The Play Poland Film Festival 2011 in Oxford will be a great opportunity to see a lot of great cinema made by young Polish directors divided into four themes shown in Magdalen college during four sessions throughout October.
The Play Poland Film Festival in Oxford will present a program with a great variety of refreshingly young yet rigorous cinema. There is a lot of documentary material which we found not only original and authentic, but also solid and disciplined. Polish animation has been quite famous around the world for many generations. We would like to show different faces of this, in our opinion, still very strong genre. Decalogue 89plus convinced us as a project not only with its scale, but also with the quality of execution and variety of subjects interesting from the point of view of a Polish, but also an international public.
We have chosen the final program after many hours of sifting through a large pool of material sent to us by Play Poland headquarters in Edinburgh. We hope that the selection will inspire you to come and share with us some great cinematic experiences in the most charming cinema hall of Magdalen Collage in Oxford.
All the screenings will take place in Magdalen College (University of Oxford, High Street, Oxford OX1 4AU). Start always at 6pm. You can buy a carnet for all for screenings for £10 or a single entry ticket at £3 on the door or in selected locations around Oxford.
Program:
11.10. 2011 – Tuesday – 6pm – Document and Para-document Film
19.10.2011 – Wednesday – 6pm – Animation
26.10.2011 – Wednesday – 6pm – Double Bill – Decalogue 89+ (Vol. 1 and 2)
01.11.2011 – Tuesday – 6pm – Document and Para-document Film
We will open on the 11.10.2011 with three documentaries in which youthful characters deal with different realities. Firstly there is an intriguing, intimate and borderline voyeuristic piece by Pawel Jozwiak Rodan (Mother, Father, Goda and Satan) in which the director is trying to organise his parents reunion.
They were once in love personalities of the music industry in communist Poland, but have drifted apart in the transformed Poland of the present day. This is fascinating family portrait which also offers oblique and strange dichotomies on religion. This is followed by the MC Man of vinyl by Bartosz Warwas. As said by one of the producers “nearly true, yet not well known, story about a man without whom the Berlin wall wouldn’t have fallen, and without whom hip hop would have never come to Poland”. We will close this screening with “The Lucky Ones” by Tomasz Wolski. Quite endearing, often touching and so familiar to all that have been there, journey to a registry office in one of the Polish towns.
Second day (19.10.2011) offers slightly lighter, however not at all a banal selection of Polish animation. A fantastic choice of themes, surprising dilemmas and solutions guarantees a great screening. From the selection of 14 animations our favourite one was Orchids Fair by Nataila Dziedzic about such ragged characters as scrap collectors and their wicked ideas.
The third day (26.10.2011) is a double bill with Decaloque 89plus (Vol. 1 and Vol. 2). These are two film novellas shot to commemorate the premiere of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s masterpiece Decalogue. 10 young polish directors inspired by the original films as well as the 10 commandments will present their take on contemporary polish society. This is something not to be missed.
On the last day of the Festival (01.11.2011) we will come back to documentary material touching the idea of later stages of life in three fascinating films. The Fugitive by Marek Tomasz Pawlowski is a story about Kazimierz Piechowski, who managed to courageously escape from Auschwitz. After many years of fighting systems of all sorts he decides to dedicate his life to travel. End of the session by Oskar Kozlowski is a short, melancholic and poetic journey to the polish sea side, where the end of the holiday season unmistakably brings to mind the idea of an existential passing away. We will close with a beautiful, wise and endearing story by Bartosz Krolik (Tomorrow) about his grandmother. Thanks to a very subtle relationship between the director and his heroine this great document presents the essence of human existence on a marvelous nutshell.
Play Poland Film Festival has been found by Polish Art Europe. The program has been curated by Dominika Akuszewska and Patryk Wilkicki, who also coordinate the Oxford edition. Oxford Polish Association (Ewa Gluza) and University of Oxford Polish Society (Joanna Bagniewska) are helping to logistically organise the event.
Ales Michalevic in Oxford 
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