Polish

  • Sharon Lockhart – Rudzienko (2017)

    2011-2020DocumentaryExperimentalSharon LockhartUSA

    Quote:
    Sharon Lockhart’s film Rudzienko was shot over two years in collaboration with the residents of the Youth Center for Sociotherapy in Rudzienko, Poland. Building on the relationship she established in 2009 with Milena, who later moved to the center, Lockhart conceived of a series of workshops to empower the young women. The group worked together to develop dialog and movements to be enacted on camera based on their collective activities. The resulting film features a range of conversations, from the philosophical to everyday teenage concerns, and depicts actions both theatrical and mundane that voice the girls’ rich humanity. The Polish-language film proposes an innovative approach to the relationship between image and language by offsetting the spoken conversations with their written translations. (lockhartstudio.com)Read More »

  • Andrzej Wajda – Pokolenie AKA A Generation (1955)

    1951-1960Andrzej WajdaDramaPolandWar

    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 »

  • Andrzej Munk & Witold Lesiewicz – Pasazerka AKA Passenger (1963)

    1961-1970Andrzej MunkArthouseDramaPolandWitold Lesiewicz

    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 »

  • Krzysztof Krauze – Dlug AKA The Debt (1999) (DVD)

    1991-2000CrimeDramaKrzysztof KrauzePoland

    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 »

  • Jacek Bromski – Sztuka kochania AKA Art of Loving (1989)

    1981-1990ComedyJacek BromskiPoland

    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 »

  • Leszek Dawid – Ki AKA My Name is Ki (2011)

    2011-2020DramaLeszek DawidPoland

    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 »

  • Wojciech Smarzowski – Dom zly AKA The Dark House (2009)

    2001-2010CrimeDramaPolandWojciech Smarzowski

    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 »

  • Jerzy Hoffman – Tredowata AKA The Leper (1976)

    1971-1980DramaJerzy HoffmanPolandRomance

    Quote:
    A simple governess and a wealthy aristocrat fall madly in love with each other. However, his family are prejudiced towards her and have other plans for him.Read More »

  • Krzysztof Zanussi – Stan posiadania AKA Inventory (1989)

    Drama1981-1990Krzysztof ZanussiPoland

    Synopsis:
    Difficulty of human relations in a 3-cornered tale: a neurotic woman, idealistic young man and his mother. Tomek is a clean-cut, high-minded geography student. He lives with his mother Zofia, a sensitive, practicing Catholic, like her son. When he meets Julia, a depressed woman older than he, he first tries to comfort her, then invites her to stay with him and his mother. Tomek makes a trip to West Berlin to visit his well-off father. He refuses to take money from him and looks for work as a house painter. Julia ends up in a rest home for treatment, while Tomek is trying to make their relationship work.Read More »

Back to top button