Discoveries from Poland World Cinema

A pair of courtiers, a woman and a man, enjoy each other's company. Both of them become victims of armed conflict. Disconnected, they seek each other among the survivors. The man finds his beloved woman.

Eugeniusz Kwiatkowski is a widely forgotten politician and economic activist who greatly contributed to Poland’s growth. Where did he come from? What is the secret to this phenomenon of a man whose initiatives form the basis of the Polish economy to this day? Why was he so ruthlessly banished from public life?

A miniature film set to classical music inspired by the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The chessboard transforms into a salon floor, where animated pawns and figures take the shape of court characters and begin their game to the rhythm of a minuet. However, it turns out that the game of chess is replaced by court intrigue – a planted letter leads to a duel over a woman, which is interrupted by the queen's intervention.

Two centuries after his death, Frédéric Chopin returns to Warsaw as a spectre summoned by his own music. In the concert hall, he listens to the performance of his own works, and every note triggers successive layers of memory – of lost love, artistic triumphs and a lonely death far from his homeland.

An interventionist documentary describing the damage done by mining wells to historic landmarks in Bytom.

Lost in the music, the boy is jolted by the sound of his father’s return and slips away, fearing the confrontation that might follow.

Deep and serious student film.

At the beginning, there is a bench and two lovers. Later, a PDT and a housing estate are built in its place. The lovers, who have already gotten married, cannot believe their luck.

It is a hot summer day in August 2022. Harvesting is in progress in the Polish countryside. It follows the same routine as every year until is it interrupted by an unexpected aberration. A surprising take on the multi-layer crisis caused by the war in Ukraine.

In this story told by cutouts, the Capulet family feuds with the Montague family while their children Romeo and Juliet fall in love.

A story of a Ukrainian gastarbeiter that comes to the director flat to clean windows, irons and cooks.

Monika organizes her first workshop in the women's circle, but the harder she tries, the worse everything goes for her.

This animation based on motion land, also used by Kiwerski in his earlier film People of Israel Went into the Midst of the Red Sea on Dry Ground, illustrates dynamic movement, intrinsic to the course of history. Mass, which undergoes constant change creating and destroying new shapes at the same time, is the protagonist here. The Rolling Stones is a symbolic interpretation of civilisations, which rise and collapse, and eventually a reflection on the impermanence of the human fate and empires built by man.

A burglar finds himself in a studio apartment waiting for the death of an elderly woman.

'Revolution is a Sickness' follows a Vietnamese orphan who washes up on the shores of Poland and joins a K-Pop dance group invested in radical politics.

In a dreamlike series of reflections, time itself seemingly pauses as a teenager documents vistas left vacant by a quarantine in Gydnia, Poland

A story of a circus in decline which is approaching its imminent end.

A documentary with traces of a feature film, about an altruistic doctor from Gorice village. Despite having a modern health centre at his disposal, he struggles with people's distrust and backwardness. "I knew that they are hiding the sick in their cottages just now. Hiding them from me, from a doctor taking sick children to hospital by force and with the help of the Citizen's Militia officers".

Scenes of a village wedding and the hard lives of farmers in a remote mountainous region of Poland.

Daughter comes to her father's apartment to feed the cat and water the flowers in his absence. However, the animal makes trouble, and the teenager discovers a secret hidden from her.

A cinematic journey into the past, following the items that the absentee family gathered in an apartment in an old tenement house. Everything had a beginning which was the end of something. Time rolls on like a glass ball and it breaks into pieces.

A caveman and a modern man compare their qualities. The caveman is impressed with the intellect of the modern man, while the modern man is impressed with the mass and appearance of the primitive man. The filmmaker will help both of them.

The film tells the story of Tomek Bukowski, a tariff who works on a night shift. The man has a loving wife - Ewelina. He lives a quiet life outside ... Exactly. Bukowski also has an "extraordinary passion" for which people are willing to pay him money. At one point, he receives a surprising job that changes his life.

For two years, the director traveled wherever the members of the Cool Kids Of Death band appeared. He used a camera to record fragments of concerts, interviews, heavy drinking parties and obscene conversations held backstage, so it's no wonder that he became friends with the musicians. However, the true measure of this friendship turns out to be his film, in which Szczepanski escapes both the temptation to make a joke about his friends and a harsh lampoon.

