Films You Didn’t Realise Were Filmed in Poland
Berlin, Normandy, Narnia – it’s actually Poland! Polish landscapes are like actors, transforming under the visions of filmmakers.
Poland has been welcoming foreign film crews for decades. The majority of filmmakers that came to Poland were shooting films depicting events related to the Second World War. This included Europa, Europa, directed by Agnieszka Holland (1990), The Reader by Stephen Daldry, the Oscar-winning Schindler’s List from Steven Spielberg or Roman Polański’s The Pianist. Every year there is at least one new feature or documentary being filmed in a former Nazi German death camp.
Sometimes, however, filmmakers come to Poland not for the historical sites, but to explore other locations: old abbeys, city halls, castles and mountains – just to mention a few. Polish buildings and beaches acted in world cinemas as real-life cities and countries, but also as ‘never-never lands’.
‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ (2008), directed by Andrew Adamson
The adaptations of C.S. Lewis’ epic fantasy series were filmed mainly in New Zealand. This far-off country gained momentum after the huge success of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. But fairy-tale-like landscapes were also found closer to the Pevensie’s home – the Stołowe Mountains in Poland served as a backdrop for the trio’s journey through Narnia in the second instalment of the film. The Stołowe Mountains – located in southwestern Poland, near the Polish-Czech border – are made of sandstone and are famous for their animal-shaped rocks (Hen, Camel, Monkey) as well as the Errant Rocks labyrinth, which certainly looks magical enough to conceal many magical doors… The film crew also worked in Szklarska Poręba, a small town between the Karkonosze and Jizera Mountains.
‘Proof of Life’ (2000), directed by Taylor Hackford
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Church ruins at the military training ground in Biedrusko, photo: Sebastian Czopik / REPORTER / East News
In the early 2000s, the toughest on-screen hunk was Russell Crowe. Fresh from his Gladiator Oscar-winning performance, he moved on to playing Terry Thorne, a negotiator hired to get an American citizen back from the claws of a South-American terrorist. Most of the action takes place in the fictional country of Tecala – one of many locations invented by American filmmakers, probably bordering the states of Zubrowka, Genovia or Krakozhia. Proof of Life took mixing fact with fiction to the next level. The character of Terry is introduced while he is on a mission in Chechenia – all these scenes were shot at the Biedrusko military training facility near Poznań. According to the production notes, the Polish army lent the film crew a few Russian tanks as well as qualified personnel to navigate the machines. Terry’s character also had a driver, played by no other than Zbigniew Zamachowski. Working in Poland proved to be very memorable for Russell Crowe – while he was biking in Poland, he was surprised by a snowstorm. In addition, on the film set he fell in love with Meg Ryan, but that’s a whole different story. To this day, Crowe feels warmly about Poland, mainly its national football team, which he has rooted for on many occasions.
‘Bridge of Spies’ (2015), directed by Steven Spielberg
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Still from ‘Persona Non Grata' directed by Cellin Gluck, 2015, photo: Akson Studio
Steven Spielberg already worked in Poland on Schindler’s List and his team scouted locations for Munich in the country before deciding to shoot elsewhere. But Poland was still in the game when it came to Spielberg’s Cold War project – Bridge of Spies (shot under the working title: St. James Place). The film was based on facts and starred Tom Hanks as well as Mark Rylance, who won an Oscar for his performance. A large portion of the story takes place in Berlin, just as the famous wall was going up. Indeed, a majority of the scenes were filmed in actual Berlin, as well as on the titular bridge of spies – Glienicke Bridge, which back then served as a border between West Berlin and East Germany. Apart from the ‘real Berlin’, there is also the ‘fake Berlin’ – Wrocław. This Polish city was chosen as it historically was part of Prussia and Germany, thus some of the urban architecture resembles areas in Berlin. Film sets were built on Kurkowa Street, Ptasia Street and Miernicza Street and three hundred Polish extras worked on the set of Bridge of Spies. Another Polish element in the production was cinematographer Janusz Kamiński, a long-time Spielberg collaborator, who won two Oscars for films they made together (Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan) and was nominated for four more (Lincoln, War Horse, Amistad, West Side Story). Spielberg was not the first nor the last film director who found Berlin in Poland. Others were Christian Petzold, whose Phoenix was also filmed in Legnica and Cellin Gluck, who shot a few scenes of her Persona Non Grata in Łódź.
‘Marie Curie: The Courage of Knowledge’ (2016), directed by Marie Noelle
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Still from the film ‘Marie Curie’, directed by Marie Noelle, 2016. Pictured: Samuel Finzi, Piotr Głowacki, Karolina Gruszka, photo: Witold Baczyk / Kino Świat
It’s a well-known fact that Maria Skłodowska-Curie won two Nobel Prizes and that her life was split between Paris and Warsaw, which was back then a part of the Russian Empire. When it came to making a biopic of the scholar, director Marie Noelle wanted to have a significant Polish element in her film. She hired Polish talents, including actress Karolina Gruszka, who played the lead. Noelle’s crew shot in Poland for twenty days, yet all the locations used in the film double for French ones. Vast, sandy beaches in Łeba played Normandy, where Curie met Albert Einstein. The Jagiellonian University in Kraków impersonated the famed Sorbonne. And, finally: a small shop in Łódź served as a Parisian lab where Curie worked on her discoveries.
