LUNAR FUTURISM: COSTUMES, PROPS & EPHEMERA FROM ANDRZEJ ZUŁAWSKI'S ON THE SILVER GLOBE
In the Spring of 1977, as production was nearing completion, the Vice-Minister of Culture halted the production. For almost a decade, the...
As Angola decolonises from Portuguese rule in 1975, a power struggle erupts between rival independence groups. Ryszard (Mirosław Haniszewski), a young foreign correspondent from the Polish Press Agency, travels to the front lines to...
In 1946, a Polish Home Army soldier is shot by the secret police of the new communist regime, who repeatedly desecrate the grave of the deceased. The soldier’s parents, Hanka (Grażyna Błęcka-Kolska) and Jakub (Jan Jankowski), decide...
What do you do when a chatty passenger sits next to you on the plane and won’t stop talking? This comedy weaves together the interrelated stories of six protagonists all experiencing a sudden onset of social anxiety. Through a...
Kaja (Małgorzata Szczerbowska) has returned after a six-year absence and older sister Mula (Anna Krotoska) isn’t too happy to see her. A family gathering for the First Communion of Mula’s daughter provides an innocuous enough setting...
Adam (Dawid Ogrodnik) has been working in The Netherlands to save money for his girlfriend (Agnieszka Suchora) and incoming baby. On Christmas Eve, he pays a surprise visit to his family home in Poland, where a night of vodka-fuelled...
Dorota (Agata Kulesza) is a top prosecutor who uses her legal immunity – and her husband’s political capital – to conceal her illicit behaviour under the influence of alcohol. Magda (Maria Dębska) studies hard at university, but...
On the advice of his psychotherapist, Adaś (Michał Koterski) returns to his childhood to explore the seven basic emotions and understand better how his upbringing has impacted his adult life. Through experiencing the absurd trials and...
Two teenage cousins, Duduś (Filip Łobodziński) and Poldek (Henryk Gołębiewski), are due to take a train to the seaside for their summer holidays. By a stroke of bad luck, they lose their money at the train station and decide instead...
Film director Janusz (Robert Więckiewicz) has a strained relationship with his older brother Andrzej (Olgierd Łukaszewicz), the creator of a cult comedy from the 1970s. When Andrzej becomes paralysed by a stroke, it’s up to Janusz and...
When his mother dies, Kashubian boy Mateusz (Sebastian Fabijański) is taken in by the Prussian aristocrat Gerda von Krauss (Anna Radwan). In her palace, a love affair blossoms between Mateusz and the Countess’s daughter Marita...
A Polish doctor (Jacek Poniedziałek) working in the Russian Empire uses ether to rape a woman, accidentally murdering her. By a stroke of unjust luck, he is reassigned to a border fortress in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where he...
A group of students arrive at a remote hotel for their internship. At this provincial outpost – somewhere between The Shining and The Hourglass Sanatorium – they discover a surprisingly strict manager and some unexpected services on...
American filmmaker Katie (Emma Friedman- Cohen) sets out to create a documentary about the lives of migrants in post-Brexit referendum London. She casts aspiring Polish actress Alicja (Aneta Piotrowska) as the main figure of her...
Nina (Julia Kijowska) and Wojtek (Andrzej Konopka) are a mismatched couple who hope that having a child will save their failing marriage. They need a surrogate and come across Magda (Eliza Rycembel), a self-assured, independent...
Walerian Borowczyk is perhaps one of the most well-known Polish artists in the West, popular for his early animated films and a series of French productions. From the height of his fame in the 1970s, Borowczyk took a sharp tumble,...
ROLY POLYDirector: Andrzej Wajda Writer: Stanisław Lem Cast: Bogumił Kobiela, Anna Prucnal Poland, 1968, 30 min Two rally car drivers, Ryszard (Bogumił Kobiela) and Tomasz, end up in hospital following a crash. Ryszard survives...
How do we respond to the impending inevitability of death? Might it, in fact, be possible to experience a ‘good death’? End of Life took four years to complete, during which the directors trained as end-of-life doulas and filmed...
As Angola decolonises from Portuguese rule in 1975, a power struggle erupts between rival independence groups. Ryszard (Mirosław Haniszewski), a young foreign correspondent from the Polish Press Agency, travels to the front lines to...
