{"id":659,"date":"2018-11-06T12:51:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-06T11:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/?p=659"},"modified":"2020-05-29T01:51:35","modified_gmt":"2020-05-28T23:51:35","slug":"pl100-blog-vol-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/","title":{"rendered":"#PL100 BLOG Vol.5"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">March was far too cold and the only thing that could get me outside was the 16<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;Kinoteka Polish Film Festival. This year\u2019s festival was, unsurprisingly, themed around the centenary of Poland\u2019s independence. Alongside the regular festival strands, we were treated to the rare delights of Poland\u2019s black-and-white interwar cinema. Here are my favourite moments.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><span lang=\"EN-GB\">New Polish Cinema<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">The older generation of Polish directors are always a treat to watch, but \u2013 as with any country\u2019s cinema &#8211;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span>I\u2019m equally fascinated with new faces that might indicate new directions. Katarzyna Ros\u0142aniec is one such face, whose self-styled \u2018Sex, Drugs &amp; Instagram\u2019 drama&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=0SpAz343yGU&amp;t=4s\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i><span lang=\"UZ-CYR\">Satan Said Dance<\/span><\/i><\/a>&nbsp;breaks all the rules, just like its Berlin-based, drug-taking, sexually-liberated protagonist. The film juxtaposes a number of non-linear vignettes from its lead character\u2019s decadent millennial party-hopping and purports to take aim at the sheer vacuousness of this sort of self-indulgent lifestyle. Unfortunately, many of the Poles I spoke to after the screening found the film itself rather self-indulgent. I\u2019m actually pretty fond of the film.&nbsp;<i>Satan Said Dance<\/i>&nbsp;can feel like a hipster checklist at times, but for me it blends arthouse inclinations with a relatable irony in a way we simply don\u2019t see in contemporary British cinema.<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">If&nbsp;<i>Satan Said Dance<\/i>&nbsp;is a colourful whirlwind of youthful vapidity, my other contemporary highlight is its polar opposite.&nbsp;<i><span lang=\"UZ-CYR\">The Reconciliation<\/span><\/i><\/span>&nbsp;is a period piece, set on a former concentration camp in postwar Upper Silesia. It\u2019s shaded with a muted palette and is essentially a reflection on the embodied brutality of war trauma. Polish or German, woman or man, friend or enemy \u2013 everyone suffers in this film. It\u2019s a sobering experience, but one that sheds light on the unspoken necessity of betrayal in extreme circumstances. The score of&nbsp;<i>The Reconciliation<\/i>&nbsp;is so suitably eery, subtly drifting in to haunt each scene. It lingered in my mind for days after, much like the memory of war crimes committed across 20<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;century Europe\u2026<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><span lang=\"EN-GB\">The Joy of Zanussi<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">At the ripe old age of 78, Krzysztof Zanussi most certainly belongs to the older generation of Polish directors that I mentioned earlier. Not that you\u2019d notice his age with the man\u2019s energetic pace of creative output (40+ films, and that doesn\u2019t include his shorts and documentaries). Zanussi was a guest at this year\u2019s Kinoteka, where his debut film&nbsp;<i><span lang=\"UZ-CYR\">The Structure of Crystals<\/span><\/i><\/span>&nbsp;(1969) screened. The film is brilliant and I highly recommend it. But at this point, I\u2019m going to take a brief pause from talking about celluloid and instead recount a couple of Zanussi\u2019s anecdotes from his Q&amp;A.<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">We start off with the story of a fresh-faced Zanussi, out on the film festival circuit in Argentina to discuss&nbsp;<i>The Structure of Crystals<\/i>. He\u2019s excited but nervous, he\u2019s asked who his influences are. Zanussi&nbsp;<i>wants<\/i>&nbsp;to say Jean-Luc Godard, but the only French name that comes to his mind is Henri Cartier-Bresson. He knows this isn\u2019t quite right, so blurts out Marcel Proust. Naturally, the interviewer wants to know more about the novelist\u2019s connection to film, so Zanussi ends up making the accidental declaration that \u201cMarcel Proust anticipated cinema.