{"id":12721,"date":"2024-08-12T18:28:16","date_gmt":"2024-08-12T16:28:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/?p=12721"},"modified":"2026-01-12T16:46:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T15:46:36","slug":"apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/","title":{"rendered":"Apocalypse Now: Four sci-fi parables by Piotr Szulkin at MUBI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n


Watch on MUBI.com<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Special offer for our newsletter subscribers only: a 1-month MUBI free trial, instead of the regular one-week trial.<\/strong> Visit our home page<\/a>, and scroll down to our newsletter subscription option. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Presented in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York, Szulkin’s Tetralogy, consisting of four films released from 1980 to 1986, is available for streaming on MUBI.  One of the great visionaries of Eastern European cinema, Piotr Szulkin was a useful thorn in the side of the Polish authorities. His 1981 masterpiece War of the Worlds: Next Century<\/em> was, like all of his major films, ostensibly a work of science fiction. Deemed a provocative attack on the authoritarian regime in the months leading up to the declaration of martial law, the film was pulled from its competition slot at the Cannes Film Festival. A satire of media manipulation set in the days following a martian invasion, it would later be revealed that the very same authorities who had denied its release had been studying the film as an instructional tool for social control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faced with such ironies, it\u2019s little wonder that Szulkin rebuffed straightforward categorisation of his work. \u201cI do not make sci-fi,\u201d he said, \u201cbut rather borrow from its aesthetic\u2026 Film is a scream\u2026 my scream, and an expression of my need to confront the situation we had found ourselves in.\u201d The situation in question was Communist rule, and all four of the films in this collection\u2014informally known as his \u201cApocalyptic Tetralogy\u201d or \u201cTetralogy of Doom\u201d\u2014were made while Poland was under the thumb of Soviet totalitarianism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inspired by the likes of Franz Kafka and George Orwell, Pier Paolo Pasolini and H.G. Wells, Szulkin\u2019s works of future-noir are potent allegories one and all\u2014not just for contemporary Polish society, but for a global age marked by atomic anxiety and widespread distrust in monolithic power structures. Yet for all the sociopolitical subtext of his cinema, Szulkin retains the ample pleasures of genre. These are films populated with smoky bars and femme fatales, shadow-dwelling villains and, in Golem<\/em> (1980), lab-grown doppelg\u00e4ngers. They\u2019re also marvels of utilitarian production design, threaded with dark veins of mordant humor\u2014not for nothing has Ga-Ga: Glory to the Heroes<\/em> (1985) been compared to Terry Gilliam\u2019s Brazil<\/em> (1985). In the apocalypse according to Szulkin, the world ends with neither a bang nor a whimper, but with an insistence\u2014as the world burns\u2014that everything is fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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GA-GA: GLORY TO THE HEROES
GA, GA – CHWALA BOHATEROM<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directed by Piotr Szulkin
Poland, 1985, 81 min
TRAILER<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Synopsis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scope, a prisoner on a behemoth space station, is chosen to \u2018volunteer\u2019 to explore far-away planets. Landing on planet Australia-458, Scope finds that his freedom comes with a high price\u2014his violent demise will be broadcast live for the viewing pleasure of Australia-458\u2019s inhabitants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MUBI’s take<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking inspiration from Pasolini\u2019s La Ricotta<\/em>, Piotr Szulkin closes his \u201cApocalyptic Tetralogy\u201d with an anarchic riff on the Passion of Christ. The funniest of the four films, Ga-Ga: Glory to the Heroes<\/em> is a rich sci-fi allegory that puts the European colonial project in its satirical crosshairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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O-BI, O-BA: THE END OF CIVILIZATION
O-BI, O-BA – KONIEC CYWILIZACJI<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directed by Piotr Szulkin
Poland, 1984, 86 min
