KINOTEKA
Claude Lanzmann, who was born in Paris in 1925, died today in the city of his birth, aged 92. He will always be remembered for the ground-breaking undertaking of Shoah, which took twelve years (1974-1985) to finish; the reconstruction of the genocide, lasting 560 minutes, a unique, monumental achievement. Born as the grandson of Russian […]
Dir.: Luke Sullivan; Cast: Sarah Houbolt, Robin Royce Queere, Aldo Fedalo, Ali Aitken; Australia 2018, 75 min. Young Australian director/writer Luke Sullivan (You’re Not Thinking Straight) really pushes the boundaries out in this ominous post-aplocalyptic tale that combines elements of documentary and fiction by doing away with a conventional narrative, and casting a severely sight-impaired […]
Dir.: Krzysztof Zanussi; Cast: Barbara Wrzesinska, Jan Myslowicz, Andrzej Zarnecki; Poland 1969, 75 min. In his feature debut, Polish veteran Krzysztof Zanussi examines the nature of friendship and male rivalry and explores whether a bond of shared history can still reunite us years later, or whether change and the passage of time is destined to […]
Writer-Director Aleksander Hertz | Cast: Pola Negri, Witold Kuncewicz, Jan Pawłowski, Maria Dulęba, Mia Mara. Melodrama | Poland / 67 min (incomplete) Aleksander Hertz’s Bestia was one of the last of several films made by his company Sfinks starring his protégé Pola Negri under her real name Apolonia Chałupiec before she left for Germany in […]
Dir.: Rafael Kapelinski; Cast: Theo Stevenson, Rosie Day, Liam Whitling, Byron Lyons, Thomas Turgoose, Charlotte Beaumont; UK 2017, 89 min. Polish born director Rafael Kapelinski, who studied with Andrei Wajda in Lodz and got an MA from the NFTS, has directed a disturbing, haunting debut feature, which in many ways – not least due to […]
London hosts KINOTEKA Film Festival for the 16th year running. This year celebrates 100 years of Polish independence with the latest cutting edge cinema and some lesser known archival gems now ripe for rediscovery, along with Q&As, masterclasses and musical entertainment. The festival also offers unique insight into Poland’s rich cultural history through cult classics, biopics, […]
Director: Wanda Jakubowska | Scr: Wanda Jakubowska, Gerda Schneider | Cast: Tatjana Gorecka, Antonina Górecka, Barbara Drapinska, Aleksandra Śląska | Drama / Poland / 110 minutes Wanda Jakubowska (1907-1998) and her scriptwriter Gerda Schneider were themselves both inmates of Auschwitz; and Jakubowska’s determination to remember what she was witnessing in order to make a film about it helped […]
Dir: Andrzej Wajda | Poland | Wartime Drama | 103MIN ASHES AND DIAMONDS is undoubtedly a film noir. Not only has Wajda borrowed the sinister shadows and the black and white aesthetic from the masters of the genre, but he has given the film a hero who is already as good as dead from the […]
Dir.: Michal Rosa | Cast: Karolina Gruszka, Dariusz Chojnacki, Agata Kulesza, Dorothea Segda, Andrzej Konopka, Krzysztof Stroinski | Poland 2016, 98 min Best known for his Karlovy Vary winner Silence, Michal Rosa’s latest drama is set in the Southern Polish region of Silesia where the male occupants of a block of flats are obsessed by the charms […]
Dir.: Hanna Polak | Documentary | Denmark/Poland/Japan/Netherlands/USA 2014 | 98 min. Filmed over 14 years, Hanna Polak’s portrait of survival in Europe’s largest junkyard, the Svalka, just 13 miles away from the Kremlin, is a sobering witness report of utter deprivation. What makes it even worse (and sometimes unbearable to watch) is that the majority […]