Still from Wojciech Słota and Marek Kłosowicz' "Art of Freedom", photo: Janusz Kurczab
Charlotte Rampling as Mother Mary, Rutger Hauer as Peter Bruegel, Andrzej Wajda talking about fashion and Lech Wałęsa sharing his insight into the circumstances that shaped today's generations of Polish Artists and designers, the Polish films screened at the Rasnov Historical Film Festival are an innovative take on past events.
Featuring Rutger Hauer, Charlotte Rampling and Michael York, Lech Majewski’s 2010 Polish Swedish production The Mill and the Cross, using innovative CGI technology turns a Peter Bruegel masterpiece into a moving image. Inspired by Bruegel's 1564 epic masterpiece, The Procession to Calvary and a book also called The Mill and the Cross, Lech Majewski’s film takes the viewer inside the aesthetic universe of the painting as one watches it being created and the lives of the characters - both in the painting and later involved with the painting – evolve. Jesus staggering to his crucifixion, lost in a panoramic landscape crowded with hundreds of villagers and red-caped horsemen, Bruegel himself wandering around the city collecting images and sketches for his painting. "I don't consider myself a filmmaker in the strictest sense", claims Majewski. As he avers in March 2011 interview published on Culture.pl, he became a filmmaker in order to paint pictures.
Rasnov Historical Film Festival also presents four movies from the quirky documentary series shedding light on contemporary Poland through the prism of rock music, fashion, sex, mountaineering and toy-making, which were vehicles of personal freedom during communism. Each film in the Guide to the Poles series tells different stories of people who chose to follow their passions, play rock music, make their own clothes. By not succumbing to the prevailing censorship and pressure to blend in with the uniform crowd, some of them became legends, others helped form artistic trends in contemporary Poland. Co-produced by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, its director Paweł Potoroczyn comments, "One cannot bring to light the phenomenon of Polish freedom without talking about the free culture, which was the most significant and popular part of it. Some people were involved in printing underground publications and dropping leaflets, others were busy playing their homemade guitars and constructing homemade amplifiers. And all these people made history". Guide to the Poles includes Beats of Freedom, Art Of Freedom, Political Dress and Toys.
Sources: culture.pl, Polish Institute Bucarest
Editor: Marta Jazowska