TRAILER<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Synopsis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A year has passed since the nuclear war, and 800 sick and hungry people have taken shelter in a concrete building. They are waiting for the landing of The Ark, a mythical vessel that is supposed to bring collective salvation. But this news was invented by the ruling team\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MUBI’s take<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conjuring a claustrophobic vision of post-nuclear Poland, Piotr Szulkin lends his satirical eye to the weaponization of religion as a means of social control. A utilitarian triumph of ramshackle world-building, O-Bi, O-Ba<\/em> is a hallucinatory examination of apocalyptic anxieties in the atomic age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
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\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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THE WAR OF THE WORLDS: NEXT CENTURY
WOJNA SWIAT\u00d3W – NASTEPNE STULECIE<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directed by Piotr Szulkin
Poland, 1981, 94 min
TRAILER<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Synopsis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poland, Christmastime. A band of hyperintelligent, bloodthirsty martians take over the country and enlist hapless television newscaster Iron Ide as the voice of their propaganda machine. But when Iron dares to go off message, he makes an enemy even greater than the aliens\u2014the state itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MUBI’s take<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pulled from the Cannes competition in the same year that Poland declared martial law, Piotr Szulkin\u2019s tale of alien invasion is a blazing satire of the media machine. Dedicated to H.G. Wells and Orson Welles, this noir-inflected sci-fi is an eerily prescient interrogation of the fake-news era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

GOLEM<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Directed by Piotr Szulkin
Poland, 1979, 90 min
TRAILER<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Synopsis<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In some dystopian future, scientists attempt to create a new, pliable race of humans out of degenerate individuals. A seemingly ordinary product of the effort, the genetically engineered Pernat is subject to round-the-clock monitoring as he goes about his life\u2014until he rebels against his guardians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MUBI’s take<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drawing on Jewish legend, this Kafkaesque work of speculative science fiction is the debut feature by one of the great visionaries of the 20th century. From a nightmarish world of gods and monsters, Piotr Szulkin forges a modern Prometheus as a potent allegory for Poland\u2019s Communist experiment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
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<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\n
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Piotr Szulkin, MUBI<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n


Piotr Szulkin (1950-2018) was a director, screenwriter, novelist, theatrical director, and painter whose profoundly imaginative works rendered 20th-century philosophy and Polish medieval literature through speculative fiction, noir, and grotesque allegories. Best known for his tetralogy of wildly iconoclastic sci-fi movies\u2014Golem<\/em> (1979), The War of the Worlds: Next Century<\/em> (1981), O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization<\/em> (1985), and Ga-ga: Glory to Heroes<\/em> (1986)\u2014Szulkin regularly faced censorship from the Communist regime of the late \u201970s and early \u201980s for his unabashedly political works.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Lead image: <\/em>Film posters Szulkin’s Tetralogy
Presented in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watch on MUBI.com Special offer for our newsletter subscribers only: a 1-month MUBI free trial, instead of the regular one-week trial. Visit our home page, and scroll down to our newsletter subscription option. Presented in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York, Szulkin’s Tetralogy, consisting of four films released from 1980 to 1986, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":202,"featured_media":13234,"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":[5,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","category-film"],"yoast_head":"\nApocalypse Now: Four sci-fi parables by Piotr Szulkin at MUBI - Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku<\/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\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"pl_PL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Apocalypse Now: Four sci-fi parables by Piotr Szulkin at