Polish Film Festival to grace the city

One of the country’s longest running  and most prominent film festivals dedicated to Polish cinema is set to arrive at the Midlands Arts Centre in Birmingham next month.

Spread just over a four-week period, Play Poland  combines weekly screenings of award-winning feature length presentations with in-depth Q&A sessions during the Birmingham leg of its national tour.

Organised by Polish Art Europe, the tour is being brought to Birmingham by the Polish Expats Association, a nationally funded arts and cultural development project.

The festival officially launches in the city on Friday 19th August with Dominic Matwiejczyk’s  Black, a 2009 film about a 30-year-old man who returns to his hometown village after leaving due to traumatic events following his high school graduation, only to then embark on a relationship with a local girl to the disapproval of his mother and local villagers. 

This will be followed by Horizontal 8 (directed by Grzegorz Lipiec, 2008) and Decalogue 89 + vol.1 and Dekalog 89 + vol 2 (2009), along with screenings of short films from Film Mountain, an international film festival.  

The complete programme is as follows:

Black | MAC, Friday 19 August 2011, 6pm

Director: Dominik Matwiejczyk, Cast: Michał Żurawski (Czarny), Maria Niklińska (Ola), Mateusz Damięcki (Kania), Magdalena Różczka (Magda), Marta Klubowicz (Danuta), Poland 2009, 105min, rated 15

Czarny comes back to his family village after a long absence, to rest after his tiring work and metropolitan life. He left the village many years ago under dramatic circumstances involving the mysterious suicide of his father. He meets Ola, a rebellious teenager who claims to be his father’s daughter and his stepsister. The villagers are scandalised by their friendship. Ola’s devout mother, who is romancing with the parson, finds a ‘Satanic Bible’ in her daughter’s room. An exorcist is called in…

Horizontal 8 | MAC, Thursday 25 August 2011, 8.30 pm

Director: Grzegorz Lipiec, Cast: Ewa Gołębiowska, Tomasz Burka, Ewa Pająk, Jerzy Kaczmarowski, Jarosław Żuk Poland, 2008, 90 min, rated 15

Poland in the near future. A remote town. A man wakes up in a hotel room. He is suffering from amnesia. He has a gun and a briefcase full of money. One of the banknotes flies out through the window and begins changing owners, gradually revealing the puzzle of their lives.

Decalogue 89+

On the 20th anniversary of the première of the Dekalog (The Decalogue) cycle by Krzysztof
Kieslowski, ten young directors took up challenge of making new films depicting influence of
the Ten Commandments on contemporary man.

Vol.1 | MAC, Saturday 3 September 2011, 2pm

Directors: Tomasz Olejarczyk, Kristoffer Karlsson Rus, Rafał Samusik, Adrian Panek, Andrzej Mankowski, 2009, 97 min

Feature-length novella film DEKALOG 89 + VOL. 1 is a story consisting of five short films. Their common ground is showing the struggles of the adults’ world with present-day youth’s world created by mass media as generation of rebellion against tradition and culture. Are young people really such nihilists as adults imagine? Do adults really have so impure intentions as young see it?

Vol.2 | MAC, Friday 9 September 2011, 6pm

Directors: Leszek Korusiewicz, Marcin Bortkiewicz, Tomek Matuszczak, Bartosz Paduch, Wojciech Jagiełło, 2010, 104 min

Feature-length novella film DEKALOG 89 + VOL. 2 is second part of the project.  How far can a man influence his own fate? What in our life depends on chance or decision of other people and what truly lies with us? Short films propose inspiring and very modern answers to those questions.

Short Film Screenings | MAC, Thursday 15 September 2011, 6pm

Student Film – Short Film Screenings | MAC, Friday 23 September 2011, 2pm

At the Film Mountain review, 7 categories of shorts will be presented. Each screening contains chosen films from the last 5 years of this dynamic international festival. Each year it screens a selection of independent Polish films simultaneously across Europe and awards accolades by way of audience participation. Play Poland offers you a second chance to catch the award winning films from this long lasting event.

To book a ticket to any of these shwoings, please contact the mac on 0121 446 3232 or visit: www.macarts.co.uk

.