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Jerzy Skolimowski
Krzysztof Skonieczny
Renata Gąsiorowska
Jacek Borcuch
Jan P. Matuszyński
Xawery Żuławski
Paweł Łoziński
Mariusz Treliński
Małgorzata Szumowska
Michał Englert
Krzysztof Garbaczewski
Magnus von Horn
Anna Zamecka
Sung Rae Cho
Andrzej Dragan
Tomasz Popakul
Also Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski
A young writer in 1939 Warsaw faces the conflict of acting his age or relapsing into childhood during the brink of World War II. Based on the famous novel Ferdydurke by Witold Gombrowicz.
The footloose ennui of Poland’s postwar generation is captured to perfection in this jazzy chronicle of a draft-dodger’s final day of freedom. A slacker before there was a word for it, Andrzej (played by Skolimowski himself) drifts through a series of open-ended encounters with women following a wake-up argument with his pouting wife, and a long-delayed military physical (the film’s title derives from one of the questions). Skolimowski hoarded four years’ worth of the annual film footage allotment from his Lódz film school in order to create this first feature marked by compositional bravado and a trademark air of the absurd. -Barbara Scharres, Gene Siskel Film Center
The reunion of a group of former medical students results in a flood of bitter memories.
15-year-old Mike takes a job at the local swimming baths, where he becomes obsessed with an attractive young woman, Susan, who works there as an attendant. Although Susan has a fiancé, Mike does his best to sabotage the relationship, to the extent of stalking both her and her fiancé.
A trio of robbers, two brothers and their twisted genius leader, invade a lightship, but don't reckon on the crew fighting back.
Alex Rodak (Michael York) is a Polish director in exile in London with his family, which includes an older teenage son Adam (Michael Lyndon) who is struggling with an identity crisis, his wife (Joanna Szerzerbic), and another son. Rodak is in the throes of putting together a major show about Poland and the politics of exile at a West End theater. His single-minded determination to succeed causes him to take advantage of others, and because of his need for backing, he turns to a low-life businessman (John Hurt) to bail him out. His wife is anything but happy about his behavior and dislikes this last decision even more. This is an interesting study of how a father and son become alienated in a conflict between cultural identity and its exploitation.
Based on a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, this English-language satirical drama details the experiences of Frank (John Moulder Brown), a young orphan who finds himself deep in the romantic clutches of his uncle's sensual wife. After Frank's parents die, he goes to live with his aunt Martha (Gina Lollabrigida) and uncle Charles (David Niven). Sexy Martha entices Frank into her embrace then wants him to kill her husband so that they can live off of his money. Frank wouldn't mind so much, but he really likes his uncle.
"Using the same, three times repeating dialogue – dramatic conversation between man and woman – Jerzy Skolimowski from Poland, Slovak director Peter Solan and Czech director Zbynìk Brynych shot three different stories. The result was an extraordinary experiment in the world cinema, which we can call an insight in the relationships of men and women of different age groups, an analysis of love and marriage of those who are at the beginning, in the middle or going towards the end of their life."
Based on satirical short stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about a vain, egotistical Etienne Gerard, a French brigadier serving during the Napoleonic Wars. He thinks he's the best soldier and lover that ever lived and intends to prove it.
The lives of urbanites intertwine in a world where anything can happen at any time.
Also Directed by Krzysztof Skonieczny
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.
A sociopath begins a relationship with the daughter of a couple he intends to murder.
Also Directed by Renata Gąsiorowska
GIRLS ON FILM returns with eight award-winning short films from around the world. Inspirational short stories made by women, for women, explore female desire, empowerment and the realities of being a woman, a lesbian and a feminist today.
A young woman spends the evening alone at home. She decides to give herself a treat, but not everything works out as smoothly as she imagined.
A film that reveals how much more we have locked ourselves down in our bubbles, even though we have so many ways to communicate remotely. It's also about the director's relations with the media she gorges on, or specifically her relations with one channel of a streaming platform that she watches non-stop, and about how she is slowly morphing into a domestic animal.
A short story about the cone-girl Lotta nad the pear-boy Luke who go for a date. They live in a world where your shape depends of your personality. Pointy, brisk Lotta and round, slow Luke obviously don't fit to each other but they try to do their best.
Also Directed by Jacek Borcuch
True Law is a Polish legal drama television series directed by Maciej Migas and featuring Agnieszka Dygant as the title character, Agata Przybysz. It premiered on TVN on 4 March 2012. The plot is set in Warsaw.
In Tuscany, Maria's stable family life begins to erode as her relationship with a young immigrant develops against a backdrop of terrorism and eroding democracy.
Magda M. was a Polish soap opera.
The story of male friendship, vitality and the joy of living, even after turning 60 years old. When one of the three friends is taken to hospital, the others are there for him.
