Pawel Juzwuk

A Ukrainian family of four on vacation in the Canary Islands become refugees overnight when Russia’s ongoing occupation of Ukraine turns into a full-scale invasion, in Damien Kocur’s tense and timely sophomore feature.

At the foot of Mount Teide on the Spanish island of Tenerife, a Ukrainian family of four including father Roman (Roman Lutskyi), stepmother Anastasiia (Anastasiia Karpienko), teenage daughter Sofia (Sofiia Berezovska), and young Fedir (Fedir Pugachov) are on vacation. Enjoying their final beach day, they are blissfully unaware that, soon, their return flight to Kyiv will be cancelled and Russian bombs and rockets will fall on their country.

On February 24, 2022, Russia’s ongoing occupation of their peaceful neighbour escalated into a full-scale invasion and, overnight, these tourists have become refugees. While frantically awaiting news from home they, the lucky ones as some might say, are left wondering what to do and where to go.
Shot by Nikita Kuzmienko and co-written by Marta Konarzewska and director Damian Kocur,

Under the Volcano is the second feature for Kocur, following Bread and Salt, which garnered the Special Jury Prize in the Orizzonti programme of the 2022 Venice Film Festival. Already a master of tension, Kocur’s timely and acute scope makes this a must-see.

It is the story of Jurek (Dorociński) whose life is turned upside down after his beloved daughter Marysia (Bui) dies in a car accident. Plunged into despair, he is persuaded by Marysia’s grandfather, the feisty Ben (Zhang) to perform an old Confucian ritual called minghun (marriage after death). Jurek and Ben embark on a journey to find Marysia the perfect dead husband.

Minghun has been made through Wonder Films, the outfit set up three years ago by producers Krzysztof Rak, Klaudiusz Frydrych and Inga Kruk.

THE CLOWNS

SCREENPLAY & DIRECTION Gabriela Muskała
CINEMATOGRAPHY Piotr Żurawski
EDITING Jakub Darewski, Kosma Kowalczyk
PRODUCER Agata Golańska
SET DESIGNER Zofia Mazurczak-Prus
COSTUMES Kinga Kubiak
MAKE-UP Matylda Morska
CHOREOGRAPHY Daria Szymańska
COLOUR CORRECTION Piotr Putko
SOUND DIRECTION Michał Kosterkiewicz, Michał Kosterkiewicz Jr
MUSIC Zbigniew Zamachowski
ARTISTIC SUPERVISION Mariusz Grzegorzek
PRODUCTION Szkoła Filmowa w Łodzi
CO-PRODUCER EC1 Łódź – the City of Culture in Łódź, Indeks Film Studio

CAST: Sebastian Dela, Jan Łuć, Justyna Litwic, Magdalena Dwurzyńska, Szymon Kukla, Jakub Dąbrowski, Karolina Kostoń, Klaudia Janas, Daniel Stanko, Oliwer Witek, Bogumiła Trzeciakowska, Klaudia Koścista, Jakub Sierenberg, Mikołaj Trynda and Oskar Hamerski as the director GAJDA
With special guest appearances of Krystyna Janda, Jan Englert and Robert Więckiewicz

Nominated for best foreign film at 2023 Oscars.

Jerzy Skolimowski's “EO” received the jury prize during the closing ceremony of the 75th Cannes Film Festival. Cannes Soundtrack Award ‘22 [Winner] Best Composer - Paweł Mykietyn.

A contemporary interpretation of the cult classic "Balthazar, at random" by Robert Bresson (1966). The masterfully written screenplay (Ewa Piaskowska and Jerzy Skolimowski) is distinguished by its original cinematic framework and allegorical approach to the subject.

The Polish/Italian coproduction looks at modern Europe through the eyes of a simple donkey, EO, who starts out in a Polish circus and ends up in an Italian slaughterhouse. Passed from hand to hand, the animal meets both good and bad people on its way. The story is a cinematic allegory about the fate of a simple creature in an increasingly complex modern world.

"I would like to thank my donkeys," said Skolimowski, who expressed his gratitude to all six donkeys used in the film in his acceptance speech.

Screened in the Un Certain Regard section of the 75th Cannes Film Festival.

Based on the lives of June and Jennifer Gibbons, real-life identical twins who grew up in Wales, part of the only Black family in a small town. The two became known as "the silent twins" because of their refusal to communicate with anyone other than each other.

They developed their own language and became catatonic when separated. The story takes place after a spree of vandalism inspired by an American boy they both idolize, when the girls, now teenagers, are sentenced to Broadmoor, an infamous psychiatric hospital, where they face the choice to separate and survive or die together.Toxic relationships can be different, and clearly, it’s possible to have one with a sister.

And yet Smoczyńska’s characters are not to be pitied; they are to be rediscovered, their talents stored away as deep as their voices. It’s a weird movie, going from arthouse to genre and back, and one that proves that Smoczyńska can bring something new to the table: emotion, sure, but also whimsy and playfulness. “You are good with tension,” says a journalist here to one of the sisters. So is this director.

