Juror Presentation: Marcin Giżycki - Polish Animation
- 20.03.2013, Michigan Theater
Sztandar młodych
directed by Jan Lenica, Walerian Borowczyk, 1957
A short film advertising the newspaper Sztandar Młodych (The Banner of Youth), noteworthy for its abstract elements painted directly onto film stock. An attempt at showing the complexity of the world in a capsule, the film reflects the new policy of the openness to the West during the Thaw of the late 1950s in Poland.
Here and there
directed by Andrzej Pawłowski, 1957
Here and There, by Andrzej Pawłowski, a well-known painter, sculptor, and industrial designer, is a filmed projection of moving objects, cast onto the screen with the aid of an apparatus constructed by the filmmaker- a magic lantern of his own devising.
Italia 61
directed by Jan Lenica, Wojciech Zamecznik, 1961
A film made for the Polish pavilion at the Expo ’61 in Torino, Italy. A series of vignettes illustrating major themes of the show.
Sweet Rhythms
directed by Kazimierz Urbański, 1965
An experiment with the effects of heat on film emulsion, with a view to its deformation and the achievement of new visual effects. Abstract, organic images are superimposed over documentary footage of beekeeping.
The Dynamic Rectangle
directed by Józef Robakowski, 1971
A minimalist abstract film: a red rectangle rhythmically alters its dimensions.
What Do We See After Closing Our Eyes
directed by Julian Antonisz, 1978
Camera-less film by Julian Antonisz, a Polish avant-garde filmmaker, artist, animator, screenwriter, composer, and inventor. The image was created by directly drawing and painting on the film and creates the sound created by drawing in the optical area of soundtrack.
5/4
directed by Hieronim Neumann, 1978
Scenes from a family event literary fell to pieces. An experiment with dividing the screen into four smaller ones.
The First Film
directed by Józef Piwkowski, 1981
The Lumiere brothers first film The Workers Leaving the Factory is reanimated through electronic processing.
Tuning the Instruments
directed by Jerzy Kucia, 2000
A monotonous bike trip evokes images of the past. A symphony of image and sound. Tuning The Instruments received great acclaim along with numerous awards when it premiered a decade ago and is regarded as Kucia’s crowning achievement.
Bark, You Mongrel, Raise Hell, My Pearl
directed by Wojciech Bąkowski, 2006
Made without the use of a camera, the film follows the rhythm of a few repetitive motifs. The music, inseparably bound to the visual image, is also the work of the director.
Kinefaktura
directed by Marcin Giżycki, 2012
Three animated variations on Henryk Berlewi’s Mechanofaktura. Dynamic Contrasts of 1924 based on some hints given by the artist himself. Music and sound design by Jaroslaw Siwinski, a rising star of Polish contemporary music.
Polish Avant-Garde Animation Films
- 22.03.2013, Michigan Theater
The House
directed by Jan Lenica, Walerian Borowczyk, 1958
The third and final collaboration between Lenica and Borowczyk, The House was awarded the Grand Prix at the International Experimental Film Competition at the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels. The House is composed of several loosely related episodes without a narrative thread and employs various techniques. The film represented a major advance in the search to win full artistic autonomy for animation.
The Labyrinth
directed by Jan Lenica, 1962
The Labyrinth, a metaphorical vision of a totalitarian state, is generally considered to be one of the most outstanding films in the history of international animation.
Place
directed by Józef Robakowski, Tadeusz Junak, Ryszard Meissner, 1970
A time-laps single shot of a marketplace from daybreak to sunset. A seminal film for the Worshop of Film Form, a neo-Avant-Garde group founded the same year.
The Journey
directed by Daniel Szczechura, 1970
Regarded as one of the most controversial animated films ever produced in Poland. For much of the movie, nothing actually happens. The camera observes a traveller through the window of a train. Only the passing monotonous landscape visible though the opposite window disrupts the static image on the screen.
New Book
directed by Zbigniew Rybczyński, 1975
The screen is divided into nine smaller ones that show what is going on at the same time in nine different places in a small town. We follow moves of a man in a read raincoat from one place to another. An early work of the future Oscar winner Zbigniew (Zbig) Rybczynski.
Tango
directed by Zbigniew Rybczyński, 1980
In a room of an overcrowded apartment, which can be read as a cross section of the Polish society under Communism, people miraculously perform their everyday routines without bumping at each other. This amazing pre-computer trick film got an Oscar for the best animated short in 1983. [Video]
Line
directed by Grzegorz Rogala, 1981
A mysterious line intrudes on real life.
Block
directed by Hieronim Neumann, 1982
A cross section of a communist housing project. Lives of people inhabiting small apartments intersect in many surprising ways.
Spoken Movie 1
directed by Wojciech Bąkowski, 2007
A film without a camera. Chopped phrases murmured by the filmmaker are confronted with blurred images of familiar objects. The author is also a musician, performer, and one of the best known artist of his generation in Poland.
Paper Box
directed by Zbigniew Czapla, 2012
A montage of decaying and disappearing photographs and documents destroyed during a food. The filmmaker used actual images rescued from his family house after a catastrophic flood of 2010 in a desperate attempt to preserve memories of people and events of the past.