“This is a cinema of personal vision, social commitment, and poetic responsibility from which we’ve all learned. I hope that you will enjoy these great films as much as I do.” –Martin Scorsese
Curated by Martin Scorsese, this touring retrospective features films from some of Poland’s most accomplished and lauded filmmakers, spanning the period from 1957-87. Each film has been digitally remastered and restored, allowing a rare opportunity to discover or revisit classic films from one of the world’s richest national cinemas.
Cosponsored by Ohio State’s Department of Slavic and Eastern European Languages and Cultures, the Polish American Club (PAC), The Polish Studies Initiative, and the Ohio State Polish Club.
Please visit the Wexner Center's website for full details.
Thursday, January 8, 7:00PM
Innocent Sorcerers (Andrzej Wajda, 1960) and Ashes and Diamonds (Andrzej Wajda, 1958)
One of Poland’s greatest filmmakers, Andrzej Wajda received an honorary Oscar in 2000 and was the subject of a Wexner Center retrospective in 2009. This double feature opens with Innocent Sorcerers, a love story and portrait of young Poles in the 1950s as a young couple meet in a bar and continue their night of romance, which grows in significance as the evening goes on. (87 mins., DCP) Called “arguably one of the greatest films ever made” by Martin Scorsese, Ashes and Diamonds is set on the last day of World War II and the first day of peace as a young Polish resistance soldier comes to realize his Nazi oppressors are being replaced by Soviet ones. The film’s star Zbigniew Cybulski (nicknamed the “Polish James Dean”) became an international heartthrob and Martin Scorsese modeled Harvey Keitel’s sunglasses in Mean Streets after Cybulski’s. (103 mins., DCP)
Reception from 5:30-7:00 PM before the film courtesy of the Polish Studies Initiative and the Polish Support Fund
Tuesday, January 13, 7:00PM
The Illumination (Krzysztof Zanussi, 1972)
One of the essential films in the series, The Illumination sees a young man comes from a provincial town to the city in order to study physics, hoping that science can answer his questions. With adventurous filmmaking and unusually incisive content, the film grounds the biggest questions of life withing a specific social and political context. With the success of this philosophical masterpiece, Krzysztof Kanussi’s career blossomed into international renowned, proving that philosophy could be translated into successful cinema. (93 mins., DCP)
Thursday, January 15, 7:00PM
Blind Chance (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1981) and A Short Film About Killing (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1987)
Completed in 1981 but heavily censored and not released until 1987, Blind Chance sees the first mature explorations of the key themes and stylistic motifs that made Krzysztof Kieslowski one of the world’s foremost filmmakers. The film follows a young medical student who has to return home after his father’s death. Arriving late at the station, he runs to catch his train. At which point, the film offers three different outcomes, depending on whether he makes the train or not. One of the great alternate reality/parallel storyline films, sees Kieslowski brilliantly fusing social realities and metaphysical questions. (122 mins., DCP) An expanded, feature-length version of an episode from Kieslowski’s landmark TV series The Decalogue, A Short Film About Killing is set on the day when the paths of three men cross. A gripping and masterful psychological and ethical study of murder, the film was a sensation at the Cannes Film Festival, won countless awards, and opened the door to the international career that Kieslowski subsequently enjoyed. (85 mins., DCP)
Thursday, January 22, 7:00PM
Jump (Tadeusz Konwicki, 1965)
Introduced by Daniel Pratt
A hallucinatory, allegorical western set in Poland of the 1960s, Jump sees an man on the lam jump off a train. Hiding out in a scarcely populated settlement, he encounters a ghostland set halfway between dream and reality, inhabited by people in distress and haunted by war. To some this mystery man (played by the Polish superstar Zbyszek Cybyluski) is a prophet, to others a martyr, and to others a liar. Daniel W. Pratt, Visiting Assistant Professor in OSU’s Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures introduces the film and leads a post-screening discussion. (104 mins., DCP)
Sunday, January 25, 2:00PM
Black Cross (Aleksander Ford, 1960)
The first Polish historical blockbuster and still the most viewed Polish film of all time, Black Cross is a widescreen medieval epic overflowing with sumptuous pageantry, thunderous action, and glorious Eastmancolor. With faithful historical detail, the film depicts the heroic Polish campaign against the Order of the Teutonic Knights, which offers vicarious redemptive allegories for the horrors and humiliations that the Poles suffered from the Nazis during a much more recent war. (165 mins., DCP)
Thursday, January 29, 7:00PM
To Kill This Love (Janusz Morgenstern, 1972) and Mother Joan of the Angels (Jerzy Kawalerowicz, 1960)
A scrappy, bitterly funny, and ultimately heartbreaking love story set against the harsh backdrop of the communist regime, To Kill This Love shows what it was like to be young at the turn of the 1970s in Poland. While Neil Armstrong lands on the moon, a couple discovers love and life in the big city. Quotas keep them from getting into the university, so the only option to reach their ambitions and dreams of independence seems to be to enter the mean, conformist reality surrounding them. (96 mins., DCP) Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Mother Joan of the Angelsis a strikingly designed and feverishly intense spiritual drama. A devout Father arrives in a remote 17th century Polish town to investigate a case of demonic possession in the local convent, where the nuns are prone to episodes of hysteria and sexually charged frenzies. The priest must then choose between sacrificing his own purity and saving the convent from evil. (110 mins., DCP)
