Discoveries from Poland World Cinema

Movie joke about a man painting slogans on a wall and the law enforcement officers who try to prevent him from doing so....

An elevator and its passengers, a mother-to-be reading a fairy tale to her unborn child, a lost boy caught between his rowdy, drunk parents, a dance lesson for the deaf, a guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, bored MPs listening to a speech in parliament - six documentary etudes on the subject of silence. A continuation of the 2003 exercises included in the film Silence. The authors are students of the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing.

There was Hersh Dubrown - a quiet, god-fearing, poor and virtuous scribe of holy books. And behold, his house became a battlefield between Good and Evil. The good was based on Hersz Dubrown's pure soul - and Satan reached for this soul. He lost her and corrupted her with money. . . Satan first appeared as a lottery ticket seller. He persuaded Hersz to buy a lottery ticket, let him win and get rich. And Hersz for winning the lottery - tempted by Satan - sets up a factory and produces mechanically. . . tallit. Satan, in the form of the merchant Uriel Mazyk, ruins the homeworkers who make tallits by hand. But Satan cannot defeat Hersh Dubrown. When he was up to his ears in sins, he punishes himself - he commits suicide.

After a long time in hospital, Maciek is released and finds out that his beloved old car is gone. With the help of a homeless old man, Maciek finds the car at a scrap-heap and tries to repair it.

Szymon, a thirty-year-old doctor with a girlfriend, a car and a mortgaged flat, feels a growing sense of impending disaster. After his birthday party he reviews the day’s regrets—especially the saga of Rysiek, his family’s unwilling tenant—and sees in his father’s weakness a warning of his own potential failure, blending humor with existential unease.

A thirty-year-old bank consultant goes to see his fiancée. The wedding is in a few days. He picks up a hitchhiker on the highway. During a stop at a roadside bar, someone steals his car. How will this unusual bachelor party end? Will the fiancé be faithful to his Landryneczka?

Cyprian, Filip, Ola and Kuba – four, out of fifteen of young patients who are in a long-term coma. Their parents are determined to help the and bring them back to life. The film presents an unusual story of people, who are not giving up in the face of tragedy. They are filled with hope and fight for the health of their children at the “Alarm Clock” clinic located near Warsaw. Most Polish hospitals serve as a sort of a checkroom to children in a comma, while the Alarm Clock clinic is a worldwide phenomenon – it offers just fifteen beds, but managed to wake up eight patients in one year.

The male hamster wants to eat, but his female mate doesn't want him to be fat.

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.

The film is the first serious attempt at stereoscopic, animated 3D cinema in Poland. A metaphor for human life, in which the protagonist travels through different worlds, i.e., successive stages of existence, the film gained extraordinary depth and a three-dimensional effect thanks to the new technology.

In the shadows of the world's most important piano competition, a group of expert tuners spend a month vying to achieve the perfect pitch so that the champion pianist will win on their instrument.

The essentially uncovers one little-known story of unimaginable humanity, generosity and kindness. Towards the end of WW2 the Polish ambassadorial team in Bombay, led by determined heroine Kira Banasinska and supported by a local Maharaja, dispatched a convoy of food relief thousands of miles to Soviet Siberian labour camps where Polish women and children were starving. To the British Raj’s surprise they returned with 5,500 women and children who found refuge and welcome in India. Over 70 years later a number of now elderly Polish people return to a town South of Mumbai where they were able to find safety and discover the joys of childhood.

The eponymous Zygfryd is a reclusive young circus acrobat. Professor Drawicz is overwhelmed by Zygfryd's circus act and tries to make the world of art accessible to him - with tragic consequences.

An adaptation of Waldemar Lysiak's novel. The entire plot takes place during a long and dramatic night, in a single room that becomes a cage with no way out for the participants. The intrigue is played out in dialogue between thirteen characters. Each of them, while talking to the others, faces his own fears at the same time, fenced off from the other participants of the supper by the barrier of his own ego. The situation is without a way out - everyone will pay the price for what happened that night.... "The Price" is a thriller, at the same time being a psychological novel that keeps you in suspense until the conflict is resolved, but certainly not ended.

The waves of the fjords hit the shore waking the little gnome. In a fantastic mountain landscape, the gnome finds the entrance to a mysterious grotto. Fascinated by the flickering light, he follows the direction from where it comes. The creeping gnome is watched from behind picturesque rocks by trolls. Behind the next rock paragraph, the gnome notices the shadows of the trolls dancing in a frenzied rhythm. Above a huge bonfire towers the figure of the King of the Mountains. The gnome is pulled into the dancing circle. In the final stage of the ecstatic dance, the King of the Mountains leaps into the fire and emerges from it as the all-powerful ruler of the underworld.

