Wilderness in the Bieszczady mountains, with the nearest shop eight kilometers away. These are the conditions in which Zbyszek who burns charcoal decided to live. He treats hard work as a kind of atonement for his past deeds. Three tar makers who worked with him, including his son, are already dead. The man sees a link between their deaths and his deeds. His next companion is black Gustaw whose dream is to study medicine. Will he turn out to be the title fourth man?
An analysis of the space of the Stadium of the Decade. Formerly the site of the most important sporting events and state celebrations, since 1989 it has become one of the largest markets. The director, presenting one day in the life of the Fair Europe, shows his multi-level construction and the hierarchy of sellers, often coinciding with the topographic layout of the stadium and national affiliation - mainly Polish or Vietnamese, though there are also other visitors from outside the eastern border. The film creates a mosaic of stories told by traffickers, policemen and local criminals. Their accounts show the realities of stadium life - the day of work begins at night, and besides trade, it is filled with numerous thefts, frauds and ethnic tensions. The film also uses archival material from the Documentary and Feature Film Studios, showing the life of the stadium in PRL.
In February 1942, aerospace doctors Zygmunt Rascher, Zygfryd Ruff and Wolfgang Romberg conducted a study on the issue of high altitude flight at Dachau Concentration Camp. Over 200 prisoners were used in these experiments and about 80 of them lost their lives. The document begins with the reading of the letters by Zygmunt Rasher to the Reichsführer on experiments; They contain accurate descriptions of death and autopsies. From the documentary we learn that the first man who crossed the space was an anonymous merchant of Jewish nationality - it was in Dachau, 19 years before the Soviet space flight Yuri Gagarin.
A short documentary about women, cats and children and the relative importance of each to the other.
A documentary history of the inhabitants of a Warsaw tenement house at 83 Złota Street, the so-called Bermuda Triangle, or Pekin if you prefer. Most of these people have lived in the tenement house for several decades. Now, however, they have all received eviction orders. Due to its poor technical condition, the building is to be demolished and replaced by a hotel or a huge shopping centre.
The film was created from almost 50 hours of long video footage of rehearsals for Tadeusz Kantor and Cricot 2 Theater’s spectacle "Dzis sa moje urodziny" (Today is my birthday). The rehearsals were recorded between October 13, 1989, and December 7, 1990.
Cichociemni ("the Silent-Dark Ones" or "The Unseen and Silent") were elite special-operations paratroops of the Polish Army in exile, created in Great Britain during World War II to operate in occupied Poland.
The film is set in the Bialystok region on the holy mountain of Grabarka, the areas of Siemiatycz, Milejczyc and others. The protagonist is John Trochimczyk, who driven by misfortune decides to carry the cross before the feast of the Saviour and dedicate it to Grabarka to rescue his sick wife. With a wooden cross provided, he meets along the way local people and all the time is approaching the sacred mountains of Grabarka.
A short film focusing on the lives and problems of the elderly in Poland circa 1986.
The documentary presents children from the village of Paszyn, who paint on glass. The boys also became interested in carving figures in wood. They were encouraged by the local parish priest, Father Edward Nitka, to develop local, folk culture. The children talk passionately about the themes of their works.
A ballad-like story about a group of young people who settled in a village near Olsztyn a few years ago and decided to stay and work on the land. Among them are art historians, an actor, and an engineer. The film, which has no commentary, is accompanied by a song whose chorus sounds like the young protagonists' credo: "So take life into your own hands, life as it is. You won't get any more of it, you know that very well."
A portrait of the employees of the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw. The film shows one night, during which we witness the duty of its guards, cleaners, guards, elevators. It's a pretext to listen to their stories about the Palace, its history. Everything happens while the wedding of the daughter of the Palace's guards is taking place in the background in the PKiN staff canteen.
Prominent heart surgeon Zbigniew Religa talks about his fears and hopes he had towards this operation, which was the first one successful heart transplant in Poland, made under his supervision. The doctor talks with great respect and affection about his patients and colleagues.
To say of Kantor that he is among Poland's most outstanding artists of the second half of the twentieth century is to say very little. Kantor is to Polish art what Joseph Beuys was to German art, what Andy Warhol was to American art. He created a unique strain of theatre, was an active participant in the revolutions of the neo-avant-garde, a highly original theoretician, an innovator strongly grounded in tradition, an anti-painterly painter, a happener-heretic, and an ironic conceptualist. These are only a few of his many incarnations. Apart from that, Kantor was an untiring animator of artistic life in post-war Poland, one could even say, one of its chief motivating forces. His greatness derives not so much from his oeuvre, as from Kantor himself in his entirety, as a kind of Gesamtkunstwerk that consists of his art, his theory, and his life.
In photos and films, Praga resembles a small town rather than a district of Warsaw. One may see service facilities, sometimes only signboards and few craftsmen doing jobs becoming a thing of the past. Grinders, engravers, tailors, blacksmiths, saddlers rarely meet their customers. The symbol of the passing era is a cabman portrayed against high and modern blocks of flats. In the backyards of Praga, mangles are still visible. It is a thing of women, similarly to beauty and hairdressing salons. A lighthouse keeper still lights gas lamps, but the bygone world slowly dies out.
Portrait of a family emigrating to Sweden.
Abstract, geometric forms, became the basis for the most outstanding works of the avant-garde sculptor Katarzyna Kobro. With her 'Spatial Compositions', she created her own artistic language, with which she aroused a lot of criticism, which was based on the traditional assumption that a sculpture should be a compact, modelled mass. However, the task of "Composition" was to shape forms that were to come into being. Kobro, however, still wanted to change the space surrounding people with her own art.
The employees of a tailor's workshop portrayed by him make their working hours more pleasant by chatting, during which the work itself sometimes comes to the background. Their conversations regularly cover the subject of the various issues that tailors and seamstresses have to deal with in their everyday lives. But when customers make complaints and comments about tight jackets and crooked jackets, they can only count on aggression or saying it can’t be helped. All for all is the title of a poem by Julian Tuwim, starting with a stanza: "A bricklayer builds houses, / The tailor sews clothes, / but where would he sew if he didn't have a flat". Kindergarten children learn from the poem that every job serves some purpose and we need each other. Paweł Kędzierski in his documentary ironically shows that the devil is in the details.
Techniques for rapid drying and harvesting of grasses using various machines.
A special episode of the Chronicle commemorating the death of Bolesław Bierut. He died in Moscow, March 13, 1956. The President of Poland, the President of the Council of Ministers of the Polish People's Republic, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers' Party, was a guest of the earth-shattering 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, at which Khrushchev delivered a secret speech on the crimes of Stalinism. Obviously, the film does not mention that because in our country Bierut's death began the thaw period. An honor guard was set next to the coffin in Moscow. The funeral was attended by PUWP delegates, marshals of the USSR, family and workers. The last journey led through Moscow to the airport, where the Bulgarian Prime Minister gave his farewell speech. The funeral march created by Fryderyk Chopin accompanies the images in the production.
