offers a grotesque critique of homelessness and environmental decay through a unique blend of live-action and diverse animation techniques, including pixilation and 3D. As an auteur project, it integrates these styles seamlessly to create a striking artistic vision. Its scenography embraces upcycling or "trash art," echoing Marcel Duchamp’s legacy of elevating banal objects into profound art. By incorporating street art and graffiti, the film sparks dialogue about art’s role in society. This innovative approach transforms waste into priceless commentary, challenging viewers to reconsider their surroundings and the nature of creativity itself.

A road movie, the main theme of which is the pursuit of happiness and the saying: "I check" - an emotional illusion. It tells the story of Oskar trying to escape from a toxic relationship. His friend Aleks takes him to Amsterdam's Red Light District, where the Oscar adventure will take place.

Zdzicho leaves prison and tries to get his share from his former partners.

Rena is on the threshold of adulthood. For her and her mother, the Internet is a form of escape from their humdrum everyday lives. In the world of talent shows, Facebook and YouTube, the keyboard seems to be a gateway to fame and love. Yet the border between fantasy and reality is quickly obliterated.

A little boy, craving for his father's attention, imagines a made-up "Mr. President" who looks just like his father but is caring and attentive.

In a little house all for herself, an elderly woman moves through her day. While she tends to every chore on the docket, we learn some things about her. She has a green thumb, she speaks Polish while on the phone, she likes to nap. A prayer sounds. They are words from her mother-in-law, Polish poet Zofia Bohdanowiczowa, who was also displaced from her native Poland. Three generations meet, one by writing, one by living, and the third by the very making of this film, a composition of her ancestors through sound and image.

Joseph Malesa is a former party activist, labor leader, and mason. The documentary describes his career and life through ups and downs.

Teenage skaters from Minsk are enjoying the summer of 2020, probably the most difficult summer in the history of Belarus.

A film miniature to classical music. An atmospheric film impression introducing the viewer to the aesthetic motifs of the Far East: a fan, a vase with Eastern ornaments, a Chinese teacup, fabric. A butterfly flies out of the opening fan and leads the viewer through details to panoramas of Chinese landscapes, only to return to the closing fan in the film's final sequence. The film image synchronized to the rhythm of Fritz Kreisler's music. The animated film, made in watercolor technique on paper, retains the character and delicacy of Chinese painting.

The story concerns life and work of Polish contemporary painter and photographer Kris Krzysztof Marchlak. The documentary focuses specifically on the artist’s recreation of the quattrocento and mannerist iconography of Saint Sebastian through the medium of artistic photography. “Simulacrum” was directed by Weronika Plińska and Wojciech Jankowski. The film was shot between 2023 and 2025 in Poland and in Italy, as a result of ethnographic research project, based on interviews and participant observation, which concerned creative documentary filmmaking as a tool for exploring contemporary art practices.

Tomek and his new girlfriend Anika pay a visit to his mother, who lives in the countryside. While they are there, Tomek informs his mother that Anika is newly pregnant. The news about the pregnancy comes as a big shock to Tomek's mother.

The protagonist of the film, a radio reporter, is a type of person who does not recognize any ethical standards on the way to a professional career. He builds successes in his journalistic career on the misfortune of another man - a woman who loves him. However, the tragic end of this procedure breaks him down and prompts him to take a desperate step.

Magdalena is a young, single mother who tries to raise her daughter by day and become a DJ by night. When she meets Julia, her dreams get a chance to come true but her traumatic past stands in the way to her new life.

When a casual relationship evolves in Warsaw, Sandra Drzymalska and Wiktoria Kruszczyńska question what comes next if love enters the conversation.

A revolution that ends before it begins, a senseless and degrading job of serving the wealthy, power over the world concentrated in the hands of irresponsible people. This cannot work - the orchestra is ready for the last performance...

Three families of Ukrainian refugees find asylum in a seaside town in Poland. Each of them tell their own stories about the dangerous escape from the war. Their cars were vital in the whole journey and, like their owners, suffered a lot and will never be quite the same.

Konrad is a stand-up artist. He has achieved international success some time ago, but currently his ideas are not appreciated by either producers or audiences. He lives in the shadow of his famous partner. And when at some point he is truly alone, his mother and sister reappear in his life, relations with whom can be described as ... complicated.

The film was made at the Polish Sculpture Center in Oransko, during sculpture workshops for deaf-blind people. The camera shows the process of creation, which is closely connected with getting to know oneself. It is accompanied by hesitation, anger and joy.

Martial Law in Poland. Marek the journalist steals a truck and starts his quest.

The documentary depicts a community of stadium hooligans who arrange brawls, or so-called "setups," among themselves.

Knocking opens the door on Jehovah's Witnesses. They are moral conservatives who stay out of politics and the Culture War, but they won a record number of court cases expanding freedom for everyone. They refuse blood transfusions on religious grounds, but they embrace the science behind bloodless surgery. In Nazi Germany, they could fight for Hitler or go to the concentration camps. They chose the camps. Following two families who stand firm for their controversial and misunderstood Christian faith, KNOCKING reveals how one unlikely religion helped to shape history beyond the doorstep.