Lasting is an emotional love story about Michał and Karina, a pair of Polish students who meet and fall in love with each other while working summer jobs in Spain. An unexpected nightmare brutally breaks into their carefree time in the heavenly landscape and throws their lives into chaos.
Follows four friends in their quest to form a punk band. As workers protests sweep across the country, Janek and Staszek, the sons of a navy man, the rebellious Kazik, and the affluent Diabel gel as a band, but their disparate lives are touched by social turmoil and outside perceptions.
Also Directed by Jan P. Matuszyński
Janusz, a self-confident 60-year old, an incredibly active person and an accomplished diver, suffers a stroke which leaves him paralyzed. Rehabilitation and assistance of his partner Asia help him regain mobility and improve his functions. He is still struggling with speech and the only person who understands what he says is Asia who interprets him for the world. What keeps Janusz going and motivates to carry on is his big dream - he would like to dive again, despite major hazard for his health and life. His goal is to travel to beautiful but perilous Blue Hole in Dahab, Egypt which poses a challenge even to fit divers.
Konrad Wolski, head of the Q department, an elite Polish intelligence unit, taking over a Belarusian arms dealer in Istanbul, learns about a terrorist attack planned in Sweden. The weapon to be used in the attack is to come from the Soviet arsenal hidden in Belarus. Konrad immediately contact with Travis, a Polish spy secreted in the Minsk KGB, to obtain intelligence information that will defeat the terrorist plan. The matter is complicated by the fact that Travis has just been exposed by one of the Belarusian KGB officers. He's financial blackmail, will not remain in his position for a long time. Sara - an officer of the Polish Intelligence Agency is sent to Minsk with the mission of his immediate evacuation. At the same time, a retired general of Belarusian services in Warsaw is blackmailing the Prime Minister of the Republic of Poland. The officers of the Foreign Intelligence Agency must at all costs take over archival materials incriminating the head of the Polish government. All roads lead to Minsk. A murderous game begins with time.
Andrzej, a great fan of speedway racing, can’t go back home where his beloved woman as well as a the world cup TV broadcast are waiting for him, because he has to fill in for his indisposed colleague at a night shift in the carwash. It was another quiet night, as he expected. Until a yellow Wartburg drove into the carwash... ‘People have been trying to create tragedies for ages, yet what comes out is just a comedy’ – this is the motto by Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg, which opens this film, full of suspense and comedy.
The film was inspired by one of the most important documentaries shot by Krzysztof Kieślowski, Talking Heads (1980). The director asked his interlocutors seemingly simple questions, such as “Who are you?” and “What do you want?”.
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…
Intimate story about how much we need another man. Peter and Olga meet at a time when everything seems to be over. They decide together take their last journey.
Beksiński is a gentle man with arachnophobia, despite his hardcore sexual fantasies and his fondness for painting disturbing dystopian works. Beksiński is a family man who wants only the best for his loving wife Zofia, neurotic son Tomasz and the couple's aging mothers. His daily painting to classical music eventually pays off and he makes a name for himself in contemporary art. Good Catholic woman Zofia tries to hold the family together, but troubled son Tomasz proves to be a handful with his violent outbursts and suicidal threats. Their relief is brief when he starts dating women and becomes a radio presenter and movie translator, and the concerned parents must be on constant watch to prevent their son from hurting himself. But Beksiński never believed that family life would always be sunshine and rainbows. As he tapes everything with his beloved camcorder, the 28-year Beksiński saga unfolds through paintings, near-death experiences, dance music trends and funerals...
Political thriller is based on a true story about a young student beaten to death by the police in 1980s Communist Poland.
Also Directed by Xawery Żuławski
True Law is a Polish legal drama television series directed by Maciej Migas and featuring Agnieszka Dygant as the title character, Agata Przybysz. It premiered on TVN on 4 March 2012. The plot is set in Warsaw.
An aggressive thug has problems with his girlfriend. Over the course of several chaotic days he walks around the hood, takes drugs and confronts himself with other women.
Based on a script by Andrzej Żuławski, this is a fascinating on-screen dialogue between father and son that combines nostalgia and fury, the sublime with humor, and old-school style with a sharp, penetrating look at Polish reality. The eponymous bird talk is the language used by those excluded from the aggressive majority: a history teacher tormented by children, a teacher of Polish studies fired from his job, a girl who cleans a banker’s villa, a florist with a club foot and a student with a fascination for cinema. Pushed to the margins by the extreme right, they defend themselves with irony, songs and quotes from the classics.
Fed up with pandemics, quarantines and news about ecological disasters, worried about their own uncertain future and the fate of the world, a group of high school students are invited by Kamil, a millionaire's son, to a party at his father's seaside residance.