The year is 1956, Janusz Sidło is going to the Melbourne Games as an absolute favorite to win the gold medal. He is the world record holder and the European champion. During the final, he lends his javelin to his most dangerous rival, the Norwegian Egil Danielsen. The event that went down in sports history as one of the most beautiful examples of fair play will have unexpected consequences for both champions

Kazimierz Karabasz visits circles of amateur photographers in small towns (most of the photographs were taken in Włodawa) and listens to their stories about the town, its inhabitants and photographing their everyday life. The young people, who are active at community centres, show the documentarian what role photography plays in their lives and how it influences their perception of their surroundings: places and people. Photography thus becomes a school for looking, seeing and developing sensitivity. As it turns out, it is not always the form and workshop that are the most important.

The director takes a look at the situation of transgender people in Poland in the late 1980s. He interviews trans people themselves and polls passers-by on the street about the topic they’ve given very little thought to. Among expressions of disgust and condemnation, there is only one completely different voice.

A teenage fan takes a photo of her idol Tadeusz Ross from a display case in the cinema and hangs it in her room. The next day, the idol arrives at her place in a sports car.

The short life and vast legacy of the legendary Polish wartime poet of the lost generation, Krzysztof Kamil Baczynski.

“Hymn of Urban Evenings” is an animation based on a poem by Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński. The film portrays the narrator’s sense of alienation from the city — a human figure is cut out from the cold, foreign space which, instead of offering shelter, becomes a grey backdrop to his inner experiences. Image and word come together in a reflection on the city as a colorless, cold organism in which it is difficult to find oneself.

Nina, in her teenage tremors, perceives the world as if she had no protective layer. What she would most like to feel is that she is accepted and belongs - so she goes to mass and faithfully supports the local football team. When the club's flag is desecrated, Nina comes up with an idea for a spectacular revenge that earns her the respect of the team and the heart of the boy she has a crush on.

Justyna is a young dance student and her life is full of love, movement and parties. One quiet autumn night, a violent event occurs that interrupts her carelessness.

Fan film, created entirely inside of a game "Lethal Company"

Hubert is forced to confront his past during the premiere of a play by an old friend. He reminisces about a lost relationship and the choices he made in his youth, which constitute the titular “Kairos” – a turning point in life. Interweaving two timelines, the film explores themes of missed opportunities and the courage to live authentically.

His friends are organizing a bachelor party for Rafał. The future groom begins to have doubts.

The film was shot during the mating and breeding season in the Narew River floodplains. The author observes the lives and habits of various animal and plant species. He is particularly interested in the courtship displays of the ruffs, birds known as "winged knights."

A documentary resembling a moving photo album that describes Warsaw's Praga district, which has its own urban legend. The least damaged area during the Second World War, its tenements and wooden houses from the turn of the century remained intact. Praga has its representative part in the Art Nouveau Śródmieście district. Its small-town soul could be seen at the back of the streets, the suburban part may be noticed on the outskirts of the city. Apparently, one could be born and die without leaving the surrounding buildings, Praga satisfied all the needs of the inhabitants. The voiceover mocks the artistic aspirations of "better people" preserved in the facades of the tenements. It appreciates the architecture of the wooden houses, the workshops of old crafters. Through the architecture, the story of the district is told.

A film miniature for classical music inspired by the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The form of a luminous line following the rhythm and tempo of the music creates musical instruments suspended in space. The line runs through a city lit up by neon lights, tracing surreal, abstract shapes, only to transform them into dancing silhouettes a moment later. The sounds of the music change the intensity of the light from white and black to a full range of colors vibrating to the rhythm of the music.

Love thyself. This is the life credo of Zosia - a photographer, traveller and free spirit. Going round the world in her camper, she uses photography to make other women comfortable with nakedness and teaches them to love their own bodies.

Jarocin – a small town in Greater Poland. In the 1980s, it was the venue for one of the largest rock festivals in Europe. In 2004, the Łódź branch of the Institute of National Remembrance published an album presenting previously unknown documents concerning the infiltration of the festival by the Security Service of the Polish People's Republic. They provide new insight into the methods used by the secret services at the time and show the extraordinary scale of the activities carried out against the festival. The film shows, for the first time, the original Security Service reports on Jarocin and dozens of photographs taken by officers of its participants.

Things are escaping from the filthy apartment that the small owner does not respect.

A lone soldier and a stranger protect the property of an abandoned factory against looters.

An animated interpretation of the legend of Faust, based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's version, where an alchemist trying to find a meaning of life signs a deal with the devil. Animation refers to German Expressionism movement, and uses handmade mixed media stop motion.

Experimental animation by Janek Koza

Directed by Abraham Izaak Kaminski (Avrom Yitskhok Kaminsky)