Kinoteka Polish Film Festival 2020: The online line-up
David Farnor | On 12, Nov 2020
The Kinoteka Polish Film Festival is going online this year, after its planned cinema festival was postponed this spring due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The digital event will run from 12th November to 6th December, presenting a wide range of new Polish film and culture as well as highlighting lesser known classics ripe for rediscovery. Filmmakers in the spotlight include Krzysztof Zanussi and Agnieszka Holland. It begins with opening film Iron Bridge, a gripping love triangle from debut director Monika Jordan-Młodzianowska.
Now in its 18th year, the festival will stream 15 films across its three week programme, with titles mostly available throughout the duration of the online festival following their initial premiere. Many films are available to rent for £4.99, with some – All For My Mother, Rock n Roll Eddie The Iron Bridge and Dark, Almost Night – available to rent for £1.99 for a shorter period of 24 hours. The festival primarily uses Vimeo to provide its films, although there are some exceptions, such as Black Mercedes, which is streaming in partnership with the UK Jewish Film Festival.
The festival is also working to showcase films in the spring with some socially distanced events leading the way through to its 2021 festival. These will include Marcin Krzyształowicz’s Mister T and Agnieszka Holland’s Charlatan.
Here’s the line-up and when each film is released:
SHIVERS (Wojciech Marczewski)
12 NOV, 12:00
Shivers, Wojciech Marczewski’s award-winning coming-of-age story set in a 1950s Stalinist youth camp, is an unnerving parable of political indoctrination.
CAMOUFLAGE (Krzysztof Zanussi)
12 NOV, 12:00
Camouflage takes place during an university linguistics summer school where personal and professional rivalries are unflinchingly exposed. An idealistic young teacher comes under the influence of a veteran professor.
THE CRUISE (Marek Piwowski)
12 NOV, 12:00
Regarded as Polish cinema’s first ‘cult film’, Piwowski’sThe Cruiseis also considered by many to be a satirical masterpiece. Shot in a quasi-documentary style, with a cast featuring mostly non-professional actors.
THE IRON BRIDGE (Monika Jordan-Młodzianowska)
12 NOV, 19:00
Assigning tasks to miners working underground, foreman Kacper sends his friend Oskar to the deepest and farthest coal seams so that he has more time for secret meetings with Magda, Oskar’s wife…
BLACK MERCEDES (Janusz Majewski)
13 NOV, 16:30
Warsaw, 1941. The body of a beautiful young woman, the wife of a prominent lawyer, is found in a pool of blood on the couple’s kitchen table. A police detective investigates the case…
Available until 15th November
EASTERN (Piotr Adamski)
13 NOV, 19:00
Behind the fences of a gated community, a singular game is being played out. The residents’ lives are regulated by an inexorable, patriarchal code.
DARK, ALMOST NIGHT (Borys Lankosz
14 NOV, 19:00
After a spate of child kidnappings in her hometown Wałbrzych, tenacious journalist Alicja Tabor (Magdalena Cielecka) returns to the city to assist the puzzled local police.
OUR LITTLE POLAND (Matěj Bobřík)
19 NOV, 19:30
Every year, a small group of Japanese students sign up for classes in the Polish Language and Culture Studies programme at the University of Tokyo…
DOLCE FINE GIORNATA (Jacek Borcuch)
20 NOV, 19:00
60-something Polish Jewish poet Maria Linde (Krystyna Janda) lives a calm family life in Tuscany, as at ease with the local intelligentsia as she is with the migrants working in nearby tavernas…
CHARLATAN (Agnieszka Holland)
21 NOV, 00:00
The brilliant, self-taught Czech healer Jan Mikolášek who cured millions with herbal medicine is threatened by the Communist authorities in Agnieszka Holland’s biopic.
Available until 24th November
MAREK EDELMAN… AND THERE WAS LOVE IN THE GHETTO (Jolanta Dylewska, Andrzej Wajda)
26 NOV, 19:30
Shortly before his death in 2009, Jolanta Dylewska interviewed Marek Edelman – a member of the Bund, and veteran of both the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Warsaw Uprising – about a somewhat surprising subject.
MR. JONES (Agnieszka Holland)
27 NOV, 19:30
In 1933, the Welsh journalist Gareth Jones (James Norton) is sent to the USSR, where he is to interview Joseph Stalin.
ALL FOR MY MOTHER (Małgorzata Imielska)
28 NOV, 19:00
After repeatedly escaping from her orphanage, 17-year-old Olka (Zofia Domalik) is placed in a youth detention centre. With bitten fingernails and scarred arms, Olka has her troubles, yet she is not interested in flashy clothes or bribing…
IN TOUCH (Paweł Ziemilski)
03 DEC, 19:30
In the heart of the Polish lake district, the village of Stare Juchy has been pulled apart. Around one-third of its residents have migrated to Iceland for work. All that remains are their elderly parents…
ROCK ‘N’ ROLL EDDIE (Tomasz Szafrański)
06 DEC, 14:00
After their failed scientific experiment pierces a hole into another dimension, friends Franek (Szymon Radzmierski) and Izka (Weronika Kaczmarczyk) accidentally bring the rock-n-roll fugitive Eddie (Maciej Makowski) into our world.