MUBI - Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Watch on MUBI.com Special offer for our newsletter subscribers only: a 1-month MUBI free trial, instead of the regular one-week trial. Visit our home page, and scroll down to our newsletter subscription option. Presented in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York, Szulkin’s Tetralogy, consisting of four films released from 1980 to 1986, is […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-08-12T16:28:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-01-12T15:46:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1881\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"901\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"stypulkowskaa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Napisane przez\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"stypulkowskaa\" \/>\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\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/\",\"name\":\"Apocalypse Now: Four sci-fi parables by Piotr Szulkin at MUBI\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":[\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2-300x144.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2-1024x490.jpg\",\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2.jpg\"],\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-08-12T16:28:16+02:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-01-12T15:46:36+02:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/c732b2695ee92026d080eec35471c7f1\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/\"]}],\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"startDate\":\"2024-08-16\",\"endDate\":\"2025-08-16\",\"eventStatus\":\"EventScheduled\",\"eventAttendanceMode\":\"OfflineEventAttendanceMode\",\"location\":{\"@type\":\"place\",\"name\":\"\",\"address\":\"\",\"geo\":{\"@type\":\"GeoCoordinates\",\"latitude\":\"\",\"longitude\":\"\"}},\"description\":\"Watch on MUBI.com\\nSpecial offer for our newsletter subscribers only: a 1-month MUBI free trial, instead of the regular one-week trial. Visit our home page, and scroll down to our newsletter subscription option. \\nPresented in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York, Szulkin's Tetralogy, consisting of four films released from 1980 to 1986, is available for streaming on MUBI. One of the great visionaries of Eastern European cinema, Piotr Szulkin was a useful thorn in the side of the Polish authorities. His 1981 masterpiece War of the Worlds: Next Century was, like all of his major films, ostensibly a work of science fiction. Deemed a provocative attack on the authoritarian regime in the months leading up to the declaration of martial law, the film was pulled from its competition slot at the Cannes Film Festival. A satire of media manipulation set in the days following a martian invasion, it would later be revealed that the very same authorities who had denied its release had been studying the film as an instructional tool for social control.\\nFaced with such ironies, it\u2019s little wonder that Szulkin rebuffed straightforward categorisation of his work. \u201cI do not make sci-fi,\u201d he said, \u201cbut rather borrow from its aesthetic\u2026 Film is a scream\u2026 my scream, and an expression of my need to confront the situation we had found ourselves in.\u201d The situation in question was Communist rule, and all four of the films in this collection\u2014informally known as his \u201cApocalyptic Tetralogy\u201d or \u201cTetralogy of Doom\u201d\u2014were made while Poland was under the thumb of Soviet totalitarianism.\\nInspired by the likes of Franz Kafka and George Orwell, Pier Paolo Pasolini and H.G. Wells, Szulkin\u2019s works of future-noir are potent allegories one and all\u2014not just for contemporary Polish society, but for a global age marked by atomic anxiety and widespread distrust in monolithic power structures. Yet for all the sociopolitical subtext of his cinema, Szulkin retains the ample pleasures of genre. These are films populated with smoky bars and femme fatales, shadow-dwelling villains and, in Golem (1980), lab-grown doppelg\u00e4ngers. They\u2019re also marvels of utilitarian production design, threaded with dark veins of mordant humor\u2014not for nothing has Ga-Ga: Glory to the Heroes (1985) been compared to Terry Gilliam\u2019s Brazil (1985). In the apocalypse according to Szulkin, the world ends with neither a bang nor a whimper, but with an insistence\u2014as the world burns\u2014that everything is fine.\\nGA-GA: GLORY TO THE HEROESGA, GA - CHWALA BOHATEROM\\nDirected by Piotr SzulkinPoland, 1985, 81 minTRAILER\\nSynopsis\\nScope, a prisoner on a behemoth space station, is chosen to \u2018volunteer\u2019 to explore far-away planets. Landing on planet Australia-458, Scope finds that his freedom comes with a high price\u2014his violent demise will be broadcast live for the viewing pleasure of Australia-458\u2019s inhabitants.