Discoveries from Poland World Cinema

The work is an extension of the director’s earlier film Mary Nightmares from 2007.

A documentary about the graphic work of Bruno Schulz.

11-year-old Werka and her 9-year-old brother Marcel wind up at the front door of a children's home in Wroclaw. Asked who they are, Werka replies, "We are children of communists." In return the teacher yells, "Why do they only send us Judeo-communists?!!!" It is 1949. Werka and Marcel's mother, a pre-war communist, is arrested and charged with collaborating with American intelligence. She will do five and half years. Her children will spend these years in other children's homes. A film about a brother and a sister marked with the ideological choices of their parents.

Polish-Belarusian border from a bird’s eye view. Refugees, who are trying to cross it to get to Poland, are hiding in the forest. As if in a computer game, they need to go back to square one when they encounter an evil character or the game is over. Based on the author and witnesses’ accounts, the animation depicts the terrifying humanitarian crisis which has been going on since 2021.

Aram is the pseudonym of Arkadiusz Rybicki, politician, social activist, MP. On April 10, 2010, he died in Smolensk, on his way to the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre. He was 57 at the time. 40 years earlier, in the Gdańsk Shipyard, he made the inscription "We will not forget Katyn". Already at the age of seventeen, he started opposition activities. From 1979 he was associated with the Young Poland Movement, he edited the "Bratniak" magazine. In August 1980, he collaborated with the striking workers of the Coast, wrote down 21 demands of the Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee. After that memorable August, he became involved in the activities of the Solidarity Trade Union. He was interned during martial law. In the second half of the 1980s, he started working in the secretariat of Lech Wałęsa, in the late 1990s he became deputy minister of culture, and then a member of the Sejm on behalf of the Civic Platform.

A documentary presenting Radziszewski's meeting with Ryszard Kisiel, a personality behind the first East-Central European gay-zine, Filo and 're-discovered' by the director. The backdrop of the film is Kisiel's hitherto hidden archive, consisting of dozens of color slides, documenting photo shoots organized by Kisiel and his friends in a private apartment. The photos taken in 1985 and 1986 may be considered a direct reaction to the Polish anti-gay militia campaign ('Hiacynt'), during which the Secret Police collected information about homosexuals in Poland using them later for blackmail.

The Orange Alternative was the most unusual and humorous opposition movement in the communist Poland of the 1980s. This is the story of its leaders and most memorable gigs.

1996 Jan Jakub Kolski short film

a Leszek Komorowski cartoon

Wiktoria reminisces on the last memory of seeing her father. She questions the credibility of memories and how with time they start to fade away

A "neo-giallo" short film about a need to fulfill hidden desires that bursts the characters world from the inside.

After the Second World War, a cemetery turns into a city. The camera flies over Warsaw to take a bird's-eye view of its mosaic beauty: the Old Town, Śródmieście, and modern blocks of flats. The soundtrack reflects the mood of the summer of 1965.

A couple of young Ukrainians, Olena and Dima, is travelling to Sweden. Dima’s wallet with her passport gets stolen in a Polish train. A thief throws it through a window. They have to find it before a ferry leaves. The real reason of this travel reveals.

Kazimierz Zaliwski was born into an intellectual family, he graduated from high school, and knows two foreign languages. The foreman, in love with his daughter, decides not to continue his studies. He wants to take a job as a locksmith in a factory.

They live together, but live separately - held together by a thin thread. An unfortunate accident leads them to each other again.

A young family is realizing their dream of a peaceful life away from the bustle of the big city. Their newfound tranquility is shattered by the arrival of the protagonist’s late father’s brother, whose sudden appearance forces the young man to confront his painful past.

The documentary depicts the process of making the film adaptation of Jerzy Pilch's novel, 'Under a Strong Angel'.

The film focuses on unknown or little-known aspects of the life and work of Zdzisław Beksiński—from the time when he lived and worked in his hometown of Sanok, designing futuristic bus models for a local factory, through the moment when he left the city in a huff, burning some of his paintings (photographs of this event!), through his "Warsaw" period, the death of his wife and son, his return to his artistic roots, and ending with the last minutes before his death.

About the love of a living man and a dead woman, in the truest sense. Victoria is not a corpse, but just a ghost. Before becoming a ghost, she was Stanislav's wife, and they went through the horrors of married life together. To fall in love with his own wife, Stasik had to kill her, and only then realized that he still had romantic feelings for her.

The titular magic lantern is simple projection apparatus, invented several hundred years ago. In the animation, it appears as an object symbolizing the power of eyes and behind the scenes crimes.

The story of a marriage arranged under family pressure, against the couple's feelings. Adapted from a novel by Maria Rodziewiczówna.

A man's face appears on the screen with his eyes covered by a black strip. After a while, the strip covers his mouth, and when it covers his eyes again the man begins to say something.

A study of the face of a man ruined by alcohol. His difficult experiences and age are well-visible. A round mark on the forehead, deep furrows, lack of symmetry of facial features. The melancholy trumpet theme is accompanied by a continuous, disturbing sound.

1922 picture starring Franciszek Brodniewicz.

Szczepan is desperate enough to undergo experimental therapy at an insomnia treatment clinic, where he endures strict discipline and fierce rivalry.

