From the 16th of July the Warsaw History Meeting House presents an outdoor cinema series "Holiday Stories" / "Wakacyjna historia" every weekend this summer.
The screenings include a number of feature and documentary films such as "Reverse" (2009) Borys Lankosz, "Czarny czwartek" / "Black Thursday" (2011) by Antoni Krauze, "Venice" (2010) by Jan Jakub Kolskiand "One day in the People's Republic" / "Jeden dzień w PRL" (2006) by Maciej Drygas.
This summer History Meeting House also features,as well as the weekends of outdoor cinema, workshops for children and an exhibition entitled "Let’s Build a New Home. The Reconstruction of Warsaw in the period 1945-1952".
Screenings are held from the 16th of July 2011 to the 28th of August 2011.
The programme of Holiday Stories:
- 16 July 2011
15:00-18:00 Workshops for children
20:00 - "Reverse", dir. Borys Lankosz, screenplay by Andrzej Bart, feature film, Poland 2009, 99mins.
Set in the present and in 1950s Warsaw. The main character is Sabina, a quiet, shy woman who has just turned thirty. Clearly, she lacks a man in her life. Her mother knows all about it and tries at all costs to find her daughter a good candidate for a husband. The whole situation is controlled by the grandmother, an eccentric lady with a sharp tongue from whom no secret can be concealed. Successive admirers arrive at the pre-war tenement where the women live, but Sabina is interested in none of them. One day, appearing out of nowhere, comes the charming, intelligent, and terribly good-looking Bronislaw. His presence will spark off a series of unexpected events revealing the darker side of the women's nature… Excellent cinematography captures the scenery of Warsaw in the 1950s.
- 23 July 2011
15:00-18:00 Workshops for children
20:00 - "Goodbye Lenin", dir. Wolfgang Becker, screenplay by Wolfgang Becker and Bernd Lichtenberg, feature film, Germany, 2003, 121mins.
Set in 1989 in East Germany. A young man protests against the regime. The heroine, the young man’s mother, an activist for social progress and the improvement of everyday life in socialist East Germany, faints as she watches the police arrest her son and falls into a coma. Eight months later she awakens but is still confined to herbed. Her heart is so weak that any shock might kill her. And what could be more shocking than the fall of the Berlin Wall and the triumph of capitalism in her beloved country? To save his mother, Alex transforms the family apartment into an island of the past, a kind of socialist museum where his mother is lovingly duped into believing that nothing has changed. The film tells the story of how a loving son tries to move mountains and create miracles to restore his mother to health - and keep her in the belief that Lenin really did win after all.
- 30 July 2011 (Sunday)
15:00-18:00 Workshops for children
20:00 - "Black Thursday" / "Czarny czwartek, Janek Wiśniewski padł", dir. Antoni Krauze, screenplay: Michał S. Pruski, Mirosław Piepka, feature film, Poland, 2011, 100mins.
This film is dedicated to the workers' strikes that swept over Polish coastal cities in December of 1970, only to be brutally crushed by communist authorities. The film focuses on the story of the family of Gdynia shipyard worker Brunon Drywa, who was shot dead during riots at a train station in Gdynia on the 17th of December 1970. The film feels like a documentary, with black-and-white, simple images tell the story of what happened in those emotional days.
- 6 August 2011
15:00-18:00 Workshops for children
20:00 - "Rebuilding Site in Warsaw", video newsreel film of the rebuilding of the capital city, 20mins.
20:20 - "My Warsaw", dir. Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz, documentary film, Poland 2003, 53mins.
Maria Zmarz-Koczanowiczendeavoured to describe the city, loved by some, detested by others, but impossible to ignore. Among the characters are: Anna Beata Bohdziewicz - a photographer, Malgorzata Baranowska - a poet and literary historian, Grzegorz Jarzyna - a theatrical director, Tadeusz Sobolewski - a film critic and journalist and also members of the hip hop groups "Hemp Gru" and "Molesta Ewenement". The film is enriched by a variety of songs about Warsaw, some hip-hop - written by our characters, as well as the old ones, which together with the numerous material from the archives talk about the old Warsaw.
21:05 - "Adventures in Mariensztadt" / "Przygoda na Mariensztacie", dir. Leonard Buczkowski, screenplay: Ludwik Starski, feature film, Poland, 1953, 93mins.
Poland’s first full-length feature shot in colour. A comedyof manners about life and rebuilding the capital. A young woman takes a trip to Warsaw. Falls in love with the capital and masonJanek, with whom she spends her evenings inMariensztadt.
- 13 August 2011
15:00-18:00 Workshops for children
20:00 - "One Day in People's Poland", direction and screenplay by Maciej Drygas, documentary film, France, 2006, 58mins.
A day in the life of Polish citizen during the Cold War era. For more thanthree years Maciej Drygas researched by searching through the archives of Studio Documentary and Feature Film, Headlamp, Educational Film Studio, Polish Television, the Archive of Warsaw, private collections and other archives where he found reportsand police reports of party and private meetings. There are moments of humor and sadness. The documentary shows the image of the totalitarian system and life in the communist country. Music by Pawel Szymanski's.
- 14 August 2011 (Sunday)
15:00-18:00 Workshops for children
20:00 - "Venice", direction and screenplay by Jan Jakub Kolski, feature film, Poland, 2010, 110mins.
A tale of a boy who yearns for Italy as his country lurches toward war. His family has gone to visit the city on water for generations. His great grandparents, his grandparents, his parents, even his 14-year-old brother Victor have made the trip. Marek knows the names of all the squares and streets of Venice by heart, but he has never actually had the chance to see the city himself. Finally, his dream is to come true one summer - but as luck would have it, it happens to be the summer of 1939. War with Germany looms and Marek's father enters the army. Instead of St. Mark's Square, Marek ends up with his mother in the western town of Zaleszczyki (today eastern Ukraine) in the large villa of Aunt Veronica. But down in the flooded cellar of the mansion, Marek still has dreams. If he can't go to Venice, Venice will come to him...
- 20 August 2011
15:00-18:00 Workshops for children
20:00 - "Motors", direction and screenplay by Wiesław Paluch, feature film, Poland 2002, 78mins.
In 1983, a small Polish town during the communist rule. A group of young boys from high-school spend their time drinking beer, dreaming about the girls and worshiping old WSK motorcycles, called "Motors".
15:00-18:00 Workshops for children
19:00 - "Cooking History", direction and screenplay by Peter Kerekes, documentary film, Slovaka/Czech Republic/Austria, 2009, 88 mins.
A documentary film about army cooks and how the everyday needs of thousands of armed stomachs affect the victories and defeats of statesmen. About the field kitchen as a model of a world where food preparation becomes a fight strategy; a fight for great ideals standing on strong legs of the kitchen table. The film is based on eleven recipes of the cooks since the Second World War till the war in Tchechenia; from France through the Balkans to Russia.
- 28 August 2011 (Sunday)
19:30 - "Beats of Freedom", direction and screenplay by Leszek Gnoinski and Wojciech Słota, documentary film, Poland, 2009, 75mins.
Tells the story of rock music during the Communist era in the People's Republic of Poland as seen through the eyes of Chris Salewicz, a British journalist of Polish roots. It's a film about the sound that gave people a dose of freedom, about one of few aspects of everyday life that gave a bit of elbow room in an otherwise constrained society.
Organised by theHistory Meeting House.
History Meeting House / Dom Spotkań z Historią
ul. Karowa 20
00-324 Warsaw
tel. 22 255 05 05
fax. 22 255 05 04
www.dsh.waw.pl
Source: press release