\\nMUBI's take\\nTaking inspiration from Pasolini\u2019s La Ricotta, Piotr Szulkin closes his \u201cApocalyptic Tetralogy\u201d with an anarchic riff on the Passion of Christ. The funniest of the four films, Ga-Ga: Glory to the Heroes is a rich sci-fi allegory that puts the European colonial project in its satirical crosshairs.\\nO-BI, O-BA: THE END OF CIVILIZATIONO-BI, O-BA - KONIEC CYWILIZACJI\\nDirected by Piotr SzulkinPoland, 1984, 86 minTRAILER\\nSynopsis\\nA year has passed since the nuclear war, and 800 sick and hungry people have taken shelter in a concrete building. They are waiting for the landing of The Ark, a mythical vessel that is supposed to bring collective salvation. But this news was invented by the ruling team\u2026\\nMUBI's take\\nConjuring a claustrophobic vision of post-nuclear Poland, Piotr Szulkin lends his satirical eye to the weaponization of religion as a means of social control. A utilitarian triumph of ramshackle world-building, O-Bi, O-Ba is a hallucinatory examination of apocalyptic anxieties in the atomic age.\\nTHE WAR OF THE WORLDS: NEXT CENTURYWOJNA SWIAT\u00d3W - NASTEPNE STULECIE\\nDirected by Piotr SzulkinPoland, 1981, 94 minTRAILER\\nSynopsis\\nPoland, Christmastime. A band of hyperintelligent, bloodthirsty martians take over the country and enlist hapless television newscaster Iron Ide as the voice of their propaganda machine. But when Iron dares to go off message, he makes an enemy even greater than the aliens\u2014the state itself.\\nMUBI's take\\nPulled from the Cannes competition in the same year that Poland declared martial law, Piotr Szulkin\u2019s tale of alien invasion is a blazing satire of the media machine. Dedicated to H.G. Wells and Orson Welles, this noir-inflected sci-fi is an eerily prescient interrogation of the fake-news era.\\nGOLEM\\nDirected by Piotr SzulkinPoland, 1979, 90 minTRAILER\\nSynopsis\\nIn some dystopian future, scientists attempt to create a new, pliable race of humans out of degenerate individuals. A seemingly ordinary product of the effort, the genetically engineered Pernat is subject to round-the-clock monitoring as he goes about his life\u2014until he rebels against his guardians.\\nMUBI's take\\nDrawing on Jewish legend, this Kafkaesque work of speculative science fiction is the debut feature by one of the great visionaries of the 20th century. From a nightmarish world of gods and monsters, Piotr Szulkin forges a modern Prometheus as a potent allegory for Poland\u2019s Communist experiment.\\nPiotr Szulkin (1950-2018) was a director, screenwriter, novelist, theatrical director, and painter whose profoundly imaginative works rendered 20th-century philosophy and Polish medieval literature through speculative fiction, noir, and grotesque allegories. Best known for his tetralogy of wildly iconoclastic sci-fi movies\u2014Golem (1979), The War of the Worlds: Next Century (1981), O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization (1985), and Ga-ga: Glory to Heroes (1986)\u2014Szulkin regularly faced censorship from the Communist regime of the late \u201970s and early \u201980s for his unabashedly political works.\\nLead image: Film posters Szulkin's TetralogyPresented in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York.\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2.jpg\",\"width\":1881,\"height\":901},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Apocalypse Now: Four sci-fi parables by Piotr Szulkin at MUBI\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/\",\"name\":\"Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku\",\"description\":\"Instytuty Polskie\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/c732b2695ee92026d080eec35471c7f1\",\"name\":\"stypulkowskaa\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"pl-PL\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a29bb1802c91e057084d5d112dd59dc4?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a29bb1802c91e057084d5d112dd59dc4?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"stypulkowskaa\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/author\/stypulkowskaa-2\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Apocalypse Now: Four sci-fi parables by Piotr Szulkin at MUBI - Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku","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\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/","og_locale":"pl_PL","og_type":"article","og_title":"Apocalypse Now: Four sci-fi parables by Piotr Szulkin at MUBI - Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku","og_description":"Watch on MUBI.com Special offer for our newsletter subscribers only: a 1-month MUBI free trial, instead of the regular one-week trial. Visit our home