A story about an actor whose glory days are behind him. Konstanty Kurczek works as a prompter in a theater, and his only passion is Napoleon. Over time, his life seems to be getting better and better - he marries Ludwika, an extra, and they have a child, but one day he catches his wife in flagrante with Grywicz, and his whole world falls apart. The final straw is the fact that his wife's lover is to play Napoleon, and when asked to leave Jadwiga alone, he responds with laughter. Kurczek takes drastic measures.

A man observes the movement of pawns in a game. Under the board, people work hard at the big mechanism that drives the pawns. The film shows a blind and destructive force that causes and fuels war.

The 15-year-old Filip is beaten up at a bridge near the neighborhood. In revenge, his father buys a billboard in the centre of the block of flats with information about a reward for help in finding the perpetrator.

A short film advertising the newspaper Sztandar Młodych (The Banner of Youth), noteworthy for its abstract elements painted directly onto film stock. An attempt at showing the complexity of the world in a capsule, the film reflects the new policy of the openness to the West during the Thaw of the late 1950s in Poland.

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.

"The biography of an adult man is like a multi-storey magazine - hundreds of facts, large and small events, painful places, motives extinguishing," says Kazimierz Karabasz in the film. Andrzej Sapija decided to show the life of his "teacher and guide". The documentary, which shows the method of working with the protagonist and the master's many years of film experience, is at the same time the story of Polish documentaries told by the master.

A man's failure to uphold an Easter tradition causes the demonic Evil Easter Bunny to pay him a visit, so Boner enlists the Good Easter Bunny to help.

Marcin, who is struggling to raise his 10-year-old daughter Emi, who lives with a prosthetic hand, receives an order from a client nicknamed EL-2040 on the eve of the premiere of the dance show "Algorithmic", which takes place on the anniversary of his wife's death.

Two friends, 18-year-olds Bogo and Rychu, are faced with the choices of adolescence. Both have problems with women. Bogo is the "tough guy" type, who - convinced of his own effectiveness in picking up girls - pays no attention to the means used. Rychu is a dreamer, a lost victim of fate; he has never had a girlfriend before. Bogo decides to help.

Universam Grochów was a now-defunct shopping and service mall that emerged in the 1970s in Warsaw's Praga-Południe district. This department store functioned as a shopping center and a hub for the social life of right-bank Warsaw. At the end of 2016, the iconic building was demolished. The film captures the final moments of the enterprise, with long-term and dedicated employees guiding us through its corridors. Their approach to work and economic model make Universam a living museum and a phenomenon at the intersection of urban planning and sociology. We also see the significant void left in the local community by the building's demolition.

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.

Fifteen-year-old Basia learns that Mr. and Mrs. Olszowski are not her real parents. The girl wants to find out how she ended up with her adoptive family. The search for identity will cause many brawls. In the finale, love and friendship prevail.

The TV-obsessed burgomaster of a Polish town and his equally addicted wife are literally sucked into their set, vanishing from the living room. Their three bewildered children must band together to pull Mom and Dad back out of the television before they’re lost forever.

Marcin, 28, is an unemployed polonist trying to get back together after splitting from his girlfriend.

A documentary in which a picture of pre-war Poznan is reconstructed with the help of archival materials from regional collections and staging. The structural axis of the film is a radio broadcast from August 1939 with the participation of well-known and respected residents of the city, who answer the question: is there going to be a war?

A young couple who are unable to have children make a deal with a poor woman to buy her illegitimate child rather than wait through the time-consuming process of legal adoption.

Actor Henryk bets his friend that he will make his ex, Tatiana, come back to him in half an hour.

Janek and Halina came to the big city from the countryside in search of work. He works on a construction site. After getting paid, instead of meeting his fiancée, he goes out for vodka with his friends, who then drag him to street girls. The consequences of this misstep have affected Janek's health, and he is ashamed of his illness and seeks treatment from a quack. Halina's sister, Zocha, is expecting a baby, but her father's incurable illness causes the baby to be stillborn. Janek, distraught by Karol's tragedy, throws himself in front of a car. Fortunately, he does not die. Finally, he goes to a venereal disease specialist and undergoes treatment.

Helenka Roliczówna is the daughter of a wealthy cosmetics manufacturer and a boarder at the Institute for Girls' Further Education. There she meets Stefan Frankiewicz, who has decided to visit his uncle, a music teacher at the school. The young people quickly take a liking to each other.

