A survey of Central and Eastern European cinema
Sunday May 5th 2024

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Polart: new Polish DVDs

Polart Video in the US have announced three new releases, one of which, Andrzej Wajda’s Katyń, is widely available elsewhere (it’s even out on Blu-ray in Poland), but I think the other two are exclusive to them.

Much the most important is Wanda Jakubowska’s The Last Stage (Ostatni etap, 1948), one of the first major films about the Holocaust, released just three years after the discovery of the extermination camps, and originating from the country that housed most of them – in fact, it was shot on location in Auschwitz, and draws on Jakubowska’s own first-hand memories of the camps. I’m not aware of a DVD release anywhere else, so this is probably an essential purchase.

The third title, Dariusz Gajewski’s Warszawa (2003) is a comedy described thus: “Up and coming Polish star Agnieszka Grochowska shines as young Klara who heads to Warsaw to meet her boyfriend. Her plans change when she becomes entangled with handsome Pawel in a classic meet cute on the train to the city. In the meantime, temperamental hellion Wiktoria finds romance with a businessman. The two couples cross paths when they try to help a farmer find his daughter. he only thing missing from this cornucopia of coincidences and contrivances is a giraffe wandering through the city. But, wait. . . there goes one now!”

More information on their website.

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