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Our next story takes us back to when Zanussi was working on his debut film. He wanted to score the film before he shot it, which didn\u2019t quite work out with his first composer. He then approached Wojciech Kilar, who told Zanussi that it was a stupid idea, but he\u2019d do it anyway. This attempt flopped, Kilar was able to re-score it and thus began a long-lasting professional and personal relationship. Zanussi introduced Kilar to directors like Andrzej Wajda, Roman Pola\u0144ski and Francis Ford Coppola. With visible glee, he tells us how he confronted Kilar one day: \u201cHow dare you make such good music for other films?\u201d The Kilar response? \u201cMake a good film and I\u2019ll write such good music for it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><span lang=\"EN-GB\">A Jewish Connection<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p><b><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">Earlier this year, I took a trip to the&nbsp;<span lang=\"UZ-CYR\">POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews<\/span><\/span>&nbsp;in Warsaw. The main exhibition is an incredible experience that starts off with the first Jewish settlers in the 10<sup>th<\/sup>&nbsp;century and traces Jewish history in Poland for the following thousand years or so. I was especially struck by the section on Jews in the interwar period \u2013 in the museum, there\u2019s a reconstructed street displaying the thriving society of Polish Jews, alongside their theatre, literature and cinema that flourished during this period.<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">My new-found curiosity for Polish-Jewish culture was soon satisfied. A few weeks later, Kinoteka hosted a series of screenings celebrating Jewish cinema of the interwar period.&nbsp;<i><span lang=\"UZ-CYR\">The Jester<\/span><\/i><\/span>&nbsp;(1937) was an absolute joy to watch. Set in the southern province of Galicia, it tells the story of the titular \u2018jester\u2019, a lonely wandering man who performs in the Purim play on the Jewish holiday. It\u2019s a bittersweet love story, full of unrequited desires, tap-dancing vaudeville and a wise-cracking joker of a grandad. The film depicts a Jewish tradition of superb theatrical entertainment, which I was quite unaware of. It was also filmed in the distinctly Jewish town of Kazimierz Dolny, where shop fronts are decked out with Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish words. It\u2019s wonderful to see such a lively Jewish community co-existing in the centre of Poland \u2013 in the post-Holocaust era, Kaziemierz Dolny\u2019s Jewish population is no more.<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">In that respect,&nbsp;<i>The Jester<\/i>&nbsp;is also an emotional experience. It was released two years before the Nazi invasion of Poland and shows a bustling Jewish community that simply doesn\u2019t exist in Poland now. The protagonists\u2019 primary worries are love-related; within a few years, many of the film\u2019s actors and crew were murdered in Nazi death camps.&nbsp;<i>The Jester<\/i>\u2019s wonderfully entertaining Purim play centrepiece was appropriated by the Nazis in 1941 for their disgustingly anti-semitic propaganda&nbsp;<i>The Eternal Jew<\/i>. The film is both a reminder of interwar Poland\u2019s open arms and the subsequent terror of the Holocaust. Most significantly, it preserves the memory of Jewish theatre and film, which \u2013 to our detriment \u2013 is often lost in modern Europe.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b><span lang=\"EN-GB\">The Call of the Sea<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p><b><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">As I described a couple of blog posts back, no Kinoteka is complete without a blistering closing gala musical collaboration. This time around, Submotion Orchestra\u2019s Taz Modi put together a crew of talented musicians to play a live score to the 1927 silent film&nbsp;<i><span lang=\"UZ-CYR\">The Call of the Sea<\/span><\/i><\/span>. The film is another glorious love story. It features sailor Stach, who \u2013 in spite of his rival\u2019s villainous efforts \u2013 can\u2019t disentangle himself from reuniting with his childhood sweetheart Hanka. A whole kilometre of the film was lost during the Second World War, but thanks to the restoration efforts of the Polish National Film Archive, two delightful hours of cinematic history are available to watch.