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SUMMARY:Devils & Shamans Retrospective: The Film’s of Andrzej Żuławski @ The Garden Cinema
UID:https://instytutpolski.pl/london/2026/08/03/devils-shamans-retrospective-the-films-of-andrzej-zulawski-the-garden-cinema/
LOCATION:
DTSTAMP:20260821
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Warsaw:20260821
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Warsaw:20261021
DESCRIPTION:Fri 21 Aug -  Wed 21 Oct 2026
The Garden Cinema will present the most comprehensive retrospective of
Andrzej Żuławski to ever take place in the UK.
Bringing together 10 features from his extensive career, Devils and Shamans
is an opportunity to experience his radical style, as it evolved over the
span of five decades. Żuławski created films of extreme emotional and
intellectual intensity, combining psychological drama, politics, horror,
science fiction, romance, and philosophy into a singular body of work that
continues to defy cinematic language.
Andrzej Żuławski
Experience the visionary world of Andrzej Żuławski, the "enfant terrible"
of European cinema whose uncompromising art defied regimes and redefined
moving pictures. Born in the ashes of WWII, Żuławski rejected traditional
realism for a cinema of beautiful excess, ecstasy, and psychological fury.
His career became a legendary battle against oppression. Banned by Soviet
censors and driven into exile, he channelled his defiance into masterpieces
across France and Poland; from the raw emotion of That Most Important
Thing: Love to the legendary, state-silenced sci-fi epic On the Silver
Globe.
Once a fiercely guarded cult secret, Żuławski is now celebrated as a
towering titan of 20th-century art. The Devils and Shamans retrospective
invites you to witness his provocative filmography on the big screen as it
was meant to be seen.
Featured Films & Launch Event
Traditional Polish cakes, hazelnut vodka + Possession
To celebrate the start of our retrospective of Polish filmmaker Andrzej
Żuławski, members are invited to join us on Friday 21 August for a
special launch event.
For the occasion, our Atrium Bar team will be serving up slices of
traditional Polish cake, accompanied by a shot of the country's iconic
hazelnut vodka, to sip alongside.
Friday 21st August 2026 | 19:00-20:30 
Introduction by Daniel Bird: 20:30-20:45 
Film Screening: 20:45-22:50
Price: £17
Daniel Bird
France-based writer Daniel Bird turned a student interview with Andrzej
Żuławski into a lifelong creative partnership. He preserved the
director's legacy by driving restorations, script editing, and the North
American release of Possession. A curator for Ciné Lumière and the Horse
Hospital, Daniel collaborates intimately with Żuławski’s core artistic
circle to champion this revolutionary cinema.
For full details of the event click HERE
Other screenings of Possession: 
Fri 18 Sep: 20:30 | Sat 10 Oct: 17:30
About the film
After returning home to West Berlin, international spy Mark is blindsided
when his wife, Anna, abruptly requests a divorce without explanation. As he
attempts to uncover the cause of her sudden detachment, he begins to
monitor her, eventually discovering that she is hiding a series of complex
and unsettling secrets. As Mark digs deeper, he is confronted with a
progression of inexplicable and increasingly volatile events. His
investigation descends into a psychological downward spiral, forcing him to
navigate the blurring lines between his crumbling personal life and a
reality that begins to defy logical explanation.
Set in the shadow of the Berlin Wall, infused with Cold War-era paranoia
and tension, Possession is a film that defies classification. One of the
most tortured portraits of a disintegrating marriage ever presented on
screen, visionary director Andrzej Żuławski masterfully blends horror and
thriller conventions into an utterly unique cinema experience, drawing on
his own traumatic divorce and creative blacklisting in his native Poland.
Book tickets HERE
On the Silver Globe
The screening on August 22nd will feature an introduction by writer Daniel
Bird.
Screenings:
Sat 22 Aug: 14:25 | Mon 21 Sep: 14:30 | Sat 03 Oct: 19:45
About the film: A small group of cosmic explorers, including a woman,
leaves Earth to find freedom and start a new civilization. They do not
realise that within themselves they carry the end of their own dream. They
eventually die one by one, while their children revert to a primitive
native culture, creating new myths and a new god. Some time later, a space
bureaucrat, running from a broken heart, arrives and finds the colonizer's
descendants enslaved by bird-monsters called Cherns. Society is divided
into numerous classes, and everyone is waiting for the arrival of a
messiah. The newcomer is considered a suitable candidate, and for some time
he lives as a god.
In 1977, as the film was approaching completion, the Polish government
ordered the production to be shut down and all the negatives be destroyed.