The movie is about three brothers and a sister. The brothers include a would-be tough guy thug, a sleazy lawyer and an anarchist. The anarchist and the sister (Maria Strzelecka) have a thing for each other that is more than just sibling affection. Each of them is facing a problem of their own making. A lot depends on how they deal with their issues, as there isn't much lower they can stoop other than being dead. In the beginning of the film there is a lot going on, which makes it a little hard to follow, but that goes along with the theme of chaos.
Also Directed by Paweł Łoziński
Two acclaimed documentary film-makers - father and son - drive from Poland to Paris to see the place where the ashes of the father's mother are buried. What accompanies them on the way are resentments, quarrels and sincere confessions.
Across the Border is a polyglot portrait of ideas about borders at the beginning of the 21st century. In an episodic journey five directors from Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia, present their view and vision of nation, identity and Europe: By placing their personal cinematographic imprint on multifaceted portraits of their home countries, they open up a broad space for encounters with the strangers next door.
Paweł Łoziński’s documentary is a short, metaphoric story, undertaking a problem of memory, identity, searching for traces of the recent past. Here, on thirty hectares in the city centre, the inventory is being made – it is to lead to reconstruction of a lost city. The camera focuses on details, showing fingers touching an obliterated inscription or a laborious process of decoding letters excavated from the ground, because each of them means something.
Relationships with the people you love most are often the most complicated. This is the problem Hania and her mother Ewa face during their sessions with a psychotherapist, filmed intimately and with the utmost respect by director Paweł Łoziński. The camera always focuses on one person at a time, revealing every emotion hidden behind the words and silences. The empathetic therapist carefully but purposefully peels away the hard layers under which mother and daughter shield themselves. Little by little, the personal tragedies that hamper their communication rise to the surface, as well as the source of the longing for love and acknowledgement that they find so hard to fulfill.
The Polish entry in the BFI’s Century of Cinema series of documentaries
Directed by Paweł Lozinski
Paweł Łoziński films his own neighbours, the drunk but charming Wiesio, his long suffering partner Mrs. Ania and a retired barber, Mr. Zdzislaw, who misses his late wife dearly. The film follows their daily lives and examines poverty, loneliness and death.
Two old sisters, living in the same Warsaw apartment, sit on a bench and talk. The 87-year-old elder one seems to care for the other reluctantly and treat her badly. The younger, who is said to be clumsier, has walking problems.
Also Directed by Mariusz Treliński
n his first year as Musical Director of Valencia's Palau de les Arts exciting, fast-rising young conductor Omer Meir Wellber scores a triumph with Tchaikovsky's most beloved opera Eugene Onegin. In Trelinski's timeless production he leads a superb, first-class young cast headed by Artur Ruzinski as Onegin and Kristine Opolais as Tatyana. Mariusz Trelinski, Polish filmmaker and theater director, has created a series of dream-like, surrealist tableaux of great suggestive beauty.
Met audiences were fascinated by Mariusz Treliński’s gripping, visionary production of Wagner’s epic opera. In the daunting title roles of the doomed lovers, Nina Stemme and Stuart Skelton are passionate, overwhelming, and heartbreaking as they battle every obstacle that separates them from their true destiny. René Pape is King Marke, betrayed not only by Isolde but by Tristan, the man he most trusts and loves like a son. With Ekaterina Gubanova as Isolde’s confidante Brangäne and Evgeny Nikitin as Kurwenal, Tristan’s loyal lieutenant. Simon Rattle conducts a surging, shimmering account of Wagner’s monumental score.
A grieving man tries to find the cause of his young wife's suicide by spending the night next to her dead body and bringing back memories from their past.
Decadence, homosexuality, excess wealth, infidelity, alcoholism and drugs all played a major role in the decline of aristocracy.
Young Renata hears voices. Since her childhood, she has been visited by a fiery angel with sublime radiance. Mad about him, gone in search of him since he abandoned her, she meets on her way the knight Ruprecht who, out of love for her, will try to tear her away from this carnal possession. From tavern to convent, between scenes of spiritualism or exorcism, collective hysteria or burlesque humor, nothing is lacking at L'Ange de feu.
Roy, who lives abroad, recollects his youth. Soon he receives news about his old friend's death.
‘You could have a blow job aria – begins with words, ends with humming.’ Using the story of a public scandal, the librettist Philip Hensher inspired the 23-year-old British composer Thomas Adès to portray the fall of the libertine and notorious socialite beauty the Duchess of Argyll, remembered in history as the Dirty Duchess. Powder Her Face is inspired by a sex scandal in 1963 that shocked the British upper class.
Also Directed by Małgorzata Szumowska
The contemporary story of a priest who launches a centre for troubled youth in a small parish. He is a good priest and is well-liked by his congregation, which remains unaware of his complicated past.
A portrait of a family living in a village in Masuria.
