From his birth in 1895 through his death in 1968, the gifted Polish naïve artist Nikifor Krynicki (AKA Epifan Drowniak) lived his life and eked out a career cloaked in obscurity - a casualty of both his extreme speech impediment (his tongue was attached to the roof of his mouth, which prompted others to errantly tag him as mentally incapacitated) and his self-effacing decision to sell the majority of his work for meager amounts. Krzysztof Krauze's biopic My Nikifor travels to the tail end of Krynicki's (Krystyna Feldman) life journey, dramatizing the period that surrounded his interaction with the well-established artist Marian Wlosinski (Roman Gancarczyk).
It is a bitter story about a middle-aged man, who hates his life and other people, including himself. Adam Miauczynski, the character known from director Marek Koterski's previous films, is a 44 year-old teacher, who reads poetry during school lessons and later goes home swearing and calling his neighbours' names. The worst pain for him is the next 5 minutes of living. He doesn't accept himself and even everyday contacts with others cause his aggression. Though constantly dreaming of a romantic love, he is not bold enough to make his dreams come true. The desperate Miauczynski personalizes our own fears and obsessions, which have become so visible recently.
The film depicts three days in the life of a state farm director, during which he celebrates his 40th birthday. He was adopted by four godfathers who have helped him throughout his life and have reached positions of prominence themselves. He makes a mistake at work turning away some foreigh investors and is required to cover the losses, but even his godfathers are unable to help him. He regains affection of his son instead.
A two-part historical film covering the years of the First World War and the post-war period up to 1919 - until the signing of the peace treaty in Versailles near Paris. An attempt to show the great and complicated process of regaining an independent existence by a nation within its own state. The screen shows characters from history textbooks: Józef Piłsudski, Ignacy Paderewski, Roman Dmowski, Wojciech Korfanty as well as representatives of the world political scene, incl. David Lloyd George, Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau, Vladimir Lenin and others.
