Screening Time: Friday, Nov. 1 at 7:00 pm
Marta is a thirty‑year‑old doctor (PhD) who lives with her mother. The film is a story of her attempts to free herself of her toxic mother’s influence. The secrets and resentments concealed by Poland’s wealthy middle class are difficult to break free from even when you are already an adult.
Director: Julia Kolberger
Cast: Julia Kijowska, Dorota Kolak, Piotr Bajor
Time: 28 minute
Screening Time: Friday, Nov. 1 at 7:30 pm
Teen Julia takes part in a competition in which the prize is dinner with the famous Polish actor. At the same time her boyfriend Jack organizes a romantic evening, where they will be able to experience their “first time”. The unexpected victory in the competition puts their relationship in a complicated situation.
Director: Kuba Gryżewski
Cast: Magdalena Osińska, Rafał Rybarczyk, Przemysław Cypryański, Dorota Lilental
Time: 18 minutes
Screening Time: Friday, Nov. 1 at 7:50 pm
Legendary winters of the 1980s might have been severe but from time to time the temperature was surprisingly high. A seemingly prosaic episode will be a heart-warming recollection for the characters of the film. It’s a story told through the so-called steamy glass but at the same time it also sheds some light on the mystery. Love with a human blushing face.
Director: Kuba Gryżewski, Ivo Krankowski
Cast: Paulina Gałązka, Piotr Bondyra, Izabela Kuna, Bartłomiej Topa
Time: 11 minutes
Screening Time: Friday, Nov. 1 at 9:00 pm
One of the biggest Polish film premieres of 2012. A film eagerly anticipated for over a decade. It is the story of the late 90s generation and the three friends behind the music: Magik, Focus and Rahim. The fact-based film charts the relentless struggle for success of hip-hop group Paktofonika, against the backdrop of crumbling traditional values in dreary 90s Silesia, Poland. The hip-hop ideals and rebellious, against-the-system-lyrics juxtaposed with money and fame sought by the artists are all superbly captured in this dark, unforgettable drama.
Director: Leszek Dawid
Cast: Marcin Kowalczyk, Dawid Ogrodnik, Tomasz Schuchardt, Katarzyna Wajda
Time: 124 minutes
Awards: Polish Film Awards: Best Editing for Jarosław Kamiński; Polish Film Awards: Audience Award for Leszek Dawid
Screening Time: Saturday, Nov. 2 at 11:30 pm
Ambroży Kleks is asked by King of Bajdocja about getting ink, without which Festival of Fairy Tales will not be able to begin.
Director: Krzysztof Gradowski
Cast: Piotr Fronczewski, Henryk Bista, Leon Niemczyk, Wiesław Michnikowski
Time: 84 minutes
FREE Screening: Saturday, Nov. 2 at 1:30 pm
Mixing feature and documentary, the director makes a film about one of the most famous Polish poets of the XXth century and Home Army soldier Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński. Baczyński is known as the most famous representative of The Generation of Columbuses. The young people from this generation were born into a free Poland (which had regained independence in 1918) and had their adolescence interrupted by the outbreak of the Second World War. He published his first poem in 1936, at the age of 15. After 1939, his artistic vision expressed the tragedy of the individual. An active member of the Home Army, Baczyński became the most known poet of fighting Warsaw.
Baczyński, the film blends a video-clip style, with ‘talking heads’ characteristic of documentaries, stages scenes, stylised war-time images and black and white photographs from the album Generations.
Director: Kordian Piwowarski
Cast: Mateusz Kościuszkiewicz, Katarzyna Zawadzka, Ewa Telega
Time: 70 minutes
Screening Time: Saturday, Nov. 2 at 3:00 pm
Baby Blues is the story of an immature 17-year-old mother who wanted to have a baby just for the sake of having a baby. All the young celebrities, like Britney Spears or Nicole Richie, are having babies. But why did Natalia really decide to become a mother at such a young age? The answer may lie in what teenagers write at online forums. They want to have babies to finally have someone who will truly love them, and to have someone to love.
The world premiere of Baby Blues took place at the 37th Toronto International Film Festival.
Director: Katarzyna Rosłaniec
Cast: Magdalena Berus, Nikodem Rozbicki, Michał Trzeciakowski, Klaudia Bułka, Magdalena Boczarska
Time: 100 minutes
Awards: Berlin International Film Festival: Generation 14plus – Best Film and Beat Feature Film for Katarzyna Rosłaniec
Screening Time: Saturday, Nov. 2 at 5:00 pm
Three generations of the same family take a road trip to remember in this Polish comedy-drama. When his wife Barbara (Anna Nehrebecka) leaves him after decades of marriage, retired jazz performer Włodzimierz (Michał Urbaniak) finds himself in a crisis. Barbara’s departure has wide-reaching consequences, with Włodzimierz’s pianist son, Paweł (Artur Żmijewski) returning home in an attempt to track his mother down.
Joining the father-son pair on the ensuing road-trip is Paweł’s own teenage son, Maciek (Krzysztof Chodorowski), from whom he is semi-estranged. During the journey across the evocative Polish landscape, there are laughs, tears are shed and secrets are revealed as the three characters take in each others lives and musical inclinations, while facing up to revelations, enmities and much more. Eventually, the journey becomes more emotional than they ever imagined.
Piotr Trzaskalski’s third film is a poignant, good-humored look at family relations, one that gives a starring role to jazz legend, Urbaniak.