‘Mr. Jones’ (2019), directed by Agnieszka Holland
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Still from Agnieszka Holland’s ‘Mr. Jones’, photo: Robert Pałka / Film Produkcja, press materials
This film is a bit of a puzzle in terms of filming locations. The protagonist – a Welsh journalist, Gareth Jones (played by James Norton) – was the first one to report on the Holodomor, a genocide famine in the Ukraine in the 1920s. The action takes place in Wales, England and the Soviet Union – Moscow and Ukrainian villages – but only the Ukrainian location is authentic. The Scottish city of Edinburgh – Jones’ hometown – is actually London, while many Polish cities like Warsaw, Kraków and Katowice pretend to be Moscow and London. For example, the interiors of Kraków’s City Hall are used to portray the Russian Embassy in London, where Gareth Jones goes to get his visa to enter the Soviet Union. And the foyer of Warsaw’s neoclassical Grand Theatre was altered by a film crew to become the lobby of an elegant hotel in Moscow, where Gareth Jones checks in as he gets his first hunch that something is wrong with Stalin’s empire.
‘Never Look Away’ (2018), directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck
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The Stołowe Mountains, photo: Piotr Rybarczyk / Forum
This German film, nominated for two Oscars (Best Foreign Language Film and Best Cinematography for Caleb Deschanel), is over three hours long and spans over three decades. Kurt Barnert (Tom Schilling) is a painter, whose life is inevitably changed by the rise of Nazism, the Second World War and post-war chaos. The German cities of Berlin, Dresden and Dusseldorf welcomed the film crew, but some of the scenes were filmed in neighbouring Poland. The region of Lower Silesia, which shares a border with both the Czech Republic and Germany, stood-in for some of the Dresden sites.
‘Valley of the Gods’ (2019), directed by Lech Majewski
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Still from the film ‘Valley of the Gods’, 2019, directed by Lech Majewski, photo: Galapagos Films
Lech Majewski is a not only a filmmaker, but also a renowned visual artist and poet. He has been working internationally since the 1980s, and one of his early films, Gospel According to Harry, stars the then-unknown Viggo Mortensen. The aforementioned film was actually shot on the beaches of Łeba. Also, Mortensen ended up liking the dunes so much that he decided to camp there – almost getting buried in the sands… Valley of the Gods had no such accidents, but did offer an alluring location – mainly the Monument Valley, where the majority of classic westerns were shot. Majewski’s film also offers a clear division between two American cultures – that of Indigenous Americans and immigrants from Europe, which after centuries formed a culture of financial wealth and spiritual poverty. But what is Poland’s role? Poland contributed a few of its spectacular buildings: the Czocha Castle (dubbed the ‘Harry Potter castle’) and Lubiąż Abbey, where some of the scenes of the ‘Western world’ were shot.
‘Theo and the Magic Talisman’ (2018), directed by Peter Gornstein
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‘Theo and the Magic Talisman’, directed by Peter Gornstein, 2018, photo: DR Danish Broadcasting Corporation
This Danish series revolves around a lonely sixth-grader named Theo, who is about to embark on a magical journey to a world called Thannanaya. Theo and his friend, Simone, encounter many curious looking creatures and escape all kinds of dangers. What is worth noting and mentioning are the ominous woods and mountains that are witnessing Theo’s journey… Yes, these are Polish locations, namely the Stołowe Mountains, Słowiński National Park and the Kraków-Częstochowa Upland.
‘High Life’ (2018), directed by Claire Denis
Famous French author Claire Denis is known for having a fearless and peerless vision, so it is no wonder that one of her films had to be set in space. In High Life Juliette Binoche, Robert Pattinson and Agata Buzek play characters that boarded a ship gravitating towards a black hole. Many of the scenes were filmed in studios in Cologne and Berlin, but for six days the film was shot in the Polish city of Białystok. Polish producers, Klaudia Śmieja and Beata Rzeźniczek, said in an interview for Kino magazine that they prepared many back up plans for the shots and that Claire Denis – after working for weeks in a closed spaced – loved working on an open-air set.
‘The Witcher’ (2019-), Netflix production
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Ogrodzieniec Castle in Podzamcze, photo: Wojciech Wójcik / Forum
The fantasy series based on Andrzej Sapkowski’s novels was a highly anticipated Netflix production. Starring Henry Cavill as Geralt of Rivia and having a big production budget, The Witcher heavy relied on spectacular visuals, which included landscapes from the Canary Islands, but also a Polish castle in Ogrodzieniec. Built in Kraków-Częstochowa Upland in the 14th century, the castle is now in ruins and is located on the Eagles’ Nests hiking trail.
‘Fanaa’ (2006), directed by Kunal Kohli
What did a Bollywood production along with the industry’s staple actress Kajol do in Poland? The plot didn’t involve any of the characters travelling to Europe or even mentioning it in the dialogue… The film’s producers, however, found a way to make a deal with Poland work: they used the Tatra Mountain’s pointed silhouette to shoot scenes originally written for Kashmir. The reason for this intercontinental travel was probably more political than cinematic, though. There is longstanding territorial conflict between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region, which hasn’t been resolved yet.
Fanaa wasn’t the only Bollywood picture that used a Polish location. In 2014, the production of the action film Kick came to Warsaw and... threw a bus off the Gdański Bridge, which was probably the most spectacular scene ever made in the Polish capital. The crew also used the interiors of the Grand Theatre as well as some external shots of Warsaw’s most famous landmark – The Palace of Science and Culture.
Written by Ola Salwa, Feb 2022
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