Mechanics Institute Library – Bradford

Saturday 22 June, 10.30am – 4.30pm

Tutor: Dr. Rona Murray

Film scholar Ewa Mazierska once asked whether, post communism, Polish films had changed.  “What is parochial and what is universal [ . . . ] what is only of local interest and what appeals to international audiences”, she asked. Our study day will focus on contemporary Polish cinema as it tells a story of moving away and coming home, of films that turn constantly from past to present, from outside to inside the country.  

Perhaps this mobile perspective is not surprising considering how Polish artists have left and returned, such as Pawel Pawlikowski, Agnieszka Holland and Jerzy Skolimowski. Despite their exile (self-imposed or otherwise), their perspective has stayed uniquely Polish, by turns poetic, surreal and blackly humorous. The day will examine how Polish filmmakers (including these auteurs) bring history and the modern world together in stories which are strongly rooted in national subjects and places, but which vibrantly capture a universal state of flux and uncertainty.

The day includes a screening of Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor (Pokot) (2017). Described as an ‘eco-thriller’ it is a beautifully-filmed, at times darkly comic, tale of hunting and activism, community and seclusion, past and present in central Europe set in Poland’s Kłodzko Valley. Co-directed with her daughter, Kasia Adamik, it is a modern and radical story from a well-established auteur.