Popularny Od Poland

A sperm whale is lying by the Vistula River in Warsaw. This absurd situation stirs and mobilizes the local community and tourists who gather by the riverbank. On one hand, the whale is a metaphor for the disruption of the ecological system, but at the same time, it's a medium to study people’s reactions to the death of a huge mammal. We observe a sociological portrait of the audience. People speculate and wonder, offer help or ask questions. The sperm whale appeals to everyone, regardless of their social or cultural background. The movie is a complicated riddle. It depicts how close we are to a man-made ecological disaster – what more needs to happen to stop global pollution?

"Afterimages" is a short story about one plate from the archive of Ryszard Kisiel, the creator of "Filo" - one of the first gay zines in Central and Eastern Europe. The evoked negative from the end of the ‘80s is the starting point for both Kisiel's personal history and the portrait of the gay scene of the late PRL.

A documentary presenting Radziszewski's meeting with Ryszard Kisiel, a personality behind the first East-Central European gay-zine, Filo and 're-discovered' by the director. The backdrop of the film is Kisiel's hitherto hidden archive, consisting of dozens of color slides, documenting photo shoots organized by Kisiel and his friends in a private apartment. The photos taken in 1985 and 1986 may be considered a direct reaction to the Polish anti-gay militia campaign ('Hiacynt'), during which the Secret Police collected information about homosexuals in Poland using them later for blackmail.

Portrait of a young doctor who cares for terminally ill children, patients of the Gajusz Foundation in Łódź.

Living a solitary life in a world without light or hope, the central character is engrossed in the pursuit of his lost past. The cycle he fell into after losing everything is the only one he knows. It is also a personal prison he can no longer free himself from.

Olaf is 25 years old and lives with his mom and grandmother in a tenement house in the Kazimierz district in Krakow. Their home is actually quite dilapidated. Yet the young man dreams that the house in Brzozowa Street is the centre of the universe. The unique narrative is enhanced by a surreal impression of living in an abandoned house. Olaf notices metaphysical consequences of living in the vicinity of a square shaped like the “eye of god”: “There are moments when my mind transcends time and space” he says.

The eponymous number shows the difference between the age of both protagonists of Emilia Śniegoska's documentary. A 19-year-old German girl visits 91-year-old Zofia, a survivor of the Auschwitz concentration camp. The relation between the women is ambiguous – we may only guess what is more important there – whether it is curiosity (for a young German it is one of the last chances to meet an eyewitness of the cruel history), or the need to be close to a fellow human being.

Polish artist Artur Zmijewski asked a group of visually impaired people to paint the world as they see it. Some of the volunteers were congenitally disabled; others became blind in their lifetime. In the film they draw self-portraits and landscapes, occasionally asking the artist for instructions or giving verbal explanation for their decisions. Their paintings are clumsy and abstract. It is however not the resulting works but the process of making them that is at the core of the film.