A film from the "Silhouettes of Polish Literature" series

The protagonist is Ania, former art school student, a freegan, performance artist and member of the Extinction Rebellion organisation. She protests against climate change and takes part in women’s strikes. During protests she practises de-escalation – a method to reduce violent behaviours.

It is morning, April 10, 2010. A nice, calm, spring day is coming. Millions of Polish families are still asleep when, in dozens of houses and apartments, nearly a hundred people are getting ready to travel by the safest means of transportation - the presidential plane. The destination: Smolensk. However, as the day draws to a close, unimaginable sadness and pain will invade these dozens of homes and apartments. Feelings that will be shared by the entire nation.

Years after WWII a group of German "tourists" arrives in Poland to find a hidden Nazi treasure.

A young poet is hired to boost the morale of water pump workers.

A street in downtown Warsaw transforms into a kaleidoscopic portrait of Polish society. Behind the viewfinder is an Indian immigrant, who seeks to overcome the boundaries between himself and an anxiety-ridden country.

A young boy finds out that the video game his father had just bought him takes place not only on the computer screen, but also in real life, as two evil men kidnap his father he must win the game to get him back.

Is it right to be treated as a weirdo just because you are Death incarnate? Even Death has feelings, and God forbid, even Death may die.

A nostalgic portrait of Professor Szymon Malinowski, a 62-year-old atmospheric physicist at the University of Warsaw who worries that climate change may cause human civilisation to collapse in the coming decades.

Initiated in 2016, this artistic endeavor brings together non-binary, transgender, and queer individuals to explore their experiences beyond external definitions, redefining identity and corporeality with their unique idioms. In Endless, these explorations unfold through various media—performance, music, and VR—culminating in a hypnotic film that resembles a narcotic vision.

A thrilling story about the liquidation of a Polish terrorist group in Slovakia in the post-war years.

A young woman, Anna, is getting ready to make her own movie. After a while, she discovers that she is just a heroine in the movie and nothing really depends on her. Rebellious against the author, she writes her own film, recreating the characters from scratch - but neither do her characters want to be heroes in someone else's film. The story of the heroine is intertwined with the story of a critic who "chased" writers all his life to finally find out that his efforts were pointless.

This film takes place in 1941. Five polish women of different ages, and an adopted Jewish girl, have been exiled to a small Bulgarian town on the Black Sea coast. They believe they have found a quiet refuge, but the war even reaches this remote place.

A young married couple and their everyday hardships. Unemployed Wojtek decides to sell grilled chicken from a street stall. His wife Agata is a film student making a documentary on her husband.

Marcin Koszałka returns in this film to a forgotten genre, namely a mountain film. The protagonist of his story is Piotr ‘Mad' Korczak, while somewhere in the background there is his rival Andrzej Marcisz. The director focuses on the career decline of a great master, provoking his reflection on his future life, when he will no longer be able to climb mountains. A moving story about inability to come to terms with old age and the desire of immortality.

Daniel goes to a party where he can't find his place. By coincidence, he gets involved in paying a delivery girl for a stack of pizzas.

It is hard to imagine Polish science fiction without Maciej Parowski. He was the editor-in-chief of the Polish iconic monthly Fantastyka who stood behind the success of several generations of authors. People from across Poland were sending their texts to him. If it had not been for him, no one knows what would have happened to "The Witcher" or "The Cathedral", an Oscar-nominated film by Tomasz Bagiński.

‘This is the cradle of our beloved music. We need to verify our skills there’, said Michał Urbaniak to Polish jazz vocalist Urszula Dudziak to convince her to go and conquer the US with him. The film is a recording of the fascinating and tumultuous journey reported from off-screen by the artist herself.

In a contemporary world in one of the European cities, three friends, as they face a military conflict in their country, must modify their plans for the future.

WWII through the memories of a simple underground soldier, who struggles to keep his senses while caught up in a meaningless bloodshed. Moments of everyday life during three years of war inspired by real diary.

Ukraine, 2022. Russian soldiers are committing war crimes on the civilian population. The occupied areas are cut off from the rest of the country and the residents face death if they try to escape. Volunteers, risking their lives, provide them with food supplies. One of them is Dmytro.

Marcin is an exceptionally gifted child - a computer genius. The enigmatic "Computer King" has therefore set his sights on him. He resides in the netherworld where he exercises his power over famous deceased scientists and artists. He's going to use them to snatch the young programmer away from the real world and into his own kingdom. Now every machine Marcin comes across may well be a bringer of his doom.

A young couple is waiting to receive an apartment.

Two Lviv batiars are taking care of their deceased neighbor's granddaughter.

Three young friends travel round Poland, making a living by acting out religious scenes at fairs and selling photographs. Problems arise when a mysterious man joins them.

Tomek is a psychotherapist who requires help himself. His professional and personal life is in disarray and he needs to put it together again from scratch. His frustration is intensified by renovation work next door, an excessively difficult climbing route and an exceptionally well-informed patient - a stand-up comedian who approaches him with a surprising request.