Films by Polish auteurs Krzysztof Kieślowski, Walerian Borowczyk and Michał Waszyński form the classics strand of the 22nd Kinoteka Polish Film Festival in London.
The festival will screen Kieślowski’s Berlin winner “Camera Buff” (1979), where a factory worker’s passion for 8mm film takes over his life; Borowczyk’s taboo-breaking “The Story of Sin” (1975) that follows the fate of a young woman in a spiral of seduction and obsession; and Waszyński’s “The Great Way” (1946) that tells the story of a young soldier who is taken to a military hospital where a nurse pretends to be his fiancée to support his recovery.
Screening on March 8 for International Women’s Day, short film strand A Short Story of Women comprises nine shorts made by Polish female animators born between the 1970s and 1990s.
The festival’s New Polish Cinema strand includes Małgorzata Szumowska and Michał Englert’s “Woman Of…,” Sebastian Buttny’s “Saint,” Jan Holoubek’s “Doppelganger,” Klaudiusz Chrostowski’s “Ultima Thule,” Kinga Debska’s “Feast of Fire,” Adrian Apanel’s “Horror Story,” “The Secret of Little Rose,” the sequel to Jan Kidawa-Blonski’s “Rose,” and Paweł Maślona’s “Scarborn.”
The documentary strand includes Maciek Hamela’s “In the Rearview,” which premiered at Cannes and has won many awards on the festival circuit, including the grand jury award at Sheffield Doc Fest; and Vita Maria Drygas’ IDFA title “Danger Zone.”
The festival’s 2024 family screening is Magdalena Nieć’s “The Dog Who Travelled by Train,” one of the most popular releases in Polish cinemas last year.
Agnieszka Holland’s “Green Border” will open the festival and Łukasz Rostkowski’s “The Peasants” will close it.
Kinoteka 2024, organized by the Polish Cultural Institute and supported by the Polish Film Institute, takes place March 6-28 in venues across London.
