1991-01-01
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In the run-up to parliamentary elections in mid-October, Polish filmmaker Marcin Wierzchowski travelled across his country to gauge the atmosphere in a society that is more divided than ever.
Warsaw is becoming a meeting place for people from different corners of the world, of different ages, with different life stories. What they have in common is a feeling of being lost and a dire need to run away from their solitude. The film shows an image of a contemporary city from couchsurfers’ perspective.
The youngest protagonist of the documentary is Wartburg, an automobile over 50 years of age. The car is still on the road, driven by Bogdan, a 70-year-old who is taking his mother to visit the German factory where she was forced to work during WWII. In this road movie which takes place between Majdanpek and Germany, the trip becomes a journey into the past, retracing memories from the war and revealing a unique relationship between an old son and his elderly mother.
The Neiger family was living a peaceful life in the Jewish community in Krakow when the arrival of World War II changed their lives forever. When Nazi soldiers forced the family from their home into the harsh life of the Ghetto, they made a vow to escape as a family. But when circumstances forced the family to separate from older brother Ben, their will to survive was put to the test. They Survived Together" is the incredible, true story of one family as they desperately tried to stay alive... and together as a family with four small children, attempted to escape certain death at the hands of the Nazis. They are believed to be one of the only families to escape and survive as a family.
People of different age, profession and social status answer two simple questions: who they are and what they want from life.
Pole, who are you? This film collage that combines archival and contemporary materials, documentary and staged pictures, press reports, social announcements, sale offers and speech excerpts is an attempt to answer this question. Referring to the Polish tradition of a creative documentary in the style of Wojciech Wiszniewski, the film presents various manifestations of Polishness: patriotic and religious rituals, everyday traditions as well as characteristic landscapes or intimate memories from childhood.
Why are illegal abortions more accessible in Poland than legal ones in South Africa? This documentary feature explores and contrasts changes in Poland and South Africa regarding abortion laws and their impact on the lives of women. In the 90's, Poland banned abortion due to the increasing influence of the Catholic Church after the fall of communism; around the same time South Africa legalized it, reforming the health system after the fall of apartheid. The film reveals how the legal status of women is a direct result of the silencing or empowering of women's voices. In the Polish society and media, women's perspectives were made invisible; in South Africa, on the other hand, they were invited to give public hearings in the parliament about problems in the realm of reproduction.
Karski & The Lords of Humanity is a feature-length partially animated documentary project. The film tells the story of a member of the Polish underground who acted as a courier during World War II and whose most prominent mission was to inform the Allied powers of Nazi crimes against the Jews of Europe in an effort to prevent the Holocaust.
On July 4th, 1946, the crowd in Kielce, Poland, slaughtered forty-two Jews and wounded many others. Forty years later, in 1987, Marcel Łoziński visited those places and met some witnesses of the carnage.
A documentary charting the rigors of the Russian space program, where the symbol of national pride would justify the most demanding training conditions.
Stop-motion animation on the arranging of marriages in 1950/60s set in the Eastern-Polish borderland. The script is based on a part of Mikołaj Smyk's diary, the director's grandfather. The biographical objects used in the animation, such as an authentic headscarf, Polish and Russian books, the copy of Mikołaj Smyk's diary and photographs help situate the story in its original environment.
The film presents the life and work of two sisters Grażyna and Violetta, who run a center for homeless men. The heart and unconventional approach to their children makes them build a real home together.
Deng Xiaoping's economic and political opening in China. Margaret Thatcher's extreme economic measures in the United Kingdom. Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution in Iran. Pope John Paul II's visit to Poland. Saddam Hussein's rise to power in Iraq. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The nuclear accident at the Harrisburg power plant and the birth of ecological activism. The year 1979, the beginning of the future.
This film, directed by Dominique GAUTIER, takes the viewer on a worldwide excursion into the history and structure of the Esperanto language, introducing its present-day speakers. The words of these users of the language are reflective of a variety of activities and viewpoints, and in the film they are interwoven so as to reveal bit by bit how the utopia of its initiator, Ludwig ZAMENHOF, is concretised every day.
Can you imagine what it means to grow up as the child of a mass murderer? Hans Frank and Otto von Wächter were indicted as war criminals for their roles in WWII. Nazi Governors and consultants to Hitler himself, the two are collectively responsible for thousands of deaths. But what stood out to Philippe Sands were the impressions they left on their sons. While researching the Nuremberg trials, the human rights lawyer came across two men who re-focused his studies: Niklas Frank and Horst von Wächter. The men hold polar opposite views on the men who raised them.
One who doesn't have roots won't be able to grow wings-a documentary project about a man tracking his origins to the Middle East and establishing a connection with his father, whom he have never met before.
When ten-year-old Elliott asks his 90-year-old great-grandfather, Jack, about the number tattooed on his arm, he sparks an intimate conversation about Jack’s life that spans happy memories of childhood in Poland, the loss of his family, surviving Auschwitz and finding a new life in America.