Discoveries from Poland World Cinema

A film miniature to classical music inspired by the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Praise for the joy of life, synchronously set to the vocalization of Mozart's piece.

Beautiful ships sail towards each other across the blue ocean. The admiral observes them with a spyglass. Actually, all the things take place in his mind.

At sunrise, a peasant begins plowing. This iconographic motif becomes a caricature in the animation. The problem is that the peasant gropes, he plows through the legs of a resting peasant woman, railway tracks, a dining carriage, double bedrooms, office corridors, palace interiors, and meetings of diplomats. His march through the country is shown on TV. The peasant is really surprised to see a TV set in the rump of a horse. He crosses a crowded beach and disappears in the depths of the water together with the setting sun.

Tadeusz Mazowiecki, the first prime minister of free Poland, takes us through successive stages of the political transformation at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. He ponders, listens and negotiates sharply. He must be aware he’s making a great revolution. What values and ideals inspired this transformation? What can we learn from him today? “Make Revolutions by Phone: A Short Movie about Tadeusz Mazowiecki ” is a documentary essay based entirely on archival materials from various periods of Tadeusz Mazowiecki’s life, edited in a creative way suggesting that Mazowiecki is conducting the conversation with himself. Dynamic animations and young alternative music give a counterpoint to the story.

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

Morgue worker starts talking to the dead.

The film explores the only known case in the history of post-WWII era of concentration camp survivors helping the SS Commandant of the Auschwitz and Ravensbruck camps to escape prison and justice in Nazi trial.

A Countess from Poznań returns from a foreign trip and brings with her two billygoats as live mascots. The next day she goes to the Mayor and demands that the clocks on the Town Hall’s tower play a tune at the top of every hour – and that she play the tune herself. Since the Mayor refuses her demand, the Countess decides to destroy the clocks. Film from the ‘Polish Fairy Tales’ series.

From the series of animated films to classical music.

An Islamic world tour is documented here by visits to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Qatar, to highlight events post 9/11, including footage taken a few years before. The directors of the film traveled for ten years throughout these countries under heavy Muslim influence, and met with clan leaders, mullahs, and other strict followers of the Quran.

Three men emigrated to Poland in search of better life from Ingushetia, which is the smallest region of Russia, located in the northern Caucasus. What unites them is their nationality, but their ambitions differ. Movlat teaches Caucasian dancing, Ismail is a successful boxer, and Ali is a dancer. Over the course of 10 years, we follow their ups and downs in their new homeland.

A series of sensational films with an excellent cast. Sophisticated stories of fraudsters from around the world, suspenseful action and unexpected endings.

A miniature film inspired by the music of Albinoni and the paintings of Witold Wojtkiewicz. The action takes place in an undefined fairy tale world. Four mysterious characters precede in the prologue the story of a little girl - a princess and a little boy - her knight, the prince. When the children overcome all obstacles and stand on the threshold of a happy future, the prince embarks on a great war expedition known in history as the "children's crusade."

At the end of the 1980s, high school students watch fragments of a congress of the Union of Polish Artists and Designers that took place in 1949. During the congress, socialist realism and pictures representing the imposed aesthetics were proclaimed. Viewers will learn about the attitude of young people to the communist system and the art of those times.

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.

During Kupala Night, two angels intervene in the rituals of the town's inhabitants. They take care of a virgin wearing a wreath in order to spoil the devil’s plan. During the night, the devil runs a registry of sinners. However, divine providence has different plans for her. An animated Midsummer fairytale directed by Piotr Szpakowicz, a creator of films for children and adults, specializing in animation and often focuses on the theme of people and nature. The film was realized in a combined technique. Flat figures made of plasticine were put on background boards, in the style of oil painting. Some of the figures were covered with crepe paper, maintaining the depth of the shots.

Kasia is studying at a prestigious French school for future master chefs, whilst her father, Otar, runs a restaurant in Poland serving Georgian specialities. When the girl is expelled from the elite course, she returns home but does not reveal the cause of her sudden arrival to her father.

A metaphorical tale. Rumour has it there is an old man living in a forest, alone but with a great fortune earned in Africa. Having overheard the gossips, two Roma boys decide to verify the story. One of them has a premonition that the trip may not end well.

