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.
A documentary etude presenting statements made by high school graduates in 1981 about their perception of socialism in the People's Republic of Poland. Young women and men express their dissatisfaction and fears about their own future in socialist Poland, whose fate, they claim, is subject to the vision of Moscow and party comrades at home.
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.
An "Open letter to the directors of the Municipal Transport Company in Warsaw", an appeal for a more rational and passenger-oriented communication policy in the capital. From the film we learn that when asked about the causes of problems with Warsaw public transport, the authorities typically give the same answer: "objective difficulties" are to blame. The author of the documentary, the author of many films devoted to the faults and thoughtlessness of Warsaw officials, managed to identify 8 basic difficulties that make the use of public transport in the capital city in the early 1970s a nightmare. The degree of their "objectivity" can be decided by the viewer himself.
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.
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.
The documentary presents the flora and fauna of Spitsbergen.
A documentary about a small island in the Glacial Ocean, which during the Arctic summer becomes a kingdom of singing birds.
A film report from the Dar Pomorza (Pomeranian Gift) sailing ship's training voyage to Stockholm to celebrate King Gustav V's 80th birthday. The film shows the daily life of the sailors on board the ship, including physical exercise, entertainment and playing with the crew's mascot, the anteater Bear. "Dar Pomorza" was a ship of the Polish merchant navy in the 1930s and at the same time a training ship of the Maritime School in Gdynia - in 1930 it replaced the former sailing ship "Lwów". It was on this ship that the future sailors of the Second Republic of Poland gained experience. Thanks to the reportage "Dar Pomorza to Stockholm", it is possible to see the ship at the time of its greatest glory. The film was reconstructed in 2022 based on two copies found after the war in the USA and the Soviet Union.
A group of Polish plantation managers embarks on a voyage to West Africa to establish trade relations between Poland and Liberia. The film shows the journey across the ocean, the local people and their customs, and preparations for plantation expansion.
The footage from the Chronicle of besieged Warsaw is probably the work of the cameramen of the so-called 'Starzyński team'. The fragmentary images of bombarded Warsaw, including the ruined streets of the Old Town, the burning Royal Castle, the bodies of passers-by on the pavement, were recorded in September 1939 with a view to later editing.
Accompanied by commentary by Jan Kott and Tadeusz Makarczyński, together with neoclassical music of Witold Lutoslawski, this is a typical propaganda film that was supposed to confirm the rights of the Polish Recovered Territories (from Germany) in the west.
Katowice is flooded, and a boy, actually a child, survived only on the roof of Superjednostka.
The Roma* in Poland are the largest and the most marginalised ethnic minority. Roksana identifies as both Roma (Gypsy) and Polish (Gadji). Employed as a teaching assistant, she works to keep Roma children in school as more than half leave education before the age of sixteen. She could be the perfect bridge, but each culture wants her to reject the other. Roksana, however, desires to belong.