With Earth’s civilisation in decay, a team of astronauts are sent to populate a new planet. The last original survivor Jerzy (Jerzy Trela) is treated by the emergent feudal society as a demi-god, and sends a video diary back to Earth...
Wit (Daniel Olbrychski) reluctantly returns to his family home when he is asked to take care of his gravely-ill father (Jan Kreczmar). Upon entering the dark confines of a house that he has not visited in six years, Wit is again...
After a mysterious flight recorder found in the Gobi Desert is traced to the planet Venus, an international space crew is dispatched to decipher its message and discover what has become of the alien civilisation. This high-budget...
The dystopian surrealist painter Zdzisław Beksiński (Andrzej Seweryn) had a remarkable gift for a man without any formal training as an artist. His son Tomasz (David Ogrodnik) was a troubled yet popular radio presenter, music...
A group of former university friends reunite in the cattle truck of a freight train, where they reminisce about the brutal realities of Stalinism during their student days (and reflect on what’s become of them). Banned by Communist...
Readings, photos, recordings and recollections with Grażyna Dyląg, Andrzej Jaroszewicz, Adam Żuławski & Daniel Bird.
Who was Jerzy Żuławski? How did he come to write ‘the lunar trilogy’ upon which On the Silver Globe is...
Józef (Jan Nowicki) travels to the sanatorium where his father (Taduesz Kondrat) is staying. Upon arrival, he discovers a ruinous wonderland where time slowly drips away and the borders between dreams, memories and fantasies are never...
When Dr Kris Kelvin (Vasiliy Lanovoy) arrives at the Solaris space station, he discovers a deeply traumatised crew. Haunting apparitions are slowly driving them mad, seemingly emanating from the mind of the sentient ocean planet they...
Alicja (Gabriela Muskała) lives a fiercely independent life in Warsaw, with no recollection of what came before. After she is diagnosed with dissociative fugue, the one-time wife, daughter and mother unwillingly returns to her...
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, German soldiers kill Michał’s (Leszek Teleszyński) wife, son and mother. After an attempt to join the resistance goes awry, Michał meets a pregnant widow (Małgorzata Braunek) who bears an uncanny...
Alicja (Gabriela Muskała) lives a fiercely independent life in Warsaw, with no recollection of what came before. After she is diagnosed with dissociative fugue, the one-time wife, daughter and mother unwillingly returns to her...
As WW2 approaches its end, a group of children are liberated from the Gross-Rosen concentration camp. They come across a derelict estate surrounded by remote woodland, where they struggle with each other over what little food remains....
An electronics corporation sends Pilot Pirx (Sergei Desnitsky) on a secret test flight around Saturn, where he commands a mixed group of humans and androids. Pirx soon discovers an ulterior motive for the mission – to test the...
Anka (Magdalena Popławska) is married to Witek (Michał Żurawski), an acclaimed war journalist who spends most of his time away from home reporting on nascent conflicts in the Caucasus and Afghanistan. The horrors of Witek’s profession...
Julia (Julia Kijowska) and Piotr (Piotr Borowski)
are an affluent middle-class couple who have
been looking forward to taking an all-inclusive
holiday. Their plans come to an abrupt end
when Piotr’s mother asks them to...
Against the backdrop of a once-bustling, now
deserted metropolis, a therapist begins to
examine the urban unconscious of his patients.
He starts slowly, with the innocuous question
of what sort of animal the patients’...
Organised as a part of Frames of Representation Festival, this seminar focuses on Łódź Film School and its graduates, looking at the visionary atmosphere and approach of the Łódź Film School in the past and nowadays; reflecting also...
ICA, Baltic Restaurant & Bar and the Polish Cultural Institute in London present the Closing Gala of the 2019 Kinoteka Polish Film Festival, featuring a screening of Cold War followed by a 1960s dinner party and live jazz...
In Poland’s early postwar, pianist and musicologist Wiktor (Tomasz Kot) puts together a choral ensemble of traditional folk performers, including the enigmatically unruly Zula (Joanna Kulig). Over the next two decades, a stormy love...
The 1990s was a time of economic and social transition in Poland. Following the end of communist rule, the country opened up to the free market and the West. This led to an acceleration in wealth and trade, which naturally had a...