Kinoteka is back this Spring for a month-long celebration of Polish film, music and visual arts. This 12th year of the festival celebrates the work of Walerian Borowczyk with his Erotic Fables CINEMA OF DESIRE – the legendary filmmaker whose debut THE BEAST (1975) brought him to the film spotlight after an early career as a painter, sculptor and poster artist.
Taking place at various venues across London: The Barbican, Riverside Studios, BFI Southbank, ICA, The National Gallery Dalston’s Cafe Otto and Islington Union Chapel, it offer the chance to explore the latest in Polish film with masterclasses, Q&As and interactive workshops.
The festival opens with the award-winning PAPUSZA, that follows the rise and fall of Polish-Gypsy poetess Bronislawa Wajs and her relationship with her discoverer, writer Jerzy Ficowski. Directors Joanna Kos-Krauze & Krzysztof Krauze (Saviour Square, The Debt)’s film premiered at Karlovy Vary and is an insightful portrait of the Polish Roma community and of a way of life pushed to the margins of society. Joanna Kos-Krauze and the film’s star Jowita Budnik will be taking part in a Q&A after the special event.
Other highlights the latest in new Polish Cinema strand are TRAFFIC DEPARTMENT, a high-grossing, police thriller packed with sleaze and corruption in a Warsaw Police department. The Riverside Studios play host to KINOTEKA’s popular New Polish Cinema strand, delivering a consistently strong selection of Polish films from the last year, boasting critical and box office successes. In LOVING (Wojciech Smarzowski -Rose) a couple’s relationship is put to the test after an emotional and physical trauma. Maciej Pieprzyca’s LIFE FEELS GOOD is an upbeat tribute to the human spirit, based on a true story about a man with cerebral palsy struggling to communicate to those around him is an entertaining film, brilliantly acted by non-disabled performers, the film captures as much wonderment as frustration and is filled with fully fleshed-out characters.
Acclaimed director Pawel Pawlikowski will present his highly anticipated and multi-award winning new film IDA. Pawlikowski’s latest film is a poetic, almost Bressonian exploration of the limits of faith following the story of Anna, a young novice in rural 1960s Poland, who discovers a dark family secret on the verge of taking her vows. Exquisitely composed and shot in luminescent black and white, , won Best Film at the London Film Festival.
Sex behind the Iron Curtain, Sex in the Socialist Republic of Poland is a fascinating and insightful look at sex behind the Iron Curtain with a programme of Polish animation shorts from the Communist period, thematically linked around sex with works by Julian Józef Antoniusz, Andrzej Czeczot, Piotr Dumała and Alexander Sroczyński amongst others.
KINOTEKA – CINEMA OF DESIRE RUNS FROM 24 APRIL UNTIL 30 MAY 2014
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