<\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span lang=\"EN-GB\">In many ways,&nbsp;<i>The Call of the Sea<\/i>&nbsp;is the 1920s equivalent of a modern-day blockbuster. It has A-list Polish silent film stars, the highest film budget of the era and thrilling cinematography (including aerial shots of the final chase sequence). This was the sort of film that screened to sold out cinemas and it\u2019s lost none of its gripping excitement across the last 90 years. To watch the lead actors\u2019 elegant theatrics is to understand interwar Poland\u2019s classy European reputation; it sheds light on Warsaw\u2019s former standing as \u2018the Paris of the East\u2019 and was a stylish end to a fantastic few weeks of film.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>March was far too cold and the only thing that could get me outside was the 16th&nbsp;Kinoteka Polish Film Festival. This year\u2019s festival was, unsurprisingly, themed around the centenary of Poland\u2019s independence. Alongside the regular festival strands, we were treated to the rare delights of Poland\u2019s black-and-white interwar cinema. Here are my favourite moments. &nbsp; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-100-2","category-blogs"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>#PL100 BLOG Vol.5 - Instytut Polski w Londynie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"pl_PL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"#PL100 BLOG Vol.5 - Instytut Polski w Londynie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"March was far too cold and the only thing that could get me outside was the 16th&nbsp;Kinoteka Polish Film Festival. This year\u2019s festival was, unsurprisingly, themed around the centenary of Poland\u2019s independence. Alongside the regular festival strands, we were treated to the rare delights of Poland\u2019s black-and-white interwar cinema. Here are my favourite moments. &nbsp; [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Instytut Polski w Londynie\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-11-06T11:51:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-05-28T23:51:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"267\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"ochamanskij\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Napisane przez\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"ochamanskij\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Szacowany czas czytania\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"7 minut\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"event\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/\",\"name\":\"#PL100 BLOG Vol.5\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":[\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98-300x200.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg\"],\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-11-06T11:51:00+02:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-05-28T23:51:35+02:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/53963c4c768e79692e296cb2619bf9f9\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/\"]}],\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"startDate\":\"2018-11-11\",\"endDate\":\"2018-11-11\",\"eventStatus\":\"EventScheduled\",\"eventAttendanceMode\":\"OfflineEventAttendanceMode\",\"location\":{\"@type\":\"place\",\"name\":\"\",\"address\":\"\",\"geo\":{\"@type\":\"GeoCoordinates\",\"latitude\":\"\",\"longitude\":\"\"}},\"description\":\"March was far too cold and the only thing that could get me outside was the 16th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival. This year\u2019s festival was, unsurprisingly, themed around the centenary of Poland\u2019s independence. Alongside the regular festival strands, we were treated to the rare delights of Poland\u2019s black-and-white interwar cinema. Here are my favourite moments.\\n \\nNew Polish Cinema\\n \\nThe older generation of Polish directors are always a treat to watch, but \u2013 as with any country\u2019s cinema -  I\u2019m equally fascinated with new faces that might indicate new directions. Katarzyna Ros\u0142aniec is one such face, whose self-styled \u2018Sex, Drugs &amp; Instagram\u2019 drama Satan Said Dance breaks all the rules, just like its Berlin-based, drug-taking, sexually-liberated protagonist. The film juxtaposes a number of non-linear vignettes from its lead character\u2019s decadent millennial party-hopping and purports to take aim at the sheer vacuousness of this sort of self-indulgent lifestyle. Unfortunately, many of the Poles I spoke to after the screening found the film itself rather self-indulgent. I\u2019m actually pretty fond of the film. Satan Said Dance can feel like a hipster checklist at times, but for me it blends arthouse inclinations with a relatable irony in a way we simply don\u2019t see in contemporary British cinema.