The Silent Twins was produced by Poland’s Madants, the UK’s 42and the USA’s Kindred Spirit. Its international sales are handled by Focus Features.

Dark comedy-drama “My Neighbor Adolf,” which will world premiere in Piazza Grande at the Locarno Film Festival, has debuted its trailer. The film stars David Hayman, Udo Kier and Olivia Silhavy, and is directed by Israeli helmer Leon Prudovsky.

The film, which Hayman has described as a cross between “Rear Window” and “Grumpy Old Men,” is set in Colombia in May 1960, just after Israel’s abduction of Adolf Eichmann in Argentina. Polsky, a lonely Holocaust survivor, lives in the remote Colombian countryside. He spends his days playing chess and tending his beloved rose bushes. One day, when a mysterious old German man moves in next-door, he suspects that his new neighbor is… Adolf Hitler. Since nobody believes him, he embarks on a detective mission to find the evidence. But, in order to gather evidence, he will need to be closer to his neighbor than he would like. So close that the two could almost become friends.

In a statement, Prudovsky said: “In ‘My Neighbour Adolf’ I tried to tell a sort of a Hasidic parable, with an ironic and tragic offbeat humor, so typical for the pre-Holocaust Jewish world. A parable, which walks the fine line between grief and ridicule, realism and absurdity, clever delicacy and grotesque bluntness.

An urban drama about Kamil, a wannabe-rapper who should be getting his life and career going but instead gets high, roams around the city and starts an affair with a bored, rich housewife Iwona. It’s a polyphonic story about isolated people dreaming of love in the big city.

Based on a novel by Dorota Masłowska

Cast: Jacek Beler, Magdalena Koleśnik, Sonia Bohosiewicz, Sebastian Fabijański, Marek Kalita, Beata Kawka

Production Company: Madants

Co-production Companies: Alcatraz Films, Moderator Inwestycje, Film Produkcja, Warner Bros. Poland, Mazovia Warsaw Film Fund, Abstraction Plan, Canal+

The artist Daniel stems from the countryside and the Catholic Church. He takes care of his community, enjoying its trust. In his art he explores rural themes and his works are in demand in metropolitan galleries. However, the liberal artistic community does not accept our hero’s faith. He lives with his eccentric grandmother, and remains conflicted with his father. His relationship with

Olek is evolving in secret. The suicide of Jagoda, a religious lesbian from a nearby village, becomes an impulse to fight for tolerance. Daniel tries to arrange an artistic-religious Way of the Cross for the dead woman, as a penance for the rural and the church community for the sin of omission, and indifference towards the suffering of others. The village turns its back on him. The cross, built from the tree, on which the girl hung herself, is displayed in a gallery. Disappointed by the lack of understanding of his intentions, the artist steals his work and marches into the streets of Warsaw.

Polish crime thriller titled Operation Hyacinth, also known as just Hyacinth, connected to the sad, true story of a secret mass operation of the Polish communist police in the 1980s to track homosexuals in Poland.

Robert, a young policeman "out of principle", finds a serial gay killer. In the course of the investigation, he meets Arek. She decides to use him as an informant, not realizing how much this relationship will affect not only his work, but also his personal life.

The main cast includes Tomasz Ziętek, Hubert Miłkowski, Marek Kalita, Tomasz Schuchardt, Sebastian Stankiewicz, Jacek Poniedziałek, Piotr Trojan, Agnieszka Suchora, Tomasz Włosok, Adrianna Chlebicka, and Mirosław Zbrojewicz.

Set in the not too distant future, this intense sci-fi thriller explores the repercussions that mankind faces when their omniscient technology becomes a substitute for human contact. But life begin to unravel when a global storm causes electronics to go haywire, leading to terrifying, deadly consequences. Stars Thomas Jane, Annabelle Wallis, Alex Pettyfer, Alice Eve and Kylie Bunbury and Tomasz Kot.

Clara, 40 is believed to have a special connection to God. As a healer, she sustains a family and a village in need of hope, while she findsAs a healer, she sustains a family and a village in need of hope, while she finds solace in her relationship with the natural world. After years of being controlled by her mother’s repressive care, Clara’s sexual desires are stirred by her attraction to her niece’s new boyfriend…

The film tells the inspiring true story of a Polish-Jewish mathematician who got a fellowship at Harvard and went on to join the prestigious Manhattan Project in New Mexico at the end of WW2.

“I think ‘Adventures of a Mathematician,’ which was based on Stanislaw Ulam’s autobiography, has some striking parallels to today’s world issues— refugees in a far land, family separations, threats of war, and of course the bomb,” said Claire Weiner, who is the daughter of Stan Ulam and has been supporting the movie. “Thor Klein has bravely woven the story of my father’s life into a real political morality play as well as a study of family relationships and the lure of the Southwest. I salute him for his broad scope and creativity,” added Weiner.