The film is inspired by Mil gram's 'Six Degrees of Separation' theory with its assumption that every person in the world can be reached through six personal connections. the crew tries to explore the chain of connections between two randomly drawn protagonist: a young punk-rock musician - Martina from Warsaw, Poland and Marco Antonio - a farmer from little village in Mexico. A road movie through different places, lifestyles and characters. We follow the everyday life of all our protagonist and try discover what's hidden beneath their everyday masks. Does not the longing for love, acceptance, career, friendship and a decent life remind us who we are?

A man arrives at a desolate hotel, its eerie silence wrapping around him like a warning. As he wanders the dimly lit corridors, he finds no sign of life, only a lone, unattended meal waiting in the dining room, which he decides to eat. By nightfall, violent illness takes hold. In a desperate search for help, he staggers through the hotel’s darkness.

Wiera Gran was a popular Polish-Jewish singer who managed to survive the Holocaust. However, all of her later life was doomed due to the accusation of being a Nazi collaborator in the Warsaw Ghetto. Was she really a traitor?

Mary was a good mother, a good wife, a good woman. And now, as a ghost, she will do all in her power to prevent Zuza, her granddaughter, from repeating those kindhearted mistakes. She is even ready to kill.

A girl wakes up in a familiar, yet dull, environment having only the moon as her companion. Upon hearing a strange sound and finding a wall of ribbons she decides to explore the world beyond them.

The film documents the events at the Presidential Palace after the national mourning period.

A cosmic heroine in a sci-fi world, two unhappy people, and a fox. A few wild episodes depicting the frantic attempts to find meaning and the journey from the world of illusion to reality.

The story of a young, talented man for whom poetry became the only meaning of existence. He paid the highest price for it. In the film, his loved ones recall their memories of Rafal Wojaczek: his fiancée, friends and, in archival sound recordings, his late parents and brother Andrzej. The filmmakers visited with the camera places important to the poet: his hometown of Mikolow, where his "poem-making" began, and Wroclaw, where he spent the last six most creative, but also most turbulent years of his life. For the first time, unknown manuscripts, typescripts, notes and drawings by Rafal Wojaczek collected at the Ossolineum in Wroclaw were published in this film.

A boy who doesn't like his own shadow paints over the sun. Is that a good idea?

Spoken Film 6 is the latest part of the series, and the first one where the artist uses a puppet animation technique combined with photo animation. Also, it is the first time when the artist’s face is featured in the film, in the foreground, as if confirming the fact that all the films in the series actually contribute to a specific self-portrait. This black and white film is a story of a journey of the character, whose monologue describes the inability to contact his own mental states, fears and desires.

A documentary in which the director attempts to touch upon the subject of Polish punk subculture at the end of martial law. The punk movement seems to be the sincere voice of a generation in a world of ubiquitous propaganda.

The life of Jan Himilsbach (1931-1988) - stonemason, docker, sailor, actor, screenwriter and writer - is a collection of anecdotes on the one hand, and a string of overwhelming events on the other. As a juvenile shoemaker he was sent to a reformatory, as a railroad thief - to prison, and as a laborer - to a quarry in the God's Gift mine. The film uses interviews with Jan Himilsbach, excerpts from films featuring him, the song "Happiness, Where Are You," for which he wrote the lyrics, and autobiographical novellas set in Minsk Mazowiecki.

‘I have always had the curiosity to look further’ – admits one of the greatest Polish actresses. Barbara Krafftówna takes the viewer on a visit to her magical land, inhabited by ghosts of the past, the Elderly Gentlemen's Cabaret and, above all, by her unforgettable artistic creations.

The massive heavy machinery of a dying coalmine drills eerily into the mountain. In black and white, the machine and the operator’s body morph into disorder.

Longtime friends Michal and Kuba decide to illegally explore a little-known cave in the Tatra Mountains. When they get lost in the maze of passages, losing their way back, they are on their own. After three weeks, one of them, under mysterious circumstances, manages to get to the surface. Extremely exhausted, he slowly recovers, but is unable to accurately reconstruct the events of the cave or answer questions posed during the police investigation. The man finds himself facing manslaughter charges for the death of his friend - although even these circumstances are not entirely clear. Encouraged to enter therapy, he begins attending meetings, which brings back a series of subconsciously repressed memories and tightens the noose of madness around his neck. Plagued by nightmarish visions, he inevitably comes closer to confronting the truth as his worst fears awaken each night...