\\n \\nIf Satan Said Dance is a colourful whirlwind of youthful vapidity, my other contemporary highlight is its polar opposite. The Reconciliation is a period piece, set on a former concentration camp in postwar Upper Silesia. It\u2019s shaded with a muted palette and is essentially a reflection on the embodied brutality of war trauma. Polish or German, woman or man, friend or enemy \u2013 everyone suffers in this film. It\u2019s a sobering experience, but one that sheds light on the unspoken necessity of betrayal in extreme circumstances. The score of The Reconciliation is so suitably eery, subtly drifting in to haunt each scene. It lingered in my mind for days after, much like the memory of war crimes committed across 20th century Europe\u2026\\n \\nThe Joy of Zanussi\\n \\nAt the ripe old age of 78, Krzysztof Zanussi most certainly belongs to the older generation of Polish directors that I mentioned earlier. Not that you\u2019d notice his age with the man\u2019s energetic pace of creative output (40+ films, and that doesn\u2019t include his shorts and documentaries). Zanussi was a guest at this year\u2019s Kinoteka, where his debut film The Structure of Crystals (1969) screened. The film is brilliant and I highly recommend it. But at this point, I\u2019m going to take a brief pause from talking about celluloid and instead recount a couple of Zanussi\u2019s anecdotes from his Q&amp;A.\\n \\nWe start off with the story of a fresh-faced Zanussi, out on the film festival circuit in Argentina to discuss The Structure of Crystals. He\u2019s excited but nervous, he\u2019s asked who his influences are. Zanussi wants to say Jean-Luc Godard, but the only French name that comes to his mind is Henri Cartier-Bresson. He knows this isn\u2019t quite right, so blurts out Marcel Proust. Naturally, the interviewer wants to know more about the novelist\u2019s connection to film, so Zanussi ends up making the accidental declaration that \u201cMarcel Proust anticipated cinema.\u201d\\n \\nOur next story takes us back to when Zanussi was working on his debut film. He wanted to score the film before he shot it, which didn\u2019t quite work out with his first composer. He then approached Wojciech Kilar, who told Zanussi that it was a stupid idea, but he\u2019d do it anyway. This attempt flopped, Kilar was able to re-score it and thus began a long-lasting professional and personal relationship. Zanussi introduced Kilar to directors like Andrzej Wajda, Roman Pola\u0144ski and Francis Ford Coppola. With visible glee, he tells us how he confronted Kilar one day: \u201cHow dare you make such good music for other films?\u201d The Kilar response? \u201cMake a good film and I\u2019ll write such good music for it.\u201d\\n \\nA Jewish Connection\\n \\nEarlier this year, I took a trip to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. The main exhibition is an incredible experience that starts off with the first Jewish settlers in the 10th century and traces Jewish history in Poland for the following thousand years or so. I was especially struck by the section on Jews in the interwar period \u2013 in the museum, there\u2019s a reconstructed street displaying the thriving society of Polish Jews, alongside their theatre, literature and cinema that flourished during this period.\\n \\nMy new-found curiosity for Polish-Jewish culture was soon satisfied. A few weeks later, Kinoteka hosted a series of screenings celebrating Jewish cinema of the interwar period. The Jester (1937) was an absolute joy to watch. Set in the southern province of Galicia, it tells the story of the titular \u2018jester\u2019, a lonely wandering man who performs in the Purim play on the Jewish holiday. It\u2019s a bittersweet love story, full of unrequited desires, tap-dancing vaudeville and a wise-cracking joker of a grandad. The film depicts a Jewish tradition of superb theatrical entertainment, which I was quite unaware of. It was also filmed in the distinctly Jewish town of Kazimierz Dolny, where shop fronts are decked out with Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish words. It\u2019s wonderful to see such a lively Jewish community co-existing in the centre of Poland \u2013 in the post-Holocaust era, Kaziemierz Dolny\u2019s Jewish population is no more.