This year’s annual KINOTEKA Polish Film Festival (March 7-17) is back with a diverse line-up ranging from restored Wajda work, sexually themed films, live psychedelic film scores, Polish culinary delights and a range of interactive film workshops.
Now in its 11th successful year, the festival celebrates the best of Polish International Cinema, including award-winning films from Poland’s great auteurs to cutting edge, exciting work from a new generation of Polish filmmaking talent. The festival is will be taking place at the Barbican, Riverside Studios, Tate Modern, Curzon Soho, The National Gallery, Queens Film Theatre Belfast, FACT Liverpool and Edinburgh Filmhouse.
Highlights from the 11th KINOTEKA programme include:
· The Opening Night film is the UK premiere of the re-mastered classic, Promised Land (Ziemia Obiecana), directed by legendary auteur, Andrzej Wajda which will be held at the Barbican. A tale of three young friends, a Pole, a Jew and a German who pool their money together to build a factory and their ruthless pursuit of fortune.
· Accompanying the screening of Andrzej Wajda’s Promised Land, KINOTEKA will also present new remastered copies of Krzysztof Zanussi’s Illumination and Escape From the ‘Liberty’ Cinema by Wojciech Marczewski, all screened at the Barbican and released during the festival by Second Run DVD as the second edition of its critically acclaimed ‘Polish Cinema Classics’ series.
▪ Highlights in the Contemporary Polish Cinema section, screening at Riverside include Imagine, by Andrzej Jakimowski, a Polish/UK co-production starring Brit actor, Ed Hogg; also, Katarzyna Roslaniec’s follow-up to her acclaimed debut Mall Girls, Baby Blues, which explores teenage pregnancy; in addition, Wojciech Smarzowski’s Rose and Marcin Krysztalowicz’s gritty WWII drama, Manhunt, both starring the renowned actor, Marcin Dorocinski and with an unexpected shift into erotic thriller territory, director Jan Jakub Kolski’ To Kill A Beaver whose Eryk Lubos was the recipient of the Best Actor Award at this year’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Female audiences will be drawn to the Women’s Day, a snapshot of a woman’s life in eighties Poland from singer/composer Maria Sadowska and Tomasz Wasilewski’s In The Bedroom, one woman’s foray into internet dating.
▪ Still hot from it’s win at the recent Warsaw Film Festival, the Centre Piece Gala and UK premiere, F**k For Forest, directed by Michal Marczak promises to raise a few eyebrows as well as people’s awareness. Can sex save the world? This Berlin NGO thinks so and raises funds for its environmental causes by making and selling amateur porn on the Internet. On general release 19 April courtesy of Dogwoof.
▪ In order to celebrate this year’s sensual theme, Kinoteka have proudly commissioned one of Hollywood’s most prolific movie poster designers, Polish artist, Tomasz Opasinski to create his own interpretation of Polish cinema adding one more unique piece to his legendary body of work which includes iconic posters for Bourne Ultimatum and The Devil Wears Prada. There will be an accompanying exhibition of Opasinski’s original posters at the Riverside Studios.
▪ This year the Tate Modern will host a series of screenings from Polish revered artist and filmmaker, Wojciech Bruszewski, featuring a fascinating retrospective of his ground-breaking moving image experiments, deconstructing the mental clichés of perception and laying bare the power of media manipulation
▪ Also at the Barbican, this year’s unique Closing Night event is Andy Votel presents: Kleksploitation, a musical and visual feast based on the film music of Andrzej Korzynski (Everything For Sale, Possession), composer of more than 120 films including the cult children’s classic, ‘‘Pan Kleks’. Presented by Andy Votel from Finders Keepers, and commissioned by the Unsound Festival in Krakow, and produced by the Barbican and the Polish Cultural Institute, Votel describes the event as Polish psycho-disco re-explored.
▪ Kinoteka will be presenting a number of interactive cinema workshops for writers and directors in partnership with the London Film Academy and New Horizons, Poland. For children there will also be a number of free animation workshops inspired by Witold Giersz’ work, in collaboration with the London International Animation Festival.
▪ The festival will launch a national short filmmaking competition inspired by Roman Polanski’s work. KINOTEKA will also present a masterclass with Polanski’s regular DoP, Pawel Edelman, at the BFI Southbank and organised in conjunction with BAFTA. MT
KINOTEKA RUNS FROM 7-17 MARCH IN LONDON AT THE BARBICAN, THE RIVERSIDE STUDIOS, ICA AND ACROSS THE UK IN LIVERPOOL, BELFAST AND EDINBURGH