After releasing four superbly-presented general overviews of Polish animation (Anthology of Polish Animation, Anthology of Polish Children’s Animation, Anthology of Polish Experimental Animation and Action Animation), Poland’s National Audiovisual Institute (NInA, formerly PWA) is finally making good on its promise to start focusing on individual artists.
Their next release is a two-DVD set devoted to the work of Daniel Szczechura, a near-contemporary of Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica and with a similar graphic style of highly deceptive simplicity. The press release is currently in Polish only, but the films on the DVDs are as follows:
DVD 1
- Hobby – Several Animated Films by One Author (Hobby. Kilka filmów animowanych jednego autora, 2002)
This is a compilation film with animated links incorporating the following shorts:
- Conflicts (Konflikty, 1960)
- A Chair (Fotel, 1963)
- A Graph (Wykres, 1966)
- Hobby (Hobby, 1968)
- The Voyage (Podróż, 1970)
- Burning Fingers (Gorejące palce, 1975)
- The Leap (Skok, 1978)
- Mirage I (Fatamorgana I, 1981)
- Mirage II (Fatamorgana II, 1983)
- A Goodnight Story (Dobranocka, 1997)
DVD 2
- The Machine (Maszyna, 1961)
- First, Second, Third (Pierwszy drugi trzeci, 1964)
- Charles (Karol, 1966)
- The Problem (Problem, 1977)
- The Sock (Skarpetka, 1978)
- XYZ (1986)
- Henryk Tomaszewski (1995)
Title translations came from this career overview courtesy of Polishculture.org – which also includes descriptions of most of the above. Total running time 148 minutes, English subtitles where necessary, release date to be confirmed. And here’s a YouTube sample in the form of his early short First, Second, Third.