\\n \\nIn that respect, The Jester is also an emotional experience. It was released two years before the Nazi invasion of Poland and shows a bustling Jewish community that simply doesn\u2019t exist in Poland now. The protagonists\u2019 primary worries are love-related; within a few years, many of the film\u2019s actors and crew were murdered in Nazi death camps. The Jester\u2019s wonderfully entertaining Purim play centrepiece was appropriated by the Nazis in 1941 for their disgustingly anti-semitic propaganda The Eternal Jew. The film is both a reminder of interwar Poland\u2019s open arms and the subsequent terror of the Holocaust. Most significantly, it preserves the memory of Jewish theatre and film, which \u2013 to our detriment \u2013 is often lost in modern Europe.\\n \\nThe Call of the Sea\\n \\nAs I described a couple of blog posts back, no Kinoteka is complete without a blistering closing gala musical collaboration. This time around, Submotion Orchestra\u2019s Taz Modi put together a crew of talented musicians to play a live score to the 1927 silent film The Call of the Sea. The film is another glorious love story. It features sailor Stach, who \u2013 in spite of his rival\u2019s villainous efforts \u2013 can\u2019t disentangle himself from reuniting with his childhood sweetheart Hanka. A whole kilometre of the film was lost during the Second World War, but thanks to the restoration efforts of the Polish National Film Archive, two delightful hours of cinematic history are available to watch.\\n \\nIn many ways, The Call of the Sea is the 1920s equivalent of a modern-day blockbuster. It has A-list Polish silent film stars, the highest film budget of the era and thrilling cinematography (including aerial shots of the final chase sequence). This was the sort of film that screened to sold out cinemas and it\u2019s lost none of its gripping excitement across the last 90 years. To watch the lead actors\u2019 elegant theatrics is to understand interwar Poland\u2019s classy European reputation; it sheds light on Warsaw\u2019s former standing as \u2018the Paris of the East\u2019 and was a stylish end to a fantastic few weeks of film.\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg\",\"width\":400,\"height\":267},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"#PL100 BLOG Vol.5\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/\",\"name\":\"Instytut Polski w Londynie\",\"description\":\"Instytuty Polskie\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/53963c4c768e79692e296cb2619bf9f9\",\"name\":\"ochamanskij\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b2ff67cc6eab38d2d3a7c1c5d354ef25?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b2ff67cc6eab38d2d3a7c1c5d354ef25?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"ochamanskij\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/author\/ochamanskij\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"#PL100 BLOG Vol.5 - Instytut Polski w Londynie","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/","og_locale":"pl_PL","og_type":"article","og_title":"#PL100 BLOG Vol.5 - Instytut Polski w Londynie","og_description":"March was far too cold and the only thing that could get me outside was the 16th&nbsp;Kinoteka Polish Film Festival. This year\u2019s festival was, unsurprisingly, themed around the centenary of Poland\u2019s independence. Alongside the regular festival strands, we were treated to the rare delights of Poland\u2019s black-and-white interwar cinema. Here are my favourite moments. &nbsp; [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/","og_site_name":"Instytut Polski w Londynie","article_published_time":"2018-11-06T11:51:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-05-28T23:51:35+00:00","og_image":[{"width":400,"height":267,"url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"ochamanskij","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Napisane przez":"ochamanskij","Szacowany czas czytania":"7 minut"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"event","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/","name":"#PL100 BLOG Vol.5","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/#primaryimage"},"image":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98-300x200.