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(July 29, 2014) – The Denver Film Society announced today the schedule for Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces in Polish Cinema. The 21-film series curated and organized by Scorsese’s non-profit organization, The Film Foundation, will play at the Sie FilmCenter August 12 – 19. The Denver Film Society will welcome Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Zanussi to open the series on Tuesday, August 12. Zanussi will present his films CAMOUFLAUGE (Tuesday, August 12) and THE ILLUMINATION (Wednesday, August 13). Premiering in New York City at the Film Society of Lincoln Center on February 5th, 2014, the series features films from some of Poland’s most accomplished and lauded filmmakers, spanning the period from 1957-1987. Each film has been digitally re-mastered and brilliantly restored on newly subtitled DCPs. Denver is one of 30 cities this year to host Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema.
“We are proud to host this national tour and bring the rich history of Polish cinema to Denver,” said Ernie Quiroz, the Denver Film Society’s Programming Manager. “This is an extraordinary collection of films handpicked by Mr. Scorsese. Whether you are familiar with Polish cinema, or have never seen a Polish film, all of the titles in this series are films that have served as inspiration for one of ‘ most respected filmmaker and are worth discovering.”
Highlights include the Opening Night presentation of Krzysztof Zanussi’s CAMOUFLAUGE (1976), a comic story of a contentious relationship between a young linguist and an associate professor and his 70s philosophical essay on film incorporating animation, experimental techniques and documentary footage, THE ILLUMINATION (1972). Zanussi will be in attendance at the Sie FilmCenter to present both films and host a post screening Q&A.
Martin Scorsese Presents: Masterpieces of Polish Cinema began in December 2011 when Scorsese received an honorary doctoral degree from The Polish National Film, Television, and Theatre School in Lódz, Poland. There, Mr. Scorsese met with Jedrzej Sablinski and reviewed a list of new digital restorations of Polish films. In the months following this visit, with the help of The Film Foundation, the two men came up with the idea of a North American tour of a series of restored Polish cinema classics. From an extensive catalogue of digitally restored films, Mr. Scorsese chose 21 masterpieces.
Tickets and a discount package for the series are on sale now. Single screening tickets are $7 for DFS members and $10 for non-members; Opening Night tickets are $12 for DFS members and $15 for non-members. A complete series pass to Masterpieces of Polish Cinema is $75 for DFS members and $90 for non-members. The pass includes guaranteed seating to all 21 films. Visit DenverFilm.org for more information and to purchase your tickets.
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FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS
ASHES AND DIAMONDS (Popiół i diament) (1958) 103 min
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Country: Poland
Set on the last day of World War II and the first day of peace. A young Polish resistance soldier reaches a crossroads when Nazi rule is replaced by a communist regime that is not what he and his compatriots have been fighting for.
AUSTERIA (1982) 108 min
Director: Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Country: Poland
On the first night of WWI, a variety of refugees seek sanctuary from the advancing Russian army in a country inn owned by a Jewish family in this intimate drama set against the turbulence of history. Boldly literate, Austeria uses a historical setting to foreshadow and comment on the Holocaust while offering an allegorical tale about the cost of war.
BLACK CROSS (Krzyzacy) (1960) 173 min
Director: Aleksander Ford
Country: Poland
The first Polish historical blockbuster, Black Cross features battles galore, political maneuvering, and tragic love set in medieval times. This amazing epic depicts the heroic Polish campaign against the invading Order of the Teutonic Knights.
BLIND CHANCE (Przypadek) (1981) 123 min
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Country: Poland
Kieslowski explores the autonomy of human choices by presenting three alternative versions of the life of 20-year old Witek, whose whole future depends on whether he can catch a train. Blind Chance was heavily censored by the communist regime, due to its anti-Communist messages. This now restored version of the film includes scenes never before shown to the public.
CAMOUFLAGE (Barwy ochronne) (1976) 101 min
Director: Krzysztof Zanussi
Country: Poland
The shallowness and cynicism of the academic milieu and the hypocrisy of idealism are depicted in the relationship between a young linguist and a diabolical associate professor. The pair clashes while at a summer camp symposium for university students where petty rivalries and jealousy spark an absurd scandal.
THE CONSTANT FACTOR (Constans) (1980) 91 min
Director: Krzysztof Zanussi
Country: Poland
A young man who dreams of climbing the Himalayas finds himself compromising his ideals when he takes a job at an international trade company in Zanussi’s award-winning Cannes hit.
EROICA (1957) 85 min
Director: Andrzej Munk
Country: Poland
In this new wave classic, two stories contrast the life during Nazi occupation – one is the absurd tale of a street-wise bon-vivant, the other a somber picture of righteous Polish officers incarcerated in a German POW camp.