page, and scroll down to our newsletter subscription option. Presented in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York, Szulkin’s Tetralogy, consisting of four films released from 1980 to 1986, is […]","og_url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/","og_site_name":"Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku","article_published_time":"2024-08-12T16:28:16+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-01-12T15:46:36+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1881,"height":901,"url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"stypulkowskaa","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Napisane przez":"stypulkowskaa","Szacowany czas czytania":"7 minut"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"event","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/","name":"Apocalypse Now: Four sci-fi parables by Piotr Szulkin at MUBI","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/#primaryimage"},"image":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2-300x144.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2-1024x490.jpg","https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2.jpg"],"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2.jpg","datePublished":"2024-08-12T16:28:16+02:00","dateModified":"2026-01-12T15:46:36+02:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/c732b2695ee92026d080eec35471c7f1"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"pl-PL","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/"]}],"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","startDate":"2024-08-16","endDate":"2025-08-16","eventStatus":"EventScheduled","eventAttendanceMode":"OfflineEventAttendanceMode","location":{"@type":"place","name":"","address":"","geo":{"@type":"GeoCoordinates","latitude":"","longitude":""}},"description":"Watch on MUBI.com\nSpecial offer for our newsletter subscribers only: a 1-month MUBI free trial, instead of the regular one-week trial. Visit our home page, and scroll down to our newsletter subscription option. \nPresented in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York, Szulkin's Tetralogy, consisting of four films released from 1980 to 1986, is available for streaming on MUBI. One of the great visionaries of Eastern European cinema, Piotr Szulkin was a useful thorn in the side of the Polish authorities. His 1981 masterpiece War of the Worlds: Next Century was, like all of his major films, ostensibly a work of science fiction. Deemed a provocative attack on the authoritarian regime in the months leading up to the declaration of martial law, the film was pulled from its competition slot at the Cannes Film Festival. A satire of media manipulation set in the days following a martian invasion, it would later be revealed that the very same authorities who had denied its release had been studying the film as an instructional tool for social control.\nFaced with such ironies, it\u2019s little wonder that Szulkin rebuffed straightforward categorisation of his work. \u201cI do not make sci-fi,\u201d he said, \u201cbut rather borrow from its aesthetic\u2026 Film is a scream\u2026 my scream, and an expression of my need to confront the situation we had found ourselves in.\u201d The situation in question was Communist rule, and all four of the films in this collection\u2014informally known as his \u201cApocalyptic Tetralogy\u201d or \u201cTetralogy of Doom\u201d\u2014were made while Poland was under the thumb of Soviet totalitarianism.\nInspired by the likes of Franz Kafka and George Orwell, Pier Paolo Pasolini and H.G. Wells, Szulkin\u2019s works of future-noir are potent allegories one and all\u2014not just for contemporary Polish society, but for a global age marked by atomic anxiety and widespread distrust in monolithic power structures. Yet for all the sociopolitical subtext of his cinema, Szulkin retains the ample pleasures of genre. These are films populated with smoky bars and femme fatales, shadow-dwelling villains and, in Golem (1980), lab-grown doppelg\u00e4ngers. They\u2019re also marvels of utilitarian production design, threaded with dark veins of mordant humor\u2014not for nothing has Ga-Ga: Glory to the Heroes (1985) been compared to Terry Gilliam\u2019s Brazil (1985). In the apocalypse according to Szulkin, the world ends with neither a bang nor a whimper, but with an insistence\u2014as the world burns\u2014that everything is fine.\nGA-GA: GLORY TO THE HEROESGA, GA - CHWALA BOHATEROM\nDirected by Piotr SzulkinPoland, 1985, 81 minTRAILER\nSynopsis\nScope, a prisoner on a behemoth space station, is chosen to \u2018volunteer\u2019 to explore far-away planets. Landing on planet Australia-458, Scope finds that his freedom comes with a high price\u2014his violent demise will be broadcast live for the viewing pleasure of Australia-458\u2019s inhabitants.