Director: Piotr Trzaskalski
Cast: Artur Żmijewski, Michał Urbaniak, Krzysztof Chodorowski, Anna Nehrebecka
Time: 133 minutes
Awards: Polish Film Awards: Discovery of Year for Michał Urbaniak; Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival: Best Actor Award for Michał Urbania
Screening Time: Saturday, Nov. 2 at 7:00 pm
Vulture, a police officer seemingly devoid of any feelings, is charged with the investigation of people disappearances in the center of Europe. He is tough, incorruptible, without commitments and personal debts; until he meets Natasha, a woman different from those he has met before. Vulture begins a dangerous game against an opponent who is always a step ahead. He discovers a world where people live double lives. For the first time, his logical mind leads him into a trap without exit. From a hunter he suddenly becomes game. Balancing between desire and intellect, between the world of logic and clever deceit he has to answer a question: is there anything more important than human life?
Director: Eugeniusz Korin
Cast: Michał Żebrowski, Daniel Olbrychski, Andrzej Seweryn, Anna Przybylska, Paweł Małaszyński
Time: 133 minutes
Screening Time: Saturday, Nov. 2 at 9:15 pm
It is a tragicomic yet sentimental story of love and farewell. Celina Chmura, age 30, is doing a career in the city and she hardly ever finds time to pay a visit back home. When she finally does, she is surprised to see that she has come just in time for the funeral. Whose funeral is it? She will have to discover it herself. And so will the audience of the movie. The funeral is an occasion for all the relatives and friends to meet. They differ in where they come from and what they stand for. From the perspective of death, their views and quarrels get a new, different meaning. The twisted plot of the movie will leave you with hope, that there are feelings stronger than death and that not all the farewells are forever.
Director: Edyta Sewruk
Cast: Olga Bołądź, Małgorzata Pieczyńska, Bożena Dykiel, Emilian Kamiński, Władysław Grzywna, Wojciech Kalarus, Krzysztof Ibisz, Henryk Gołębiewski, Agnieszka Zulewska, Kamil Krupicz, Damian Łukawski, Dorota Piasecka
Time: 32 minutes
Screening Time: Sunday, Nov. 3 at 12 Noon
This documentary tells the extraordinary story of Roman Polanski’s life through a series of conversations with the director; beginning with his childhood in the Cracow ghetto, his first films in Poland, the tragedy of the murder of his pregnant wife Sharon Tate in Los Angeles, the move to Paris, the controversy surrounding his arrest in 1977, his career in Europe and America, crowned with an Oscar for The Pianist through his work and life today in France with his wife Emmanuelle Seigner.
The conversations were recorded during Roman Polanski’s stay in his home in Gstaad where he was under house arrest for several months after he was apprehended on his way to the Zurich Film Festival in 2009.
The conversations are illustrated with excerpts from Polanski’s films, news footage, press clippings, private and exclusive photos, and documents chronicling the filmmaker’s life.
Director: Laurent Bouzereau
Cast: Roman Polanski, Andrew Braunsberg
Time: 94 minutes
Screening Time: Sunday, Nov. 3 at 1:30 pm
A soldier returns from another tour of duty in war-torn Afghanistan. He was there on a mission to “build a safe and secure home for other nations”. He has returned in order to use the money he earned on his tours of duty to finish building his own home. Will he succeed?
Director: Ewa Bukowska
Cast: Agata Buzek, Marek Bukowski, Krzysztof Stroiński, Anna Chodakowska, Jakub Wieczorek
Time: 32 minutes
Screening Time: Sunday, Nov. 3 at 2:15 pm
Three Polish entrepreneurs lose their estates and their fortunes as a result of murky practices by the revenue office and the judicial system. Though after seven years of struggle all charges against them are dropped, they are ruined both financially and mentally. Closed Circuit is a compelling, strongly performed political thriller about greed and corruption in contemporary Gdansk, Poland. The story is inspired by real events.
Director: Ryszard Bugajski
Cast: Janusz Gajos, Kazimierz Kaczor, Wojciech Żołądkowicz, Robert Olech, Przemyslaw Sadowski, Magdalena Kumorek, Monika Kwiatkowska, Jarosław Kopaczewski, Beata Ścibakówna, Krzysztof Ogloza, Krzysztof Gordon
Time: 100 minutes
Screening Time: Sunday, Nov. 3 at 4:30 pm
A thirty-something Jacek is a webmaster. He lives with Tomek, his brother who suffers from savant syndrome. Jacek has been taking care of Tomek since the death of their parents. Tomek doesn’t speak much and enjoys climbing roofs to image a zeppelins-filled sky. Jacek works from home, and when he goes out to meet clients or on dates, he leaves Tomek in the care of their nosy neighbor . One day she is not home and Jacek for the first time knocks on the door of the red-headed girl from across the hall. That’s when they meet Magda.
Director: Bodo Kox
Cast: Wojciech Mecwaldowski, Piotr Głowacki, Magdalena Różańska, Eryk Lubos, Teresa Sawicka
Time: 90 minutes
Screening Time: Friday, Nov. 1 at 6:30 pm
Ursula is preparing Easter breakfast in honor of his daughter and her new boyfriend. When the girl arrives, it turns out that her fiancé is thirty years older. Breakfast turns into a dinner and Ursula is experiencing the worst day of your life.
Director: Julia Kolberger
Cast: Kinga Preis, Roman Gancarczyk, Marta Juras, Richard Berkeley, Aleksandra Domańska, Paweł Królikowski
Time: 30 minutes