‘Countries’ Archives
More documentaries and animation from PWA
Even though their new DVDs are just as English-friendly as they've been to date, for some reason PWA has restricted its announcements of its latest releases to the Polish-language part of its website. Anyway, just before Christmas they released their second animation DVD, following their unutterably superb Anthology of Polish Animation (Antologia [...]
Back to the big screen
Given the pervasive impression that the cinema as a big-screen attraction has more or less died out in eastern Europe, I was very encouraged by this news item from Polskie Radio's English-language news site that said that 2007 was the most successful year in Polish cinema history, with 32,500,000 tickets sold.Even more surprisingly, two out of the [...]
East of Berlin
Here's a very promising initiative - a blog set up by Roy Stafford to accompany a series of evening classes on central European cinema that he's teaching at the National Media Museum in Bradford. The first instalment is a short introduction to the films of Andrzej Wajda.
Edward Kłosiński RIP
The distinguished Polish cinematographer (and husband of Krystyna Janda) Edward Kłosiński died on Saturday at the age of 65. As you can see from his IMDB filmography, he was the director of photography on a huge range of important Polish films, including Andrzej Wajda's Land of Promise (Ziemia obiecana, 1975), Man of Marble (Człowiek z [...]
Polish Beauties at the Riverside
Between 9 January and 6 February, the Riverside Studios Cinema in Hammersmith (which has been London's strongest champion of Central and East European cinema for a good few years now) is holding a five-part 'Polish Beauties' season, comprising programmes starring renowned Polish stars from Pola Negri (1897-1987) to Alicja Bachleda-Curuś (b. [...]
Breaking the Rules talks
There are some intriguing-looking spin-off events from the British Library's ongoing Breaking the Rules: The Printed Face of the European Avant Garde 1900 – 1937 exhibition, including two that have strong links with the 1930s avant-garde cinema of Czechoslovakia and Poland. The full list of January events is here, and the two I'm particularly [...]
Jerzy Kawalerowicz RIP
Polish director Jerzy Kawalerowicz, best known in Britain for Mother Joan of the Angels (Matka Joanna od aniołów, 1961) and the Oscar-nominated The Pharaoh (Faraon, 1965), died yesterday at the age of 85. Daily Telegraph obituary Filmreference.com on Kawalerowicz (by Václav Merhaut) Culture.pl on Kawalerowicz (in Polish only) IMDB and [...]
Katyń in English
Hot on the heels of the announcement that Andrzej Wajda's Katyń will have its international premiere at the Berlin Film Festival, the film's official website is now bilingual in Polish and English. It opens in Britain in April - I don't yet know about other English-speaking countries.
Skolimowski in New York
I was talking to a colleague only yesterday about how scandalously difficult it was to see films by Jerzy Skolimowski - and with immaculate timing the blog J.B.Spins has drawn my attention to a retrospective at New York's Anthology Film Archives, running until this Saturday. I can't go, but if anyone else can take advantage, do - most of these [...]
A Švankmajer timeline
During a routine office spring-clean last week, I came across an elaborate timeline that I drew up earlier this year, setting events in the life and career of Jan Švankmajer against a wider backdrop of Czech history and culture of the time.It began life as a crib sheet to help those baffled by the historical references in his 1990 film The Death [...]