Poland

Synopsis:
Tadeusz has devoted his life to photography, especially photo reportages. Now he has grown old and passes on his art to Michal, a highly motivated 15-year-old. They go on a trip together, travelling through Polish villages in their van with the built-in dark chamber, portraying the people they meet. Their black-and-white photos add up to a visual travel diary. Piotr Stasik has found his own poetic way of capturing the work of Tadeusz Rolke, who used to work for “Spiegel” and “Stern”: as a documentary road movie that also seems to be a trip through time. From the start this enterprise radiates an old-fashioned quality. And this is not just about the good old analogue image. When the developed photos are strung across the empty market square on a clothesline, they enable simple encounters that could never happen on Facebook.Read More »

Quote:
A charismatic man in his old age acts as a spiritual guide in the village. Everyone wants him to deliver a beautiful funeral speech for them in the event of their death. Meanwhile, he himself, sensing the end of his life, is looking for a successor.Read More »

A team of astronauts land on an inhabitable planet and form a society. Many years later, a single astronaut is sent to the planet and becomes a messiah.Read More »

Synopsis:
Mika arrives in Poland to pay a hospital visit to her father, who is suffering from severe brain injury and memory loss. It’s the first time they have met in many years, yet her father thinks they still live together and she’s a teenager. For a brief time Mika becomes her father’s companion in his befuddlement gently guiding him through the labyrinth of his fading mind. And as she does so, she sets off on a journey through her own life. Merging digital, 35 mm, VHS, infrared and archival footage, the sense of time and space start breaking up: the present blends with the long gone past and places reveal their far-off history and memories. In the meantime, the father’s condition worsens. And thus life and its end also begin to blur…Read More »

A grotesque Shakespearean tale of Ubu, who comes to power in a bloody way. When his absurd reforms fail and the treasury gets empty, Ubu and his flatterers start implementing terror across the country.Read More »

Quote:
Mateusz (Franciszek Pieczka) lives with his sister Olga (Anna Milewska) in a cottage by a lake. Unsophisticated in life, he is condemned to her care. He is troubled by the thought that Olga might one day leave him. When lumberjack Jan (Virgilius Gryn) appears in his sister’s life, Matthew experiences a drama. The film is based on Tarjei Vesaas’ novel “The Birds.Read More »

AUGUST 1980: Following the unjustified dismissal of Anna Walentynowicz, an employee just months away from retirement, her colleagues at the Gdansk shipyards organized a general solidarity strike. The movement grew to unprecedented proportions and would have irreversible consequences for all of Polish society, and by extension, for the Soviet bloc.Read More »

Two men emerge from the sea onto the beach carrying a large wooden wardrobe with a mirror on its front. After the two men clean up and rejoice to be in this new environment, they proceed to enter the nearby town, they carrying the wardrobe wherever they go. They just want to meet people and experience their new surroundings, but are largely shunned or ignored. In some instances, they are shunned even when their presence helps the situation. And in other instances of being shunned, they are beaten. And when they are ignored, the world just keeps going without them, often at the detriment of humankind. Ultimately, the two men, with their wardrobe, make a decision about what to do in light of their experiences.Read More »

A man walks down the exterior staircase of building of flats; he’s dressed to go out, taking care to wrap a scarf around his neck. He pauses as he passes a small window that’s about eye high. He ventures to look in, and there a young woman stands at a washbasin, drying her hair, the towel that obscures her face her only covering. The peeping tom gets an eyeful and smiles; he’s interrupted by a door opening, the flat’s occupant bringing out empty bottles to place on the porch. The man pretends to leave, departing down the stairs, only to return to the window after the flat’s door has closed. He again looks in the window, where a surprise awaits.Read More »