\nMUBI's take\nTaking inspiration from Pasolini\u2019s La Ricotta, Piotr Szulkin closes his \u201cApocalyptic Tetralogy\u201d with an anarchic riff on the Passion of Christ. The funniest of the four films, Ga-Ga: Glory to the Heroes is a rich sci-fi allegory that puts the European colonial project in its satirical crosshairs.\nO-BI, O-BA: THE END OF CIVILIZATIONO-BI, O-BA - KONIEC CYWILIZACJI\nDirected by Piotr SzulkinPoland, 1984, 86 minTRAILER\nSynopsis\nA year has passed since the nuclear war, and 800 sick and hungry people have taken shelter in a concrete building. They are waiting for the landing of The Ark, a mythical vessel that is supposed to bring collective salvation. But this news was invented by the ruling team\u2026\nMUBI's take\nConjuring a claustrophobic vision of post-nuclear Poland, Piotr Szulkin lends his satirical eye to the weaponization of religion as a means of social control. A utilitarian triumph of ramshackle world-building, O-Bi, O-Ba is a hallucinatory examination of apocalyptic anxieties in the atomic age.\nTHE WAR OF THE WORLDS: NEXT CENTURYWOJNA SWIAT\u00d3W - NASTEPNE STULECIE\nDirected by Piotr SzulkinPoland, 1981, 94 minTRAILER\nSynopsis\nPoland, Christmastime. A band of hyperintelligent, bloodthirsty martians take over the country and enlist hapless television newscaster Iron Ide as the voice of their propaganda machine. But when Iron dares to go off message, he makes an enemy even greater than the aliens\u2014the state itself.\nMUBI's take\nPulled from the Cannes competition in the same year that Poland declared martial law, Piotr Szulkin\u2019s tale of alien invasion is a blazing satire of the media machine. Dedicated to H.G. Wells and Orson Welles, this noir-inflected sci-fi is an eerily prescient interrogation of the fake-news era.\nGOLEM\nDirected by Piotr SzulkinPoland, 1979, 90 minTRAILER\nSynopsis\nIn some dystopian future, scientists attempt to create a new, pliable race of humans out of degenerate individuals. A seemingly ordinary product of the effort, the genetically engineered Pernat is subject to round-the-clock monitoring as he goes about his life\u2014until he rebels against his guardians.\nMUBI's take\nDrawing on Jewish legend, this Kafkaesque work of speculative science fiction is the debut feature by one of the great visionaries of the 20th century. From a nightmarish world of gods and monsters, Piotr Szulkin forges a modern Prometheus as a potent allegory for Poland\u2019s Communist experiment.\nPiotr Szulkin (1950-2018) was a director, screenwriter, novelist, theatrical director, and painter whose profoundly imaginative works rendered 20th-century philosophy and Polish medieval literature through speculative fiction, noir, and grotesque allegories. Best known for his tetralogy of wildly iconoclastic sci-fi movies\u2014Golem (1979), The War of the Worlds: Next Century (1981), O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization (1985), and Ga-ga: Glory to Heroes (1986)\u2014Szulkin regularly faced censorship from the Communist regime of the late \u201970s and early \u201980s for his unabashedly political works.\nLead image: Film posters Szulkin's TetralogyPresented in partnership with the Polish Cultural Institute New York."},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pl-PL","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/15\/2024\/08\/Zrzut-ekranu-2024-08-22-133645-2.jpg","width":1881,"height":901},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/2024\/08\/12\/apocalypse-now-four-sci-fi-parables-by-piotr-szulkin-at-mubi\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Apocalypse Now: Four sci-fi parables by Piotr Szulkin at MUBI"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#website","url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/","name":"Instytut Polski w Nowym Jorku","description":"Instytuty Polskie","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"pl-PL"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/c732b2695ee92026d080eec35471c7f1","name":"stypulkowskaa","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"pl-PL","@id":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a29bb1802c91e057084d5d112dd59dc4?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a29bb1802c91e057084d5d112dd59dc4?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"stypulkowskaa"},"url":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/author\/stypulkowskaa-2\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/202"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12721"}],"version-history":[{"count":51,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19492,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12721\/revisions\/19492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/instytutpolski.pl\/newyork\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}