Quote:
Warsaw, night, a club by the river. Ojka – young and beautiful prostitute runs out to the parking lot. Wolski-fat, aging politician follows her, lured by her charm. None of the realizes that Ojka is only a bait, and Wolski is going to die in a few minutes…This is a begging of the movie with the study of strange relationship between various elements. The movie is a good description of a new, yet complicated Polish reality. Many interesting characters that appear on screen make the film vivid and real. It is also universal-as an intense, electrifying love story. Also, as a description of journey that begins in total darkness and ends in somewhere brighter light of hope.Read More »
Poland
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Christopher Doyle – Warsaw Dark (2009)
2001-2010Christopher DoylePolandThriller -
Jerzy Stefan Stawinski – Pingwin (1965)
1961-1970DramaJerzy Stefan StawinskiPolandRomanceA story about love and the life of the youth of the sixties. A film saturated with insightful psychological observations and the warm, affectionate relationship of the central character.Read More »
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Agnieszka Smoczynska – Córki dancingu AKA The Lure (2015)
2011-2020Agnieszka SmoczynskaFantasyMusicalPolandQuote:
An erotic, body-violent new wave rock opera about wayward sirens. The Lure mashes up folklore, vampiric mermaids, ‘80s hair and body horror to create a bewitching and surprisingly touching musical drama.Sirens Silver and Golden (Marta Mazurek and Michalina Olszanska respectively) loiter on the shores of Warsaw in 1980s Poland, hoping to catch unwitting humans to take as food. But on this occasion, Silver refrains from dinner, instantly falling for a young guitarist (Jakub Gierszal) singing on the beach.Read More »
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Krzysztof Zanussi – Barwy ochronne AKA Camouflage (1977)
1971-1980ComedyDramaKrzysztof ZanussiPolandQuote:
A group of students are spending the summer vacation at a university camp studying the science of linguistics. One of the camp directors, Jaroslaw, is a young professor who prefers the straightforward, intimate approach to students. He is opposed in his liberal views by Jakub, who likes to manipulate people. There is a confrontation from the beginning when Jaroslaw allows to attend the seminar a student who presents the views not according to the official line. In the end, a jury prize is given to mediocre paper, while the suspected school of thought still draws a recommendation. Finally the deputy rector arrives for the closing ceremonies, and since he disfavors the line of thought awarded by the recommendation the tensions rise. They climax when student in question bites the rector in the ear while receiving recommendation. The confrontation results in a scandal and the police is called in.Read More » -
Magdalena Szymków – Mój dom AKA My House Without Me (2012)
2011-2020DocumentaryMagdalena SzymkówPolandQuote:
Two women, one house. An intimate story about a Pole and a German placed by war on enemy sides and their parallel lives accidentally brought together.The film reflects on the concepts of invaders, victim, guilt and forgiveness. It confronts different experiences and their paradoxical similarities. It deals with the controversial subject of the post-war accountings.
The visual narration is flowing, guided by memories and archives. Traditional documentation confronts experimental use of archival footage in the cinematic impression about displacement.Read More »
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Krzysztof Zanussi – Obce cialo AKA Foreign Body (2014)
2011-2020DramaKrzysztof ZanussiPolandSynopsis:
Angelo and Kasia met in Italy in a Focolari prayer group and were brought together by love and faith in God. Their relationship is interrupted by the young woman’s return to Poland and her decision to become a nun. Angelo comes to Warsaw to persuade Kasia to change her mind. Waiting for her decision, he gets a job at a multinational corporation. The company is run by a ruthless and cynical woman, Kris. In the corporate reality the deeply religious Angelo falls victim to mockery and mobbing. Using her power, Kris toys with him and wants to force him to violate his moral principles, while being fascinated by his faith at the same time.Read More » -
Krzysztof Kieslowski – Krótki film o zabijaniu AKA A Short Film About Killing (1988)
1981-1990CrimeDramaKrzysztof KieslowskiPolandQuote:
Death from the very beginning — a rat decomposing in the water, a cat hanging from a railing as giggling children run off. In Krzysztof Kieslowski’s expansion of the Decalogue: Five segment (“Thou shalt not kill”), the commandment bounds individual and governmental killing into one object of anguished contemplation. Biblical intimations also figure in the bar exam summation (“Since Cain, no punishment has been capable of improving the world”) of apprentice attorney Krzysztof Globisz, one of the three Warsaw dwellers whose path ominously converge; the others are a 20-year-old drifter (Miroslaw Baka) and a jaundiced, middle-aged cabbie (Jan Tesarz). The obscured-vision effects of Slawomir Idziak’s dirty-sepia filters — characters encircled by soiling irises — suggest isolated realities clashing appallingly in the most excruciating murder since Torn Curtain’s farmhouse killing: a mid-ride throttling, Tesarz’s writhing foot emerging bare from shoe and sock, a heavy body dragged through an almost Tarkovskyan marsh before the final bludgeoning at Bakas hand’s.Read More » -
Krzysztof Kieslowski – Krótki film o milosci AKA A Short Film About Love (1988)
1981-1990DramaKrzysztof KieslowskiPolandRomanceQuote:
An obscured thief breaks into a school gymnasium at night to steal a portable telescope from the science lab. On the following morning, the thief, Tomek (Olaf Lubaszenko) sets up the telescope on his desk, facing the window of his room, and across the courtyard into an adjacent apartment. Later in the day, an attractive, hurried woman named Magda (Grazyna Szapolowska) stops by the post office in order to claim a money order after receiving a notification in her mailbox, only to be informed by the attentive young postal clerk, Tomek, that there is nothing being held at the station on her behalf. Back home, Tomek sets his alarm clock to 8:00 pm, the approximate time of Magda’s return home. Tomek would prepare his meals and dine in the privacy of his room, away from the curious gaze of his godmother (Stefania Iwinska), and spend hours observing Magda as she goes through the routine of her household tasks, often placing anonymous, silent telephone calls to hear the sound of her voice.Read More » -
Andrzej Wajda – Walesa. Czlowiek z nadziei AKA Walesa: Man of Hope (2013)
2011-2020Andrzej WajdaDramaPolandPoliticsThe depiction of the life of Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of Poland’s Solidarity movement, Lech Walesa, as events in the 1970s lead to a peaceful revolution.
Quote:
Wałęsa, an electrician at the Gdańsk Shipyards, participated in local demonstrations during the 1970s. Following the bloody aftermath, which remains with Wałęsa, he concentrates on his day-to-day duties. Ten years later, a new uprising occurs and he becomes an unexpected and charismatic leader of Polish dockworkers.Read More »