Miraculously, the original film reels were preserved and ten years later
the film was presented at the Cannes Film Festival to great acclaim. On the
Silver Globe stands as a testament to Żuławski’s cinematic genius and
his daring approach to storytelling. Its surreal narrative, profound
themes, and historical context make it a fascinating piece of cinematic
history.
Book tickets HERE
La Femme Publique
The screening on August 23rd will be introduced by writer Daniel Bird.
The screening on October 1st will be introduced by filmmaker Craig
Williams.
Screenings: 
Sun 23 Aug: 17:15 | Thu 10 Sep: 15:30 | Thu 01 Oct: 20:30
About the film: An inexperienced young actress is invited to play a role in
a film based on Dostoyevsky's 'The Possessed'. The film director, a Czech
immigrant in Paris, takes over her life, and in a short time she is unable
to draw the line between acting and reality. She winds up playing a
real-life role posing as the dead wife of another Czech immigrant, who is
manipulated by the filmmaker into committing a political assassination.
Book tickets HERE
The Devil
The screening on the 26th of August will be introduced by writer Michael
Brooke.
The screenings on September the 11th and 27th will feature a video
introduction by Andrzej Jaroszewicz, camera operator on The Devil and
frequent collaborator of Andrzej Żuławski.
Screenings: 
Wed 26 Aug: 18:00 | Fri 11 Sep: 20:30 | Sun 27 Sep: 16:30
About the film: During the Prussian army's invasion of Poland in 1793, a
young Polish nobleman, Jakub, is saved from imprisonment by a stranger, who
in return wants to obtain a list of his fellow conspirators. Following his
mysterious savior across the country, Jakub sees the overall chaos and
moral corruption, including his father's death and the betrayal of his
friend who stole his fiancee. Becoming apparently demented by what he has
seen, he commits a number of seemingly motiveless and gory killings.
An allegory for the political crisis in Poland during 1968, when communist
leaders created riots to punish student, the film was shelved upon
completion by the government. It was accused of excess of violence and
erotic scenes, but the political undertones of Żuławski’s film were
more objectionable to the government. The film had to wait 16 years for its
cinema premiere and was not released to the public until 1988. Before this
happened, however, Żuławski was forced to leave Poland, deprived of the
chance to make films in his country, he left for France to continue his
career there.
Book tickets HERE
Szamanka
The screening on October 4th will be introduced by writer Daniel Bird.
The screening on October 15th will be introduced by filmmaker Craig
Williams.
Screenings: 
Fri 28 Aug: 20:30 | Sun 04 Oct: 19:00 | Thu 15 Oct: 20:25
About the film: Michał, a reserved anthropology professor, uncovers the
perfectly preserved remains of a 3,000-year-old shaman during an excavation
in a marsh. Around the same time, he meets a mysterious, impulsive young
woman known only as 'the Italian.' Drawn to her raw, untamed energy,
Michał begins a feverish and increasingly destructive affair with her. As
their relationship spirals into obsession, he becomes haunted by visions
connected to the ancient shaman. The boundaries between science and
mysticism, reason and primal instinct, begin to dissolve, pulling Michał
into a world where erotic desire and death become inseparably intertwined.
Iwona Petry, who played the mysterious 'Italian,' had no prior acting
experience. Żuławski reportedly discovered her in a Warsaw café and
offered her the lead role on the spot. Due to its graphic sexuality and
critiques of religious and social norms, the film caused major controversy
in Poland. Some nicknamed it 'Last Tango in Warsaw,' and screenings were
limited in certain areas.
The Third Part of the Night
The screening on the 12th of October will feature an introduction by writer
Michael Brooke.
Screenings: 
Sun 30 Aug: 14:45 | Sun 06 Sep: 19:00 | Mon 12 Oct: 20:30
About the film: The first feature by Andrzej Żuławski immediately
established his emotionally charged, fast-and-furious style. Drawing from
the biography of his father, particularly his experiences in Nazi
German-occupied Poland, the film follows a fugitive whose reality implodes
when he witnesses the murders of his family, propelling him into a
nightmarish world filled with doppelgängers, fluid identities, pervasive
dread, and an enigmatic Nazi vaccine laboratory. In all its fantastic and
macabre glory, The Third Part of the Night is a delirious portrayal of the
chaos wrought upon the psyche by the horrors of war, and one of the most
remarkable directorial debuts of all time.
Book tickets HERE
The Most Important Thing: Love
The screening on the September 1st will be introduced by Garden Cinema team
member, writer, and filmmaker Sarah Grice.
