25.02.2024 Events, Film

Polish Film Talk & Screening – The Peasants @ Watermans Arts

A special screening of The Peasants, with earlier Film Talk by central/eastern European cinema expert Michael Brooke, on Poland's history of animation.

Sunday  25th February, 1pm, Watermans Arts Centre, 40 High Street, Brentford TW8 0DS

1pm – Film Talk

2:30pm – Film Screening

The screening will be introduced by Michael Brooke, a freelance writer specialising in central/eastern European cinema. He’ll be giving an extensively illustrated talk on Poland’s long and distinguished contribution to the history of animation, which started over a century ago with Władysław Starewicz and takes in such key names as Walerian Borowczyk, Jan Lenica, Zbigniew Rybczynski and many others along the way.

The Peasants (15) (Original title: Chlopi)

After the spectacular international success of their Vincent Van Gogh tribute Loving Vincent (2017), DK and Hugh Welchman have used the same enthralling technique of animated oil painting to adapt Władysław Reymont’s Nobel-winning epic novel (1904-9).

With a visual style consciously inspired by paintings by Reymont’s Polish contemporaries, the film tells a story spanning the four seasons, in which a young woman’s attempts to assert her independence keep coming up against the patriarchal traditions that have held sway in her village for centuries.

Polish Film Festival 2023 Winner for Special Jury Prize and Audience Award

Selected Reviews:

Bringing this 1,000-page novel to animated life in this way isn’t just an adaptation, it’s an illumination. It makes real the heightened reality that exists in your mind when reading a particularly captivating book.

Christian Blauvelt, Indie Wire

“A dynamic, immersive drama that brings the pleasures and pains of the past to ravishing life.”

Nikki Baughan, Screen International

Full Details of the Screening & Ticket Booking here:

KINO! – The Peasants (15) – Special Events Cinema at Watermans

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