Among the stories about the family, the values embraced by Berbeka and the most important expeditions, there is one related to the winter expedition to Broad Peak. On 5th March 2013, the protagonist reached the summit, making his dream come true, but died on his way down to the base.

ince the 1970s, Robakowski has been experimenting with the category of the author, transferring the authorship of his works onto the film camera. Implementing the strategy of biological-mechanical records, Robakowski continues his experiments, carried out since the 1970s, consisting in the transfer of the authorship of the film onto the film camera, as well as initiates relations between the mechanical medium and the human organism. On the one hand, it embraces collaboration, on the other, human struggle with the machine, extending from the “integration” of its logic and the attempts at its “anthropomorphisation”.

In the airport lobby, two men waiting for the plane to take off tell each other macabre stories.

A film encouraging farmers to grow corn.

A film about the 5th International Film Festival of Cinematographers "Camerimage '97," which was held traditionally in Toruń from November 30 to December 6 last year. The author attempts to present the psychological and technical conditions of the cinematographer's profession and to sketch a collective portrait of those who practice it. The program includes interviews with the world's most outstanding cinematographers. Last year's festival brought together such great names as Ron Fortunato, Jack N. Green, and Vilmos Zsigmond. The film also shows workshops led by the best professionals in the field. Students exploring the secrets of this difficult art will talk about their expectations of the cinematographer profession. The individual sequences of the film have been composed by the director in such a way that they form a narrative sequence according to the growing emotions and moods, abstracting from the chronology of the festival events.

One man, a brave paratrooper, has a problem with a sore tooth, but is afraid to go to the dentist. He is brought to him by his several-year-old son. In the office, apart from the dentist, a plush toy awaits him - "Checkered dog", which the man remembers from his childhood. The doctor, by playing films with the participation of a dog on a VCR, means that the man, absorbed in watching his favorite childhood hero, does not pay attention to the run-offs and thus can extract the aching tooth.

In the attic of my family home, I found the autobiography of my legal-law Waclaw. Waclaw described a secret underground organization that he founded in Lódz during WWII. No one in the family knows about his mysterious life, his memories conflict with his image emerging from the pages of the book. So I am preparing a monodrama to introduce the unbelievable past of Waclaw's to the family. Unfortunately, everything is complicated by my poor memory and chronic diarrhea.

An abstract story of a butterfly who dares to distract mechanized workers as they worship their machines. The supervisor is a robot who does not allow any distractions or feelings of individuality. He captures the butterfly and makes it No. 00173 in his collection.

Action drama. Bartek has just completed his military service. He goes home by train. He gets off the train, looks around to find his girlfriend, Karolina. She was supposed to collect him from the station, but she's not there…

A young married couple in the midst of divorce proceedings is unexpectedly visited by the mother of one of the spouses. The woman is unaware of the crisis devastating the family. The young couple decides to maintain the pretense and pretend to be a loving couple.

In the years 1955-59, the repatriation of the Polish population from the USSR continued. The camera accompanies the repatriates from the border crossing in Terespol, through repatriation points, to their destination cities in the Recovered Territories. The days are full of hope and the nights are anxious.

A young woman and her boyfriend are looking for their child, which has been given to strangers.

The artist Małgorzata Goliszewska's journey to Rotterdam, accompanied by incessant phone calls from her mother, brilliantly illustrates the mechanisms of producing fear and a sense of constant threat.

A documentary about Anneliese Michel, a girl from small Bavarian town of Klingenberg am Main and the famous 70's case of alleged demonic possession.

Soft clouds of light rotate, fan out and change colour: With his cosmic “Luxograms”, Pawłowski radically rethinks the Lumières’ serpentine dance and dematerialises the moving body. It exists neither on a real stage nor in the shape of a real dancer but solely in the projection with a sophisticated system of optical lenses.

The film delves into the profound connection between the artist Leonard Cohen and Warsaw, showcasing his lesser-known journey to fame in Poland. It unveils unreleased archival footage from American television, showcasing how Leonard Cohen's music played a pivotal role in Poland during the 70s and 80s, intertwined with the opposition movement against an authoritarian regime.

At the age of twenty-five, Sara is too old to have a bright future ahead of her.