ULJA (12), the youngest of a family, in a village in Germany, is a smart (and slightly odd) girl, and very much into science. She has discovered an asteroid on it’s way to earth and determined its point of impact: Belarus.Her Grandma OLGA is religious and cannot stand Ulja’s thirst for knowledge and one day, after yet another fight, all science is banned from Ulja’s life. Ulja cannot follow the asteroid anymore. So she hires HENK, a boy from her class to drive her and together they embark on a trip across Poland to witness the impact. With Olga’s family and the pastor on their heels.

Awarded the Förderpreis der Mitteldeutschen Medienförderung

Indíana Jónsdóttir lives in a large apartment block full of immigrants, whom she despises, and makes her living by preying upon the public welfare system. In her small private garden, she tends to her award-winning laburnum tree. When her only son turns up with a foreign girlfriend, Indíana’s world is upended.

Variety has been given exclusive access to the first look at footage from Academy Award nominee Agnieszka Holland's "Mr Jones," which world premieres in Official Competition at the Berlin Film Festival. The film stars James Norton, Vanessa Kirby and Peter Sarsgaard. Courtesy of WestEnd Films.
In 1933, Welsh reporter Gareth Jones is looking for his next big story. The job assignment brings him to Moscow, where he meets American journalist Ada Brooks who reveals to him the truth about the “Soviet utopia” and Jones starts to put all pieces together.

Hiding from the Soviet intelligence agencies and facing deadly threats, bit by bit he uncovers the truth about the tragedy of the Ukrainian people: the Holodomor, censorship, conspiracies and mass repressions. Later the Gareth’s work finds a home as the basis of scathing allegory Animal Farm by the famous writer George Orwell.

An off duty police begins to suspect a local man for having had an affair with his recently dead wife. Gradually his obsession for finding out the truth accumulates and inevitably begins to endanger himself and his loved ones.

During the 58th edition of La Semaine de la Critique, the jury - presided by Ciro Guerra - gave the Louis Roederer Rising Star Award to Ingvar E. Sigurðsson for his remarkable performance in A WHITE, WHITE DAY (HVÍTUR, HVÍTUR DAGUR).

After its premiere in Cannes, Hlynur Pálmason’s second feature stood out at several festivals such as Karlovy Vary, Toronto, Athens, Busan, the Torino Film Festival (Best Film) or the Angers festival Premiers Plans (Best Performance).

Sold in around fifteen countries, A WHITE, WHITE DAY was released in France on the 29th January (Urban Distribution). It is soon to be released in Germany (Arsenal, 13th February), Belgium (Imagine Film Distribution, 19th February) and the United States (Film Movement, 28th February) and Poland (New Horizons, 13th March).

A story of parents of a soldier told from a perspective of their 17-year-old grandson Janek. A film written into the dramatic history of post-war Poland, that still remains universal in its story – a struggle of two parents to regain their dignity and balance in life after losing their child.

Alicja suffers from memory loss and has rebuilt her own free spirited way of life. Two years later, she returns to her family and unwillingly resumes her role as wife, mother and daughter.Her estranged husband and son do not recognize this woman who looks familiar, but behaves like a stranger. Feelings of alienation, love and revelations rekindle her interior flame.

Fugue evokes the social taboos around motherhood and the pressure on women to accept maternity without hesitation or reflection, as though the biological capacity of giving birth means that every woman should be willing to be a mother.

A fictionalised portrait of Polish artists Wojciech Bąkowski and Zuzanna Bartoszek. Their unconventional relationship is a basis for their works, and vice versa, but what's the price of this convergence? A stylish, visually clean-cut drama about real life as an artistic utopia – or rather, dystopia.

The script written by Robert Bolesto will span 28 years of the live of Zdzisław Beksiński, considered to be one of the most prominent contemporary Polish artists, and his son Tomasz, a highly praised Polish music journalist and translator. Both have passed away. The film is a feature debut for Jan P. Matuszewski, most recognized for his documentary Deep Love.

A new era is coming, and Warsaw stands uncomfortably at its edge. Art school classmates Christopher and Michal, on the precipice of their own coming of age, restlessly roam their city's streets in search of living forever inside the beautiful moment. Never content with answers, they push each experience to its breaking point, testing what it might mean to be truly awake in a world that seems satisfied to be asleep.

11-year-old Mickey House is no longer a child. But who is he? He doesn’t know. He’s friendless. He doesn’t understand his mother. He hates what’s happening to his body. Reality and imagination come together in a toxic mix. Events escalate to extremes... at home and at school. Mickey has to find the strength within him to put a stop to what’s begun. Where will his encounter with his own maturing body take him? Growing up... not for kids.

Like everyone else, Łukasz would like to change ‘something’ in his life. Making the most of the fact that his girlfriend has gone away for the weekend, he hires a removals company. He’s decided to return to his bachelor life. Hour by hour, it becomes more and more evident that moving out is far more difficult than it might have appeared.