Poland’s best films of recent years will be showcased in the competition programme, announced TASS, a Russian news agency. These include: Małgorzata Szumowska’s Body/Ciało, for which she was awarded the Silver Bear at this year’s Berlinale, Gods, an on-screen biography of Prof. Zbigniew Religa (a remarkable Polish cardiac surgeon) directed by Łukasz Palkowski, Michał Otłowski’s Jeziorak and Obywatel / Citizen by Jerzy Stuhr.
Jerzy Stuhr in Moscow
TASS also reports that Jerzy Stuhr will visit the festival to personally present his film. The event's programme also includes a retrospective of his acting and directorial achievements. The Russian audience will watch Stuhr in the excellent comedy Sexmission (dir. Juliusz Machulski) and Mystification (dir. Jacek Koprowicz). The retrospective will be supplemented with Stuhr’s Love Stories, A Week in the Life of a Man, The Big Animal, based on a story written by Krzysztof Kieślowski, Tomorrow’s Weather and Korowód.
The Panorama of New Cinema section will present films of Polish debutants and classics of various film genres. The audience will also have a chance to watch films about Warsaw and TV plays in Theatre on Screen.
The festival will present films by Munk Studio and the Łódź Film School as well. This year, as TASS wrote, Warsaw Film School also partners the event and will show their students’ and graduates’ best productions. Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida, an Oscar-winning production, will be showcased for the second time – a year ago it was among one of the 11 finalists of the 7th Polish Film Festival’s main competition.
Wisła Film Festival
This is the eighth edition of the Wisła Polish Film Festival. Due to the tense relations between Russia and European Union, this edition is accompanied by controversies. Some creators withdrew from last year’s edition of the festival, like the creators of Papusza, Krzysztof Krauze and Joanna Kos-Krauze. Their decision was an act of protest against the Russian authorities’ decision to forbid Mustafa Dzhemilev, the legendary leader of the Crimean Tatars, from entering Russia. In April 2014, Dzhemilev received a five-year-long ban on entering Russia, which made it impossible for him to return to his native Crimea.
Papusza was created to defend the long persecuted nation of Roma. To defend the persecuted minority. Any minority .
– wrote the film’s authors as they withdrew from the event.
More information about the festival’s programme is available here (in Russian and Polish).
Source: press materials, transl. Agata Dudek, 17/04/15.