THE HOUR-GLASS SANATORIUM (Sanatorium pod Klepsydrą) (1973)
125 min
Director: Wojciech Has
Country: Poland
Magic, dreams, a manor in decay. The Hour-Glass Sanatorium is one of the most original and beautiful films in Polish cinema – a visionary, artistic, poetic reflection on the nature of time and the irreversibility of death.
THE ILLUMINATION (Iluminacja) (1972) 93 min
Director: Krzysztof Zanussi
Country: USA
One of the most interesting works of 1970’s Polish cinema. A young provincial man comes to the capital to study physics and must tackle life’s universal questions in this philosophical essay comprising animation, experimental methods and documentary footage.
INNOCENT SORCERERS (Niewinni czarodzieje) (1960) 88 min
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Country: Poland
In 1950’s Poland, two young people meet in a bar and go from small talk to bed, but as dawn approaches what seemed to be a meaningless episode in their lives gets more complicated.
JUMP (Salto) (1965) 105 min
Director: Tadeusz Konwicki
Country: Poland
A man on the run jumps off a train, and seeks refuge in a scarcely populated hamlet, nearly a ghost town. It is hard to tell what the place is, set halfway between dream and reality, inhabited by people in distress. Jump is a fascinating, enigmatic and idiosyncratic film that falls firmly in the European New Wave tradition.
THE LAST DAY OF SUMMER (Ostatni dzień lata) (1958) 62 min
Director: Tadeusz Konwicki
Country: Poland
A man and a woman meet on an empty beach in this subtle and poetic film. The woman is enjoying the ebbing warmth of the summer. The man seems to be looking for something. Is it her? The story of a lifelong relationship told in shorthand, The Last Day of Summer is a masterpiece of brevity and abstraction.
MAN OF IRON (Czlowiek z zelaza) (1981) 154 min
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Country: Poland
Wajda’s Palme d’Or-winning, Oscar®- nominated masterpiece follows the workers’ strike in Gdansk in August 1980 that led to the formation of the Solidarity trade union.
MOTHER JOAN OF THE ANGELS (Matka Joanna od Aniołów) (1960) 111 min
Director: Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Country: Poland
A young, virtuous exorcist is sent to a mysterious monastery inhabited by beautiful nuns supposedly possessed by demons in this thrilling and philosophical portrait of human vice. Highlighted by stunning black and white photography and unsettling, otherworldy locations.
NIGHT TRAIN (Pociąg) (1959) 99 min
Director: Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Country: Poland
A subtle game of emotions between two travelers – changing from mutual aversion to closeness without hope of a future – plays out amidst the human microcosm of a night train.
PHARAOH (Faraon) (1965) 153 min
Director: Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Country: Poland
A historical epic set in Ancient Egypt, complete with massive battle scenes and stunningly choreographed musical pieces, about the young ruler Ramses XIII. The film was heavily cut for international release, but has now been restored to its original form, allowing Pharoah to brandish its heroism as a weapon – teaching all that noble defeat is better than silence in the face of morally corrupt politics.
THE PROMISED LAND (Ziemia Obiecana) (1974) 179 min
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Country: Poland
Andrzej Wajda’s epic, Academy Award-nominated adaptation of the celebrated 1898 novel by Nobel laureate Wladyslaw Reymont pains a vivid portrait of the bustling, booming and brutal industrial city of Lodz at the dawn of the capitalist era.
THE SARAGOSSA MANUSCRIPT (Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie) (1964) 184 min
Director: Wojciech Has
Country: Poland
The Saragossa Manuscript is a brilliant, mind-bending puzzle box of a film – an 18th century road movie about a soldier lost in a haunted countryside and beset by mysterious and mystical encounters.
A SHORT FILM ABOUT KILLING (Krótki film o zabijaniu) (1987) 86 min
Director: Krzysztof Kieslowski
Country: Poland
The paths of three men – a cabbie, a lawyer, and a killer – cross on a somber March day in this psychological and ethical study of murder that launched Kieslowski’s international career.
TO KILL THIS LOVE (Trzeba zabić tę miłość) (1972) 97 min
Director: Janusz Morgenstern
Country: Poland
In 1969, as Neil Armstrong lands on the moon, two young Poles kept out of university by communist quotas discover love and life in a big city, dreaming of an independence they cannot enjoy.
THE WEDDING (Wesele) (1972) 103 min
Director: Andrzej Wajda
Country: Poland
In Andrzej Wajda’s adaptation of the classic play by Stanislaw Wyspianski. A turn-of-the-century wedding celebration is haunted by the unquiet ghosts of Poland’s failed nationalist past and stirring them to a ridiculous “uprising” that replays national tragedy as pantomimic farce.
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