Winter Twilight by Stanislaw Lenartowicz is one of the films that presaged the emergence of the Polish Film School as a recognised and independent trend. Shot in 1956, it had its premiere on 1 February 1957, three months before the screening of Kanal/They Loved Life by Andrzej Wajda at Cannes. If we were to analyse the film using the most frequently applied criterion for distinguishing works of the school – provoking audience awareness by raising topics concerned with recent history – Lenartowicz’s debut would hardly pass this benchmark. However, if we consider the Polish School to be a complex artistic formation of diverse films created by directors debuting on the verge of a cultural breakthrough – the October 1956 phenomena that was characterised by expressive direction and widespread divergence from the established poetics of social realism – Winter Twilight should be recognised as one of it most important precursory works.Read More »