| Join us for 10 days of summer with Polish films.
Polish Film Festival Summer 2021 offers a unique selection of Polish films from the past decade.For the first time the Festival will be available for the audience throughout Australia on-line via our website www.polishfilmfestival.com.au
As a thank you to our very loyal group of Polish cinema lovers, who have faithfully accompanied us through the past eight years of the history of the Polish Film Festival in Australia, access to films is free of charge.
Polish cinema is loved in Poland and appreciated worldwide. Over the past decade, many noteworthy films have been made and will be screened at the Festival.
From historical dramas, detective stories, adventure films to romance, comedy and war films, the Festival program is extensive, diverse and offers more than 30 films over a ten-day period in January 2021.
Festival hits
The undoubted hit of the Festival is the film The Legions.
The director of the The Legions (2019) is Dariusz Gajewski, winner of the Golden Lions at Gdynia Polish Film Festival for the film Warsaw. The film has a great cast including Sebastian Fabijański, Bartosz Gelner, Wiktoria Wolańska, Mirosław Baka, Jan Frycz, Borys Szyc and Antoni Pawlicki.
The film's huge budget of PLN 27 million allowed the director to create a spectacular picture with ingenious and impressive battle scenes. The Legions is partially an affair and partially a patriotic war movie, the plot of which is set in the First World War.
The next hit of the Festival, Black Mercedes, directed by Janusz Majewski is a crime movie from 2019, based on his own novel of the same title. This is a classic detective story, which takes place in occupied Warsaw in 1941. Finding the answer “Who’s done it?” is set in the realities of a city divided by a wall, where life continues during war time.
Continuing the historical focus, The Messenger (2019) is Władysław Pasikowski’s latest film about Jan Nowak-Jeziorański and his mission on the verge of the Warsaw Uprising. The hero is sent by the Polish government in London on a mission to pass on instructions to General Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski. The success of the emissary’s expedition will determine the decision to start military operations in Warsaw.
Worth mentioning is Servants of War (2019) directed by Mariusz Gawryś – an action movie with Piotr Stramowski in the main role, nominated for an Eagles Award 2020 for best music.
More details of the Festival program will be available in the January newsletter and on our website www.polishfilmfestival.com.au from 4th January.
Films for children and teenagers
The greatest novelty of our Film Festival Summer 2021 are films for children and young people. These films entertain, teach and amaze.
The current Polish cinema is again on the eve of the great Renaissance, with an ever-growing number of adventure movies made with the youngest viewers in mind.
Our Festival program for children and young people is packed with films full of fantasy and humour and will bring a smile on many faces. The selection of films is interesting – among others Małpa w kąpieli (The Monkey in the bath), O psach i kotach (About dogs and cats), Kopciuch, Paweł i Gaweł.
Małpa w kąpieli (The Monkey in the bath) (2017) by Andrzej Gosieniecki is a funny story about a monkey which, despite all attempts to become more human, remains itself. The film has won many awards, among others the Złoty Tobołek Koziołka Matołka Award in the Leszek Gałysz competition “Now Children Have a Voice!” at the Polish National Festival of Animation O!PLA in 2018.
We also recommend the film The Warsaw Mermaid directed by Paweł Czarzasty (2016), which beautifully tells the legend of the founding of Warsaw.
Tarapaty (Double trouble) from 2017, directed by Marta Karwowska, will undoubtedly be good entertainment for the younger audience, as it is a family and adventure film featuring a comedy of errors and dynamic chases. The popularity of this film prompted the filmmakers to make Tarapaty 2, already screened in Polish cinemas.
Robert Turło’s film O niezwykłej przyjaźni (About extraordinary friendship) (2016) is based on the themes of the folk tale Gadka o zbójnikach and won a distinction at the 6th “KinoJazda” Film Festival for Children and Youth in Nowy Sącz.
Two films by Joanna Jasińska-Kronkiewicz deserve special attention – Len (2005) and To pewna wiadomość (2014).
Len is the first film adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s story, which tells children in a very poetic way about how difficult it is sometimes to accept what is happening and about the joy of getting to know the world and yourself. This is the first translation of film narration into sign language in Poland. The film was created by deaf young people, students of the Educational and Rearing Centre in Poznań and won the Audience Award at the 11th National Festival of Author’s Animated Films “OFAFA 2005” in Cracow.
To pewna wiadomość (This is sure news!) Jerzy Stuhr’s narrative is an original animated film for children from the Paint me a Tale series, made in the animated-painting technique, with oil paints on canvas directly under the camera. This is the second film in the series and the first screen adaptation of this tale by Andersen, just like the previous film Len.
The film has been highly acclaimed by audiences and critics alike, and has been nominated for many awards, including the Hollywood Eagle Animation Award at the 16th Annual Polish Film Festival in Los Angeles.
Let us know how much you enjoyed these films!
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