Adam’s everyday life is boring and depressing. To escape it mentally, he sinks into childhood memories and fantasies that are populated by angels and witches. He himself has the role of Superman, who comes to the aid of all the oppressed. Lenica’s surrealistic film depicts Adam’s “real” world as a black-and-white real movie, while his dreams are visualized in colorful animated sequences.Read More »
Sharon Lockhart’s new film, Pódworka, takes as its subject matter the courtyards of Lodz, Poland, and the children that inhabit them. A ubiquitous architectural element of the city, Lodz’ courtyards are the playgrounds of the children that live in the surrounding apartment buildings. Separated from the streets, they provide a sanctuary from the traffic and commotion of the city. Yet far from the overdetermined playgrounds of America, the courtyards are still very much urban environments. In six different courtyards throughout the city of Lodz, we see parking lots, storage units, and metal armatures become jungle gyms, sandboxes, and soccer fields in the children’s world. A series of fleeting interludes within city life, Pódworka is both a study of a specific place and an evocation of the resourcefulness of childhood. (lockhartstudio.com)Read More »
Synopsis
A Generation is set in Wola, a working-class section of Warsaw, in 1942 and tells the stories of two young men at odds with the Germans occupation of Poland. The young protagonist, Stach (Tadeusz Łomnicki), is living in squalor on the outskirts of the city and carrying out wayward acts of theft and rebellion. After a friend is killed attempting to heist coal from a German supply train, he finds work as an apprentice at a furniture workshop, where he becomes involved in an underground communist resistance cell guided first by a friendly journeyman there who in turn introduces Stach to the beautiful Dorota (Urszula Modrzyńska). An outsider, Jasio Krone (Tadeusz Janczar), the temperamental son of an elderly veteran, is initially reluctant to join the struggle but finally commits himself, running relief operations in the Jewish ghetto during the uprising there.Read More »
From culture.pl:
Lisa and Walter, a German couple, travel from America to Europe on a transatlantic liner. He is an employee of an international organization, and she hides – even from him – her past as a guard of the Auschwitz concentration camp. In London, a mysterious passenger who reminds Lisa (an outstanding performance by Aleksandra Śląska) of one of the camp prisoners, Marta (played by Anna Ciepielewska, whose performance was awarded at the International Film Festival in Los Alamos), boards the ship. Memories that had long been repressed slowly resurface.Read More »
The Debt is a gripping thriller about two entrepreneurs who become tangled in the web of a Russian thug. Two friends begin a business venture of importing Italian scooters into Poland. With no collateral, they turn to a Russian acquaintance that offers money and support in the beginning and then inexplicably turns violent and vicious. Tension mounts as the two friends begin to understand what must be done. Based on a true story, The Debt is a terrifying tale of ordinary men pushed to their limit.Read More »
Sztuka Kochania is a satire about sex therapists and popular newspaper advice columnists. A young woman asks an advice columnist if her fiance is the right man for her, and should she get married to him. She follows the doctor’s advice and abruptly halts her wedding right at the altar. When the distraught woman then seeks follow up help from the doctor, we discover that even the most trusted moral advisers don’t necessarily lead perfect lives themselves, and can lack the high ideals they tell their readers to follow.Read More »
Quote:
Ki is a hell of a young girl with lots of energy, guts, wit and warmth. A single mother who irritates and fascinates at the same time. She’s at the brink of having a guy at last, but is she really able not to deter him?Read More »
HBO Europe has commissioned Polish at Home, a series of 14 short films about isolation from 16 Polish filmmakers working during lockdown.
The project asked 16 filmmakers (two projects are collaborations) to create 14 short films. The plots must take place in the time of the pandemic, they cannot exceed 10 minutes, all must adhere to lockdown restrictions and the filmmakers must shoot them on their own in four weeks, although the format and genre is up to them.Read More »
Quote:
The story takes place in two parallel time planes. The first plot follows the events of one autumn night in 1978. Edward Srodon, a zootechnician, makes an accidental stopover in a farmhouse of Dziabas family in the remote area of Bieszczady Mountains. He stays for the night. The initial distrust between the guest and his hosts is quickly dispelled with moonshine and turns into a camaraderie, intimacy and even friendship. A plan of making a joint business arises, as well as passion and lust, which lead to a surprising and tragic consequences… Second plot is set on a winter day, during the Martial Law in Poland. An investigating team of Milicja Obywatelska (People’s Militia) is visiting the crime scene. Lieutenant Mroz is trying to solve the multiple murder case from four years ago. The tool he has to his disposal is the reconstruction of events with help of the chief suspect, Srodon.Read More »