Our protagonists seek to transcend all this in order to experience that which is truly real, to unveil themselves. The theater group, in continuing the work of Jerzy Grotowski, recognized as the greatest theatrical revolutionary of the 20th century, goes beyond human limits. Their work has been shrouded in mystery.

A Polish musical short film featuring professional musicians and pianists.

In a world where Augmented Reality has taken over every aspect of human life, there is a very tempting vision of a return to a technology-free world. The heroes will abandon intelligent lenses and private avatars and move to a place that will irretrievably change their lives.

When a heart breaks, the gap spreads along the weakest and most receptive parts of the enclosing world. ‘Fading Snow’ presents one night from the life of 35-year-old Mania who leaves her safe place – the theatre – and sets off to find her way back to home in a broken city of Warsaw.

A man and a woman meet in a waiting room and immediately get close to each other. They commence a game that gradually gets more and more ferocious. Their faces resemble masks while shapes slowly lose their integrity. Bodies are formed like clay, embracing each other up to the limits of impossibility. III is a portrait of a woman in an exhausting relationship with a man, which allures and repulses at the same time. The film is the third part of the triptych Impossible Figures and other stories.

The sixth and last animation by Stefan Schabenbeck before emigrating to Germany in the early seventies. Alien life form seen from the other side of the telescope. A robot arrives on an unknown planet, whose task is to get to know and try to colonize a new world.

An industrial film on two kinds of labour: socialist and capitalist. A poetic investigation of human relations with the soil and the Earth. A striking journey from Poland to Taiwan that makes us think, contemplate and dream. Pure film.

After only a few years of training, the top student at the fishing school is appointed captain of a fishing vessel. The experienced crew of the Orion - a bunch of old sea dogs - openly show their dislike for the new captain, a youngster with no experience. The conflict deepens as a result of the captain's "bad luck"—the ship is not catching fish even in places where it used to catch a lot. It is only when the captain discovers the cause, which is a malfunction of one of the devices, that he is fully rehabilitated in the eyes of the crew.

Sylvia, leaving prison, wants to return to the world outside the bars and reclaim her first love, Aneta. Life decisions made by Aneta (marriage and motherhood) make it difficult for women to be together again. Not fitting into the modern world, Sylvia will once again try to fight for her place by clashing with the harsh realities of a society that rejects people with convictions. Will love overcome the reality in which both women live?

Joshua, a forty-something monk, leaves the monastery walls to take care of a dying hermit. Disappointed in people, he decides to leave his place to finish the hermit's start of the iconostasis alone...

What was to be a coveted tour of a Japanese group around Europe had a tragic end. The 1979 events are remembered by a couple who went on their honeymoon at that time.

A young gay man, who struggles to admit who he is. Being for the first time far away from his friends and family, he decides to come out to a complete stranger who happens to be lesbian. A story about a random encounter while traveling around Europe shows how one stranger can change your life.

Bulandra the miner explores the underground and wins gold from its inhabitant, an old spirit. Little does he know that the Devil will cause mischief to him once he gets out.

The second animated work from filmmaker, sculptor and painter Jerzy Kalina. Using multi-plane techniques mixed with paper animation and coloured grains (an element found in his first film, ...i stała się światłość, W trawie is a fantastical exploration of the world beneath our feet.

When you are chased by three ruthless bandits, the wound in the stomach does not want to stop bleeding and the bag filled with gold is getting heavy, you will need something more than three rounds to survive.

Bombed-out streets, destroyed Russian tanks, evening meals in an Underground repurposed into a shelter. Image by image, the directors push beyond easily reproducible images of war to enter the reality the country has experienced since February 24, 2022.

Ania, a few years old girl, starts attending to a new kindergarten. The film shows the difficult moments of a little girl's adaptation to a new environment, and the impact of the institution's educational methods on assimilation with her peers.

Intrigues, tricks, brawls (and a social commentary) all of that for a free place on beach…

A Polish silent film from 1922, it was the first adaptation of Stefan Żeromski's 1912 novel "The Faithful River." The film's central theme is the love story of Prince Odrowąż, a wounded insurgent, and Salomea, and the fateful intervention of the prince's mother. The plot is complemented by allegorical tableaux vivants by Artur Grottger from the "Polonia" and "Lithuania" series. The final scene depicts a group of veterans of the January Uprising in independent Poland.

Join our friends on their next adventure... The stories of two brothers - the elder Śruba, a natural leader whose thinking prefers the rational world to the imagination. He's lively, and like any prankster, he always gets into trouble. Kubik is a born intellectual, a bit of a little adult, although he is actually cheerful and playful, careful and meticulous. His older brother is his role model! When Śruba goes somewhere, so does Kubik!

When the war broke out in Ukraine, the parents sent Vlad and his sister to Poland to ensure their safety. They themselves remained in the conflict-torn country. Vlad is expected to look after his younger sister, but his thoughts constantly flee to his homeland and especially to his father, who has been called up to the army.

Radek, an aspiring and ambitious life-coach, pushes for a promotion. Unfortunately, when he looses his self confidence in a bar fight, he resorts to mind-hacking, which gives unexpected results...