Screenings:
Tue 01 Sep: 18:00 | Wed 16 Sep: 14:30 | Tue 13 Oct: 20:30
About the film: Servais, a photographer burdened with debt, crosses paths
with Nadine Chevalier, a talented actress forced to appear in low-budget
exploitation films to make ends meet. Moved by her vulnerability and her
dignity despite the humiliations she faces, Servais decides to help her by
financing an ambitious theatrical production that could revive her career.
But this act of support gradually turns into a passionate and painful love.
Nadine, who is married to Jacques - a fragile and depressive man - becomes
torn between her sense of duty, her guilt, and the overwhelming pull of
this new love. Caught between drama, sacrifice, and obsession, each
character struggles with their own inner wounds while desperately seeking
some form of redemption through love.
Żuławski's first film produced after his complicated exile from Poland,
That Most Important Thing: Love was adapted from the novel by Christopher
Frank La Nuit Américaine. Featuring French singer Jacques Dutronc and Romy
Schneider, who won the inaugural César Award for Best Actress, the film
was successful enough in France that it allowed Żuławski to return to
Poland to make his next feature, On the Silver Globe.
Book tickets HERE
L’Amour Braque
Screenings: 
Thu 03 Sep: 20:30 | Tue 22 Sep: 20:30
About the film: Intended as a homage to Fyodor Dostoyevsky and loosely
based on his novel The Idiot, Żuławski’s L’Amour Braque is the story
of a bloody vendetta, of bonds between two men from opposite backgrounds,
and a violent love triangle. After a successful bank robbery, Micky hopes
to take back his girlfriend Marie from rival gangsters. On the way to Paris
he meets Leon, a neurotic dreamer whom he considers an idiot. Leon can
hardly understand what Micky is up to but he follows him everywhere and
soon falls in love with Marie.
Zulawski’s postmodern adaptation is presented with an intense sense of
visual style suggestive of the hyper-realistic and chaotic world of bande
dessinée. Abundant with images of hysteria from start to finish, the
screen is filled with outbursts of energy and violence whereby performances
are choreographed into a perverse, bloody ballet.
Book tickets HERE
Cosmos
Screenings: 
Tue 08 Sep: 20:30 | Fri 25 Sep: 18:00
About the film: When two young men arrive at a family-run guesthouse in
rural France, their anticipation of a few days' peace and quiet is
undermined by a variety of sinister occurrences. A small bird is found
murdered, its neck in a tiny noose, a strangely sexualised stain appears on
a wall, and a slug crawls across the breakfast tray. Are these all signs
comprising a portent of truly cosmic significance, or merely bizarre
coincidences? And is it any wonder that one of the visitors, Witold has
such difficulty writing his novel, or that his companion Fuchs prefers to
find solace in earthier pleasures?
The final film by Andrzej Żuławski, Cosmos adapts Witold Gombrowicz's
legendarily challenging novel into a beguilingly witty combination of
lighthearted French farce and a complex, knowing reflection on the
absurdities both of humanity itself and the way that we define our notion
of the universe according to our individual hang-ups.
Book tickets HERE
Boris Godunov
The screening on October 5th will be introduced by writer Daniel Bird.
Screenings:
Tue 29 Sep: 14:30 | Mon 05 Oct: 20:00
About the film: Based on the musical recording of the famous opera by
Modest Mussorgsky, whereby a possible impostor torments a newly crowned
medieval czar who may have ordered the real successor’s death. Never
before screened theatrically in the UK, Andrzej Żuławski's adaptation of
Boris Godunov is about the tragic events surrounding the ruling of the
Russian tsar in the early 17th century. The recording itself was made two
years before the filming with the participation of the Washington Symphony
Orchestra, conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich, and several opera stars
including Ruggero Raimondi.
Żuławski's film situates the viewer inside the metafictional space of the
opera house, just as if the audience were watching the performance live.
Highly controversial at the time of release, the director deliberately
fills the picture with a plenty of anachronisms, commenting on Soviet
history and other dictatorships of the 20th century.
Book tickets HERE
Video Bazaar presents: Possession (North American Cut) 
Video Bazaar is thrilled to present a rare screening of the North American
theatrical cut of Possession as part of our season, Devils and Shamans: the
films of Andrzej Żuławski
Screening: Wed 21 Oct: 20:30
About the film: The North American cut of Possession was heavily altered to
fit a more conventional genre mold. Distributors removed over 40 minutes of
the film. They also altered the original score, re-arranged scenes and
added footage not present in the original edit. The 1981 director's cut by
Andrzej Żuławski focuses heavily on emotional collapse and psychological
turmoil. The North American version, however, attempts to make the film
look like an alien or monster movie in the vein of David Cronenberg or John
Carpenter.
Book tickets HERE
Additional Information: 
For full details @ The Garden Cinema click HERE
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