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg"],"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg","datePublished":"2018-11-06T11:51:00+02:00","dateModified":"2020-05-28T23:51:35+02:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/53963c4c768e79692e296cb2619bf9f9"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"pl-PL","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/"]}],"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","startDate":"2018-11-11","endDate":"2018-11-11","eventStatus":"EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"OfflineEventAttendanceMode","location":{"@type":"place","name":"","address":"","geo":{"@type":"GeoCoordinates","latitude":"","longitude":""}},"description":"March was far too cold and the only thing that could get me outside was the 16th Kinoteka Polish Film Festival. This year\u2019s festival was, unsurprisingly, themed around the centenary of Poland\u2019s independence. Alongside the regular festival strands, we were treated to the rare delights of Poland\u2019s black-and-white interwar cinema. Here are my favourite moments.\n \nNew Polish Cinema\n \nThe older generation of Polish directors are always a treat to watch, but \u2013 as with any country\u2019s cinema -  I\u2019m equally fascinated with new faces that might indicate new directions. Katarzyna Ros\u0142aniec is one such face, whose self-styled \u2018Sex, Drugs &amp; Instagram\u2019 drama Satan Said Dance breaks all the rules, just like its Berlin-based, drug-taking, sexually-liberated protagonist. The film juxtaposes a number of non-linear vignettes from its lead character\u2019s decadent millennial party-hopping and purports to take aim at the sheer vacuousness of this sort of self-indulgent lifestyle. Unfortunately, many of the Poles I spoke to after the screening found the film itself rather self-indulgent. I\u2019m actually pretty fond of the film. Satan Said Dance can feel like a hipster checklist at times, but for me it blends arthouse inclinations with a relatable irony in a way we simply don\u2019t see in contemporary British cinema.\n \nIf Satan Said Dance is a colourful whirlwind of youthful vapidity, my other contemporary highlight is its polar opposite. The Reconciliation is a period piece, set on a former concentration camp in postwar Upper Silesia. It\u2019s shaded with a muted palette and is essentially a reflection on the embodied brutality of war trauma. Polish or German, woman or man, friend or enemy \u2013 everyone suffers in this film. It\u2019s a sobering experience, but one that sheds light on the unspoken necessity of betrayal in extreme circumstances. The score of The Reconciliation is so suitably eery, subtly drifting in to haunt each scene. It lingered in my mind for days after, much like the memory of war crimes committed across 20th century Europe\u2026\n \nThe Joy of Zanussi\n \nAt the ripe old age of 78, Krzysztof Zanussi most certainly belongs to the older generation of Polish directors that I mentioned earlier. Not that you\u2019d notice his age with the man\u2019s energetic pace of creative output (40+ films, and that doesn\u2019t include his shorts and documentaries). Zanussi was a guest at this year\u2019s Kinoteka, where his debut film The Structure of Crystals (1969) screened. The film is brilliant and I highly recommend it. But at this point, I\u2019m going to take a brief pause from talking about celluloid and instead recount a couple of Zanussi\u2019s anecdotes from his Q&amp;A.\n \nWe start off with the story of a fresh-faced Zanussi, out on the film festival circuit in Argentina to discuss The Structure of Crystals. He\u2019s excited but nervous, he\u2019s asked who his influences are. Zanussi wants to say Jean-Luc Godard, but the only French name that comes to his mind is Henri Cartier-Bresson. He knows this isn\u2019t quite right, so blurts out Marcel Proust. Naturally, the interviewer wants to know more about the novelist\u2019s connection to film, so Zanussi ends up making the accidental declaration that \u201cMarcel Proust anticipated cinema.\u201d\n \nOur next story takes us back to when Zanussi was working on his debut film. He wanted to score the film before he shot it, which didn\u2019t quite work out with his first composer. He then approached Wojciech Kilar, who told Zanussi that it was a stupid idea, but he\u2019d do it anyway. This attempt flopped, Kilar was able to re-score it and thus began a long-lasting professional and personal relationship. Zanussi introduced Kilar to directors like Andrzej Wajda, Roman Pola\u0144ski and Francis Ford Coppola. With visible glee, he tells us how he confronted Kilar one day: \u201cHow dare you make such good music for other films?\u201d The Kilar response? \u201cMake a good film and I\u2019ll write such good music for it.\u201d\n \nA Jewish Connection\n \nEarlier this year, I took a trip to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw. The main exhibition is an incredible experience that starts off with the first Jewish settlers in the 10th century and traces Jewish history in Poland for the following thousand years or so. I was especially struck by the section on Jews in the interwar period \u2013 in the museum, there\u2019s a reconstructed street displaying the thriving society of Polish Jews, alongside their theatre, literature and cinema that flourished during this period.