Poland

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A young doctor is tired of being sought by women. One night he meets a young girl who all but forces herself into his room where they talk of morals and love. But he loses her when he goes out to see some friends and then rushes madly around the city after her.

A neglected masterpiece by Andrzej Wajda, reflective of the best of 1960s Polish cinema. Wry and cynical in tone, the work is important for being “the first film in Eastern Europe to chronicle the disillusionment of the younger generation” (San Francisco Chronicle). A bachelor doctor, who is also a jazz musician, can’t quite commit himself to his superficial girlfriend. He and his aimless friends find any kind of human contact or emotional commitment a troubling and ultimately uninviting prospect. With Tadeusz Lomnicki, Zbigniew Cybulski, and a young Roman Polanski.Read More »

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Plot / Synopsis
Feliks Falk’s latest movie “Joanna” is a story set in the time of World War II. The main heroine’s husband had been sent to an Oflag. One day Joanna encounters a little Jewish girl in a church. Despite the risk, she decides to take care of her.

“Joanna” is an example of a true story as it reflects the behaviour of thousands of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Feliks movie has enchanted the audience of 35. Polish Film Festival in Gdynia.
Tadeusz Sobolewski, a film critic, gave the movie a very positive review.
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Profesor Zazul is a short Polish film, made for TV in 1965, and based on a Stanislaw Lem story. Ijon Tichy is driving in the country when he is forced to take refuge in a creepy house. Inside is the laboratory of Professor Zazul, where he finds something disturbing.Read More »

Presents highlights of a workshop for young directors conducted by the Polish director Krzysztof Kiewslowski (1941-1996) in Amsterdam during the summer of 1994. The theme of the workshop was the direction of actors. For a fortnight, various groups worked every day on a scene from Ingmar Bergman’s scenario `Scenes from a Marriage’. The sessions with the directors Leif Magnusson and Francesco Ranieri Martinotti were filmed for the documentary, and an interview with Kieslowski was filmed before the sessions. The workshop was entitled `Six Actors in Seach of a Director’. The actors were Reinout Bussemaker, Pamela Knaack, Shaun Lawton, Matthias Maat, Dulcie Smart and Nelleke Zitman. Read More »

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A story of a middle-aged woman, Irena, living alone on the outskirts of Wroclaw with her 8-year old son. They live in a drab apartment. She is a mail carrier and her son is her only pride and joy. She hardly communicates with anybody else in a humanly open and natural way. She also cares for a sick relative. One day when delivering a monthly pension to a crippled young miner Jacek, she faints at his doorsteps. Even though she is determined to live alone after divorcing her drunken first husband, she also knows that her boy needs a male figure to correct his bad habits. She also needs a man badly. The love affair between Jacek and Irena begins however their first physical encounter shatters them both. Irena has a lot of problems: her son makes a lot of trouble at school, and at work her supervisor wants to take her route and give it to somebody else. Finally, the sick relative dies, and she is hit with the funeral bill instead with the expected inheritance. She steals pensioners’ money she should be delivering. Tells Jacek that she indeed has received inheritance, places her son in a boaring institution and buys a used car for a trip to West Berlin, opting to immigrate. Now the accident happens… Written by Polish Cinema Database link (link)Read More »

A portrait of socialist Poland circa 1971 that recounts the last years of Polish poet Rafal Wojaczek, a rebel who became a legend.

Review from the New York Times

Wojaczek is a charming, maddening poète maudit whose every waking moment is a rebellion against the world around him. That world, Poland in the late 1960’s — the real Wojaczek died in 1971, at the age of 26 — is presented in gorgeously grim black and white. Mr. Majewski’s camerawork has an almost classical austerity, and for its first half the movie seems as static and distant as his shots. But just as Wojaczek’s nihilism has a core of passionate wit, so too does the movie as it moves deathward, picking up glimmers of humor amid the gloom. The funniest scenes — which might have come from the imagination of Jim Jarmusch or the young David Lynch — take place at a cavernous literary cafe, where a band called the Secret performs deadpan pop tunes while Wojaczek glowers and rants. Mr. Majewski’s view of him is candid, but also unmistakably romantic; he would rather present Wojaczek’s enigma than unravel it.Read More »

ANDRZEJ ZULAWSKI’S adaptation of Manuela Gretkowska’s provocative and hugely successful novel reaches new extremes in the depiction of brutality, sex, and passion as it tells the story of a young(ish) anthropologist driven by the mystery surrounding the death of a recently discovered shaman; and his growing obsession with an enigmatic yet violently perverse beauty known as “The Italian”.SZAMANKA (She-Shaman) is a film ‘without brakes’. Read More »

Story:
In 1943 Poland was under nazi occupation, but the tragedy of the war seemed far-away from Poworna Estate. Other tragedies instigated by the narrator Witold and mysterious Frederick disrupted the lives of the characters reunited in the isolated estate: the “dangerous relationship” between Henia and Karol, orchestrated by Fredrick; the senseless murder of Amelia, Waclaw’s mother, Henia’s fiance; the sad event involving the partisan commander Siemain, that had to be eliminated because he lost control of his nerves. But punishment soon followed.Read More »

*The official submission of Poland to the Best Foreign Language Film of the 85th Academy Awards 2013.

A new film by Waldemar Krzystek. Poland, Lower Silesia, the beginning of a very cold winter 1981. After the series of entrapments by the Security Service a confrontation between the opposition and the communists seems to be inevitable. Just before the proclamation of martial law a group of young Solidarity activists decide to play va banque and organize a rash action to take out 80 million of the Union money from one of the Wroclaw’s banks before the account would be blocked. Security Service officers follow their steps. It’s the beginning of a gripping tournament in which also priests and curb dealers will play their parts. Each side has aces up their sleeve.Read More »