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PPFF is co-financed by:
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Introduction
Since 2011, the annual Play Poland Film Festival invariably reaches British cinemas with a selection of majorly acclaimed Polish film productions. It will be no different this year!
Feature Films
7 feature films will be presented, along with dr.xxx introduction, in FilmHouse Edinburgh between 11th-25th November. Book your tickets today as there is a limited quantity of tickets
Short Films
This year selection of over 70 short films, over 1000 minutes was divided
to 4 sections:Play Poland Film Festival is green, protects, connects, is culture.
100 years of Lem
Since 2011, the annual Play Poland Film Festival invariably reaches British cinemas with a selection of majorly acclaimed Polish film productions. It will be no different this year!
Welcome to the 7th edition of the Play Poland Film Festival
11th – 25th November 2021
Welcome to the 7th edition of Play Poland Film Festival
11th – 25th November 2021
Introduction
Welcome to the 7th edition of Play Poland Film Festival
11th -25th November 2021
Play Poland Film Festival returns after 4 years of absence following a difficult time for the entire film industry because of the pandemic.
This year’s film selection is addressing the big issues such as climate change, discrimination, inequality, isolation, to name a few, as seen through the eyes of Polish film directors. There will be interviews with filmmakers and discussions with speakers about issues touched upon.
This year we have prepared an extensively diverse programme of Polish features, documentaries, animations, and short films programmed by our team of regular programmers. They are from Wajda School, Krzysztof Kieslowski Film School, Lodz Film School and Munk Studio who reviewed and assessed films against our goals and philosophy and created an interesting programme that will satisfy even the most demanding of audiences.
The selection of our feature films includes films mainly from 2020/21 and includes among others Jan P. Matuszyński’s ‘Leave No Traces’ which is Poland’s Oscars entry for Best International Feature category at 94th Academy Awards in 2022.
The year 2021 has been proclaimed the year of Stanislaw Lem as September marked the 100th anniversary of his birth. To commemorate the life and legacy of this influential director, we have curated a selection of films based upon his novels. To deepen the experience we will also be screening a documentary about Lem’s life. Film screenings will be complimented by a Lem-inspired graphic exhibition by Daniel Mróz available online.
Thanks to the VOD technology and new partnerships with Polish cultural organisations from Belgium, Germany, Sweden and Slovakia, Play Poland Film Festival is expanding. During the period from 15th to 25th November, the audiences from these countries will have online access to over 70 films from the warm comfort of their houses.
I hope very much and sincerely believe that there is something for everyone in our rich programme and I look forward to seeing you at the Festival!
Iwona Nowak
Play Poland Film Festival Director
100 years of Lem
The Sejm of the Republic of Poland has declared 2021 to be the Year of Lem. Remaining an immensely popular author among his countrymen, Stanisław Lem is also one of the best- known Polish writers in the world, translated into 41 languages and published in millions of copies. The choice of year 2021 is not accidental – Stanisław Lem was born in Lviv 100 years earlier. The literary genre in which Stanisław Lem has been most successful, the one he gracefully employed, ennobled, and elevated to its literary heights, is the science-fiction novel. The author frequently clashes the condition of the human as a biological and thinking entity, with the world of artificial intelligence, robotics, and other inanimate beings. (…)
Stanisław Lem’s work evolved over time. It began with cosmic adventure novels but written in accordance with the requirements of social realism. After the death of Stalin, and with it the relaxation of the pressure put on artists to produce social realistic art, Lem published further novels and collections of stories, which helped him secure a place among the classics of the genre. At this time, he has written Opowieści o pilocie Pirxie (Tales of Pirx the Pilot) and Solaris - a novel about a thinking ocean, popularly regarded as Lem’s greatest work – and one which made him a world-famous writer. Later along came Bajki Robotów (Mortal Engines) and Cyberiada (The Cyberiad) – collections of short, grotesque parables, the most popular of which became the stories of the two fiercely competing inventors: Klapaucius and Trurl.
In his novels, which retain their vast popularity to this day, Lem was able to incorporate a whole arsenal of issues arising from the clash of the humanities and medicine with engineering and futurology.
The Kraków artist Daniel Mróz gave the perfect graphic form to the heroes of Lem’s works. For a great number of the literary fans of the writer, Mróz’s illustrations and Lem’s texts have become an inseparable whole. The exhibition entitled Lem’s Bestiary According to
Mróz presents the results of the collaboration of these two great artists.
Film programme:
Pilot Pirx's Inquest
dir. Marek Piestrak | Poland, Russia | Sci-Fi | 1979 | 95'
In not-too-distant future, electronic corporations have built a “nonlinear” – an android theoretically capable of replacing a human being. To verify this information, UNESCO organizes a mission to Saturn…
Edinburgh – Sat 13 th November 2021, 8:45 pm, Filmhouse
Author Solaris
dir. Borys Lankosz | Poland | Documentary | 2016 | 56'
Stanislaw Lem is the most famous sci-fi Polish writer worldwide, and yet his life is shrouded in enigma and full of paradoxes. The documentary tries to answer some of the questions about his life.
VOD (UK only), 20 th November 2021, 8:00 pm
The Room
dir. Krzysztof Jankowski | Poland | Dramedy | 2021 | 19’
The year is 2055. The well-known cosmonaut Ijon Tichy is to deliver a speech in the Pan-Slavic Parliament against the introduction of the Polish People's Republic - Extra-terrestrial Human Regulations.
VOD, 19 th – 25 th November 2021
The Mask
dir. Hanka Brulińska | Poland | Experimental, Sci-Fi | 2021 | 13'
‘The Mask’ depicts an incredible journey into the inner psyche of an artificial intelligence as it is gaining self-awareness, freedom and the ability to love. The spiritually growing AI traverses into new realms of existence in its pursuit of truth about its own soul.
VOD (UK only), 21 st November 2021
Exhibition:
Lem’s Bestiary According to Mróz
Daniel Mróz - born in 1917 in Kraków and lived there all his life till 1993. He graduated from the Set Design Study (1951) and Graphic Arts Faculty (1953) at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts. Mróz’s illustrations were published in many countries across the world. The artist also
worked on set designs for theatre performances. He created illustrations and graphic designs for books of Jules Verne and Sławomir Mrożek among others. He is best known for his collaboration with Stanisław Lem, which brought him recognition on an international level – editions of Lem’s works featuring Mróz’s illustrations are not subservient to Lem’s
prose – they build a world that is compatible with Lem’s but at the same time create a world of their own.