\n \nMy new-found curiosity for Polish-Jewish culture was soon satisfied. A few weeks later, Kinoteka hosted a series of screenings celebrating Jewish cinema of the interwar period. The Jester (1937) was an absolute joy to watch. Set in the southern province of Galicia, it tells the story of the titular \u2018jester\u2019, a lonely wandering man who performs in the Purim play on the Jewish holiday. It\u2019s a bittersweet love story, full of unrequited desires, tap-dancing vaudeville and a wise-cracking joker of a grandad. The film depicts a Jewish tradition of superb theatrical entertainment, which I was quite unaware of. It was also filmed in the distinctly Jewish town of Kazimierz Dolny, where shop fronts are decked out with Polish, Hebrew and Yiddish words. It\u2019s wonderful to see such a lively Jewish community co-existing in the centre of Poland \u2013 in the post-Holocaust era, Kaziemierz Dolny\u2019s Jewish population is no more.\n \nIn that respect, The Jester is also an emotional experience. It was released two years before the Nazi invasion of Poland and shows a bustling Jewish community that simply doesn\u2019t exist in Poland now. The protagonists\u2019 primary worries are love-related; within a few years, many of the film\u2019s actors and crew were murdered in Nazi death camps. The Jester\u2019s wonderfully entertaining Purim play centrepiece was appropriated by the Nazis in 1941 for their disgustingly anti-semitic propaganda The Eternal Jew. The film is both a reminder of interwar Poland\u2019s open arms and the subsequent terror of the Holocaust. Most significantly, it preserves the memory of Jewish theatre and film, which \u2013 to our detriment \u2013 is often lost in modern Europe.\n \nThe Call of the Sea\n \nAs I described a couple of blog posts back, no Kinoteka is complete without a blistering closing gala musical collaboration. This time around, Submotion Orchestra\u2019s Taz Modi put together a crew of talented musicians to play a live score to the 1927 silent film The Call of the Sea. The film is another glorious love story. It features sailor Stach, who \u2013 in spite of his rival\u2019s villainous efforts \u2013 can\u2019t disentangle himself from reuniting with his childhood sweetheart Hanka. A whole kilometre of the film was lost during the Second World War, but thanks to the restoration efforts of the Polish National Film Archive, two delightful hours of cinematic history are available to watch.\n \nIn many ways, The Call of the Sea is the 1920s equivalent of a modern-day blockbuster. It has A-list Polish silent film stars, the highest film budget of the era and thrilling cinematography (including aerial shots of the final chase sequence). This was the sort of film that screened to sold out cinemas and it\u2019s lost none of its gripping excitement across the last 90 years. To watch the lead actors\u2019 elegant theatrics is to understand interwar Poland\u2019s classy European reputation; it sheds light on Warsaw\u2019s former standing as \u2018the Paris of the East\u2019 and was a stylish end to a fantastic few weeks of film."},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pl-PL","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2020\/01\/csm_Taz_Modi_blue_pic_b9d8ac9b98.jpg","width":400,"height":267},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/2018\/11\/06\/pl100-blog-vol-5\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"#PL100 BLOG Vol.5"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#website","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/","name":"Instytut Polski w Londynie","description":"Instytuty Polskie","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"pl-PL"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/53963c4c768e79692e296cb2619bf9f9","name":"ochamanskij","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pl-PL","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b2ff67cc6eab38d2d3a7c1c5d354ef25?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b2ff67cc6eab38d2d3a7c1c5d354ef25?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"ochamanskij"},"url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/author\/ochamanskij\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1774,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659\/revisions\/1774"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/london\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}