"All Inclusive" tells the story of seven women who are going on holidays to Morocco, getting out of the hotel and confronting women from Morocco. They will look for their own way of life in the desert, confront their world, looking at the reality that surrounds them. As the author says about her film: "It talks about Polish women who are going on holiday, and then they break away from the tourist reality and go deep into Morocco. They throw themselves into a completely wild experience with themselves, with their femininity. The movie is played by women who I found at castings throughout Poland."
One woman's journey for self-discovery and turns into a harrowing tale of survival.
Twenty-five films from twenty-five European countries by twenty-five European directors.
The Polish artist Julia and her husband Piotr, a talented and successful composer, live in Kraków. When Julias's mother, Barbara falls ill with stomach cancer, the life of the family is falling apart. Julia accompanies her mother to death, but her husband Piotr is at rehearsals in Cologne and leaves her to cope with this difficult situation. Only her friend Adrian is at her side. Her father Jurek is also overwhelmed by the impending loss of his beloved wife. After the death of the mother her father takes comfort from alcohol. Shortly after the father dies. Julia found only in the arms of Adrian to rest, but this in turn destroyed her marriage to Piotr. After the loss of the parents and break up of the marriage she is now alone in the world with an uncertain future where Adrian is of little help
A pregnant 22-year-old with a dreary job, a difficult home life and an absent boyfriend learns to love her life and share this love with the child in her womb.
For her entire life, the cult she was born into has been all that teenage Selah has known. Along with a band of similarly cloistered young women she lives seemingly unstuck in time, cut off from modern society in a remote forest commune presided over by a man called Shepherd , a controlling, messiah-like figure with a frightening dark side. But when her insular world is rocked by a series of nightmarish visions and disturbing revelations,
Zenia is an industrious Ukrainian migrant worker in Poland who makes house calls as a masseur to the needy and aspirational residents of a middle-class gated community near Warsaw. He is privy to all of their problems, anxieties and secrets – and something of an unwitting guru figure. Zenia’s grounded spirituality, apparent healing powers and broad shoulders make him an object of lust for many of the lost souls in the community.
Also Directed by Michał Englert
One woman's journey for self-discovery and turns into a harrowing tale of survival.
Zenia is an industrious Ukrainian migrant worker in Poland who makes house calls as a masseur to the needy and aspirational residents of a middle-class gated community near Warsaw. He is privy to all of their problems, anxieties and secrets – and something of an unwitting guru figure. Zenia’s grounded spirituality, apparent healing powers and broad shoulders make him an object of lust for many of the lost souls in the community.
Also Directed by Magnus von Horn
Three days in the life of fitness motivator Sylwia Zając, whose presence on social media has made her a celebrity. Although she has hundreds of thousands of followers, is surrounded by loyal employees and admired by acquaintances, she is looking for true intimacy.
A raw and honest portrait of some youths in a Swedish small town where bullying has devastating consequences. Sixteen-year old Linus and his best friend systematically bully a boy in their class. A very strong film that was nomiated for a Guldbagge Award in 2011 for Best Short Film.
The powerful echo of two schoolboys’ actions resonates as they reconstruct their crime and relive the pain of what they have done.
When John returns home to his father after serving time in prison, he is looking forward to starting his life afresh. However, in the local community his crime is neither forgotten nor forgiven.
Also Directed by Anna Zamecka
When adults are ineffectual, children have to grow up quickly. Ola is 14 and she takes care of her dysfunctional father, autistic brother and a mother who lives apart from them and is mainly heard the phone. Most of all she wants to reunite a family that simply doesn’t work — like a defective TV set. She lives in the hope of bringing her mother back home. Her 13 year old brother Nikodem’s Holy Communion is a pretext for the family to meet up. Ola is entirely responsible for preparing the perfect family celebration. “Communion” reveals the beauty of the rejected, the strength of the weak and the need for change when change seems impossible. This crash course in growing up teaches us that failure is not final. Especially when love is in question.
Also Directed by Tomasz Popakul
“At precisely 4:30am on February 10th, rise from your bed, get dressed and leave the house. Walk to the bus stop and catch the number 7. Ride until the 10th stop (…) Feel the pigeon stir in your stomach. Allow her to crawl up your esophagus and out of your mouth…”
In a seemingly idyllic village, a teenager has to struggle with the problems of growing up. His situation is especially difficult, as he is half boy, half fish.
A pair of astronauts is trapped on an orbital space station due to unexpected nuclear war on Earth. They lost contact with Earth, and all attempts to communicate with their base or anybody else have failed.
The Emigration Museum in Gdynia commissioned a short animated film inspired by the fate of Dżennet Dżabaga-Skibniewska
After running away from her depressing village in eastern Europe, a teenage girl meets a new friend under a bridge.