Puma Media
Polish Film Festival
Australia 2017
Sydney:
17 - 26 November, Event Cinemas, 505-525 George Street, Sydney CBD
Canberra:
18 - 26 November, Event Cinemas, 6 Franklin Street, Manuka
Melbourne:
30 November - 10 December, Classic Cinemas, 9 Gordon Street, Elsternwick
Tickets
Partners & Supporters

Feature films


The Last Family
- Ostatnia rodzina


Based on the bizarre true story of the cult Polish painter Zdzisław Beksiński. He never believed that family life would always be sunshine and rainbows. As he tapes everything with his beloved camcorder, the 28-year Beksiński saga unfolds through paintings, near-death experiences, dance music trends and funerals ...

 


Afterimag
e - Powidoki

A great artist and co-creator of the theory of Unism, Strzemiński became famous before the Second World War. His students still treat him like the "messiah of modern painting", but university authorities and the Ministry of Culture have a very different opinion...


I am a Killer - Jestem mordercą

This thriller tells a true story, which takes place at the beginning of the 1970s, when Poland was in the throes of full-on Communism. The residents of Zaglębie, an industrial region in the south of the country, are shaken by a series of extremely brutal murders. The victims are women (14 in total) and always killed in the same way...


Convoy - Konwój

A prisoner was murdered in on of the largest detention centres, led by director Nowacki. Investigation has started. Sergeant Berg is called to interrogation, he is one of the participants in the convoy two years ago...

 

 

Be Prepared - Czuwaj


Two groups of boys from different social classes and representing two different value systems confront each other as a result of a risky decision taken by adults. What was meant to be a lesson of responsibility and tolerance is transformed into a battle for leadership. On the one hand is the faith in noble ideals and on the other the brutal law of the jungle...

 

Reconciliation - Zgoda


1945. Communist secret police forces in Silesia build a labour camp for Germans, Silesians and Poles on the site of a former auxiliary camp of Auschwitz Birkenau. The secret police use punishing traitors as a pretext for purging the country of enemies of the system. Franek gets a job at the camp to save the woman he loves...


United States of Love - Zjednoczone stany miłości

Poland, 1990. The winds of change are blowing in Poland. The first euphoric year of freedom, but also of uncertainty for the future. Four apparently happy women of different ages decide it's time to change their lives, fight for their happiness and fulfill their desires...

 


Blindness - Zaćma

A little known episode from the life of Stalinist security police officer Julia Brystiger. Her nickname Bloody Luna was a reference to her incredibly brutal methods of interrogation...

 


Spoor - Pokot

Poland's Oscar Candidate

Retired civil engineer Duszejko lives a secluded life in a mountain village close to the border between Poland and the Czech Republic. She is charismatic and eccentric, a passionate astrologer and a strict vegetarian. One day her beloved dogs disappear. On a snowy winter's night shortly afterwards she discovers the dead body of her neighbour and, next to it, deer tracks. More men die in a similarly mysterious way. All of them were pillars of the village community, and all were passionate hunters. Were these men killed by wild animals? Or has someone been provoked to pursue a bloody vendetta? At some point Duszejko herself comes under suspicion ...


Volta - Volta

Aga is an attractive and smart young woman, whose relationship with Bruno, an intelligent yet mercenary lawyer and spin doctor working on the presidential campaign, is under strain. Bruno had promised to help Aga start her own restaurant, but then changed his mind, making her fully dependent on him. Now, although providing Aga with a very comfortable life, Bruno controls her every move...


The Righteous - Sprawiedliwy


It is 1942. The Nazis launch the decisive phase of destruction. From the ghettos, Jews are transported to the death camps. They are deported from rural areas loading stations. This is the case for one of the Sandomierz region villages, the setting of the film. Anastazja takes in an abandoned Jewish girl - Hania. It doesn't go unnoticed with the local blackmailers, who demand ransom for their silence...


Marie Curie - Maria Skłodowska Curie

Left alone with two young daughters after the accidental death of her beloved husband Pierre Curie, Marie Curie faces her duties with greatest courage as a mother and a scientist. But science is primarily a man's world and Marie's audacity is not well seen by everybody. As she embarks on a passionate affair with the mathematician Paul Langevin, she provokes a huge scandal and the tabloids drag her name through the mud. Alarmed by all the malevolent headlines, the Swedish Nobel Academy, who wants to award her a second Nobel Prize (making her the first person ever to receive two), forbids her to drive to Stockholm to fetch her award...



Short and documentary films


Romantik


He wants to propose to her in the city of love. He does not expect that the coming night will become a living nightmare, and his meticulously planned journey will prove to be far from what he'd imagined or expected...
 

The Last Season - Ostatni sezon


This documentary tells the story of fishermen working on cutters at the Polish coast of the Baltic Sea. Fishing using nets is hard work performed in silence as it is the best way to bear the harsh conditions in the sea. Despite the unfavourable weather, slanting rain and often modest catch, young people follow in the footsteps of their ancestors in order to arrive at the port in the pale dawn with a few cod on the deck.
 

Endurance - NDR


For a car insurance scam, you need to spot an easy target, take advantage of their mistake and set up a collision. Kamil is a master at this, but the problems start when he needs to stage an accident because his hard-up brother asks him to. Filip lives from one party to the next and he is not the right person for that. Kamil refuses, but the situation gets complicated...

Polonaise - Polonez


In the small town of Aleksandrów Kujawski, the director of the cultural centre announces a competition for a creative presentation of personal patriotic attitudes. Entrants are free to demonstrate their creativity in whatever form they like: in song, recital or gesture, by giving a speech or staging their work. Anything goes. The eleventh day of the eleventh month arrives... Poland's Independence Day. On this day, the jury, consisting of the director, the mayor, a priest and a local poet, will select the region's number one patriot.

Evil deeds - Złe uczynki

Ten-year-old Max is the son of a hospital cleaner, which is thus where he spends most of his time getting up to no good. He dreams of becoming a gang member, or maybe even a serial killer, and thus struggles to keep his promise, made to his mother, that he would keep out of trouble. When an elderly patient catches Max stealing his wallet, he agrees to keep silent should the boy complete three tasks...


The Holy Week - Wielki tydzień

It begins like an ordinary week for the young couple who have just returned from Great Britain to start their life anew. A dying relative, who is the brother of the main character's grandfather, unexpectedly gives them keys to his flat. The gesture is much appreciated by the young students as they are awaiting their first child. The time they spend in the cramped bedsit with the dying man soon turns into a crash course in life, a condensed series of questions about our basic responsibilities when faced with the inevitability of death and birth.