The Cinema of Change shows documentary films from all over the world devoted to the social problems of contemporary societies. The programme, which will have its Belarusian debut, will present the most important and the most touching documentaries created by various directors. The film screenings are complemented by workshops and discussions. The curator of the whole project is the notable American film expert Professor Richard Peña, a figure well known in the film world as a professor at the department of Film Studies at Columbia University, the programme director at the Film Society of the Lincoln Center, and a long-serving director of the New York Film Festival (1988-2012).
The Cinema of Change is coordinated by Culture.pl, a flagship brand of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, within the framework of a programme which is meant to initiate and develop cultural cooperation between Poland and the countries of the Eastern Partnership. It has already been shown in Armenia, Georgia and Moldova.
It will start on 6th November with Paweł Łoziński's Birthplace (Miejsce urodzenia) from 1992. This documentary feature film relates the journey of a Polish-Jewish writer living in the United States. Henryk Grynberg returns to the place where he hid with his family during the Nazi occupation. The writer's dramatic return to the time and the people who participated in the act of killing his father and two-year-old brother ends in finding their burial site and his father's ashes as well as discovering the names of their murderers. After the showing, a debate about relations between the Eastern European countries during the Second World War will take place.
The opening will be preceded on 4th November by a special showing of a film directed by the recently-deceased Academy Award winner Andrzej Wajda. Demons After Several Years (Biesy po latach) is an attempt to return to the phenomenon of Demons (Biesy) – an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel directed by Andrzej Wajda which premièred in the Stary Theatre in Kraków in April, 1971. The film combines contemporary statements from the creators and actors who played the main roles in the staging of Demons with archival footage showing the artists at the time of its premiere. The showing is organised by the Polish Cultural Institute together with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.
Over the course of the festival, audiences will be able to see seven documentaries from Poland, Belarus, Greece, and the United States selected by Richard Peña and his Belarusian partners. The chosen films touch upon social and political issues that impact the everyday life of ordinary people around the world.
The programme distinguishes itself with its wide variety of different topics and diversity in terms of film styles. The selected films do not give ready-made answers and solutions to the problems they present. Their creators try to show general problems by presenting particular, personal stories, thereby removing the emphasis on abstract political debate and placing it on real life problems. The showings will be accompanied by debates and film workshops conducted by Paweł Łoziński and Bartosz Konopka between 7th and 9th November.
4 November
Demons After Several Years (Biesy po latach), 2013, Andrzej Wajda, Poland
This film is an attempt to return to the phenomenon of Demons (Biesy) – an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel directed by Andrzej Wajda which premièred in the Stary Theatre in Kraków in April, 1971. The film combines contemporary statements from the creators and actors who played the main roles in the staging of Demons with archival footage showing the artists at the time of its premiere.
6 November
The showing that opens the project is Paweł Łoziński's Birthplace (Miejsce urodzenia).
Birthplace, 1992, Paweł Łoziński, Poland
This documentary feature film relates the journey of a Polish-Jewish writer living in the United States. Henryk Grynberg returns to the place where he hid with his family during the Nazi occupation. The writer's dramatic return to the time and the people who participated in the act of killing his father and two-year-old brother ends in finding their burial site and his father's ashes as well as discovering the names of their murderers.
7 November
Range (Poligon), 2015, Irina Volokh, Belarus
In the east of Belarus, on the country's border with Ukraine, there is a huge territory whose inhabitants were evicted in the years 1961-1962, and which was then adapted to serve as a firing range for the countries of the Warsaw Pact. In 1993 the range was closed. The area is now an overgrown forest where its past inhabitants collect cranberries and return to face their past and meet their homeland.
Beats of Freedom, 2010, Poland
A film about the Polish rock legends of the times of the communist regime in Poland who share their memories about music, life, and paranoid censors. This musical journey through time is possible thanks to unique, often startling music recordings.
8 November
21 x New York, 2016, Piotr Stasik, Poland
The film talks about twenty-one people met on the New York City subway. The director is not interested in where those people live or what they do for living but in feelings, the small dreams that keep life going, and the failures that contribute to our everyday reality. 21 x New York does not have any sociological ambitions, but is a documental story about tired souls and a desire for closeness that cannot be satisfied.
Don't Tell Anyone, 2015, Mikaela Shwer, USA
A story about Angy River, a community activist who, living in a society where silence is essential to survive, steps out of the shadows to talk about her journey as an emigrant and a sexual abuse victim.
9 November
Playing with Fire, 2014, Anneta Papathanasiou, Greece
A story about actresses in Afghanistan who are courageous enough to act in theatrical plays and thus have to face harsh criticism, social exclusion, and even life-threatening dangers.
Sources: press materials, written by md, translated by aw