Antoni lives by routine and isolation, hoping they will keep his depression and guilt at bay. His carefully controlled life is disrupted when he meets Olga, a volatile but determined warehouse worker whose reckless energy and dream of opening a bakery pull him into an unexpected relationship.

Interview with Andrzej Zulawski director talks about his two passions films and books.

A film from the "Silhouettes of Polish Literature" series

At 82 years old, Lula is every inch the rebel. An openly gay man in communist Poland, he organized underground parties and after-curfew salons of men inside private apartments. He enthusiastically took up drag, despite a fiercely homophobic culture, to free himself from the stifling correctness of the 80s. But now, he's an old, single man in a youth-obsessed world. His friend was crushed by depression and killed himself, but somehow Lula, now Poland's oldest drag queen, remains buoyant. Is he escaping loneliness with his constant clubbing, looking for love yet again to insulate himself against what he knows is coming? Lula isn't waiting for approval. Filmmaker Bogna Kowalczyk's energetic portrait pairs with her subject's kinetic drive, right down to the stellar soundtrack and nimble camerawork. Whether it's meeting fans at Pride or selecting an artist to sculpt his specialty crematorium urn, try to keep up with a man who knows life is to be lived out loud.

December, 1981. World-class champion Ewa Jaskólska is looking forward to a cruise around the world with her yacht. At her farewell party, several people are present that are connected to the new Solidarnośc movement. The guests are filmed by a TV journalist. The introduction of the martial law in Poland leads to problems for all people involved. Can Ewa go back to her home country after these dramatic changes in Poland?

“Lena” tells a story of a young, pregnant girl who lives in a Warsaw’s tenement. Tired of being constantly left alone in her flat, she develops paranoia: she starts hearing someone breaking in and sees words written on the mirror telling her to abort the child.

A unique documentary on the work of a legendary genius of theatre, Tadeusz Kantor. Filmmaker Denis Bablet traces Kantor's roots as a visual artist in Poland and explores his ingenious methods of designing the props which become living sculptures in his extraordinary theatre productions.

A family on the border of Siberia and Kazachstan struggles to deal with a trauma that happened in their past.

"Legenda" is a document about a famous polish writer Stefan Żeromski. It serves as an interview with people who knew the artist.

The film is about life under the pressure of illusory misfortunes. The main character of the film - Sebastian, after the departure of his daughter, can not find himself in the surrounding community. Living in constant fear, in secret from his neighbors, he decides to take advice from a folk shaman.

In a fairy-tale village lives Jakubek, a former legionnaire. He buried his wife some time ago and now lives with his adult but very shy son Janeczek. Three of Jakubek's comrades-in-arms also live in the same village: Kotek, Ingatko, and Gniewisz. For some time now, the legionnaires have been talking more and more about dying. Jakubek, the oldest of them, already has a beautiful coffin prepared and longs for death because he misses Brzózka, his youthful love, very much.

Christmas is coming. In a letter to Santa Claus, Ania writes that she would like to get a brother, but she only gets a doll. Then she is offended and cannot believe that no one believes in Santa Claus. Ania goes to meet Krzyś, the boy from the neighborhood. It turns out that he has never been visited by Santa Claus, so Ania dresses up as Santa Claus and gives him 3 gifts. Meanwhile, Krzyś is already 4 years old, so he should get 4 gifts.

Film portrait combining documentary, feature scenes and animation of writer painter, illustrator and graphic artist known for short story collections that bring back the magical reality of Poland's pre-war shtetl's. Adam Sikora and Agata Tuszyńska reached those who remember Schulz - his Drohobycz students of the 30's and 40's of the previous century. At present they live all over the world, however, they remember very clearly the figure of their drawing teacher, the inconspicuous man tiptoeing the city streets, who at the same time was a powerful tale-mage spinning a yarn during lessons.

The street poll proves that the memory of Nowa Huta has faded in the Poles' consciousness. The documentary filmmaker and his team decided to seek out the heroes of those events from 1949-1954, from the beginning of the works to the smelting of the first pig iron from the first furnace.

The central character unexpectedly finds himself in the middle of the screenplay he is struggling to write.

The crusty hero, Habryka, is an old miner who has won many worker medals and is now retired with his youngest son and latter's family living with him. To build new apartment buildings, the old houses are being bought out, the residents given apartments in the new houses, and being cleared away. But Habryka refuses to sell.

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 mysterious Mania appears in Warsaw. The girl, together with the other children, experiences amazing adventures.

A contemporary story of a young married couple, Wojtek and Ola, who take in Kacper, a boy from an orphanage, for the Christmas season. This unusual child changes their approach to life and each other.