Jacek Petrycki

The film was inspired by one of the most important documentaries shot by Krzysztof Kieślowski, Talking Heads (1980). The director asked his interlocutors seemingly simple questions, such as “Who are you?” and “What do you want?”.

Full of archival flavors, the story of an aristocrat cursed by his family, a man of many faces and talents living in turbulent times. Who was August Zamoyski? A lover of female beauty, an athlete, a sculptor, and a citizen of the world who draws full attention from life?

Gdańsk, Poland, September 1980. Lech Wałęsa and other Lenin shipyard workers found Solidarność (Solidarity), the first independent trade union behind the Iron Curtain. The long and hard battle to bring down communist dictatorship has begun.

In 1979, a revolution in Iran. In 1980, a revolution in Poland. The fall of the Shah, the “King of Kings,” in Iran. Mass strikes and the foundation of Solidarność (Solidarity) in Poland. What was in the minds of the young women and men who fomented revolution in their own country? What did they think when their revolution was quelled, or – as in Iran – an authoritarian regime was instituted under the name of an “Islamic Republic”?

The history of the Warsaw Ghetto (1940-43) as seen from both sides of the wall, its legacy and its memory: new light on a tragic era of division, destruction and mass murder thanks to the testimony of survivors and the discovery of a ten-minute film shot by Polish amateur filmmaker Alfons Ziółkowski in 1941.

30 thousand Hasidim journey to Uman in Ukraine to celebrate the Jewish New Year at the gravesite of Rebbe Nachmann. A Ukrainian far-right group erects a cross at the site of Hasidic prayers and builds a monument to Cossacks who slaughtered thousands of Jews and Poles in 1768.

Don’t Breathe is a dark comedy set in Georgia that follows the tribulations of a middle-aged man, Levan, who is suddenly led to question his existence because of a routine medical examination. It sends him into a downward spiral of paranoia and doubt as he fumbles his way through the theatre of the absurd that we call life. Using humour and a playful tone, the film examines the fragility of human nature, when our bearings get lost and our imagination takes over, highlighting our common fears, doubts, hopes and resilience.

Agnieszha Holland takes Jacek Petrycki on a journey to the places of her youth; she tells him stories of experiences of the past. It is a dialogue of a famous director with the camera, behind which, there is her true friend.

Operation Danube was the cover name for the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Warsaw Pact armies in August 1968. The fleet of Polish tanks which arrive to liberate their neighbor, ostensibly threatened by a counter-revolution, includes the old tank nicknamed Ladybird, which is the last to leave the barracks.

'Kites' tells the inspiring story of Kabul's budding young video producers. Through a clever combination of the students' video and their mentor Jacek Szaranski's artful camera work, we take a look at the use of video and high tech in a world more commonly associated with a backward and warmongering existence. A world where under the Taliban it was forbidden to show pictures of human beings, let alone for young women to operate video cameras. 'Kites' tells the story of the potential of young Afghans and their yearning for modernity.

Piotr Tymochowicz, media advisor to some of Poland's top politicians, claims that anybody can be molded into a charismatic leader. To prove it he's looking for a greenhorn that can be turned into a candidate. A call is put out for would-be participants, and hundreds apply. A small group is selected and under go training. Polish master Marcel Lozinksi followed Tymochowicz and this project for three years, and this beautifully shot and edited work paints a compelling portrait of cynical (and quite familiar) demagogy and populism in action.

A mysterious loner (Karel Roden) rides into a small town carrying the body of a sought-after outlaw (Val Kilmer is the corpse). But after he gambles his bounty away in a card game with the sheriff (Boguslaw Linda), he must devise a scheme to reclaim the dead man. Katarzyna Figura co-stars as a tough barmaid in Polish writer-director Piotr Uklanski's inventive and bloody Western, which both spoofs and pays tribute to the spaghetti Western genre.

A member of a Greek family in Turkey is forced to immigrate from Trabzon to Mersin in her youth. However, events cause her to face her own past.

The story of a man coming to terms with the sins and secrets of his notorious brother and, in the process, exploring the legacy of violence in his own family.

Six teens who were traumatized by child abuse early in their lives come together to form a gang that ultimately plots revenge against the ones who committed the crimes against them. The gang leader is the only one who has something of a normal life, living at a hotel where he is an apprentice and friends with the managers who are like surrogate parents to him. However, when the others start to attack their tormentors, Smith is drawn into the conflagaration also.

The aftermath of the Rwandan genocide: A student theatre troupe tours Rwanda with a comedy about the genocide, a gang of killers gets rough justice at the local genocide court, and a prosecutor investigates a priest for the murder of five Tutsi children. Meanwhile, in neighbouring Tanzania, two of the genocide's leaders face the United Nations tribunal in snappy suits, defended by a panoply of French lawyers.

A mockumentary in which during a visit to the NATO headquarters in Brussels, a secret agent discovers the Pact authorities expect the Polish army to change its parade step.

Polish filmmaker Marcel Łoziński revisits the farmer/intellectual Urszula Flis, subjects of his 1978 film 'A visit'. Łoziński observes the changes that have occurred over the intervening 23 years and again persuades this sensitive, secluded woman to talk through her thoughts, fears and feelings. Through this, the morality of the documentary portrait itself is called into question.

Deep in the Ugandan bush, an Italian nun tries to get back 30 of her convent school girls who have been abducted for sex by an army of children led by a mystic claiming to be the son of God.

As Russian tanks advance over the plains of Chechnya, a group of Russian mothers search for the sons, conscripts from the ill-fated 131st Brigade, they believe have been captured by the Chechens. They place their trust in Colonel Kosov, a Russian liaison officer responsible for organising prisoner exchanges across the front line.

This documentary follows the election campaigns of a journalist, a local crime boss, a formerly exiled oligarch, and a local access TV host as they compete for a spot in the Moscow Central Constituency, in Russia's first free elections since 1917

This movie shows the simplest difference between Europe and former Soviet Union. It is the eponymous 89 mm - Russian train tracks are 89 mm wider than tracks in European countries. And because of this fact, it is not easy to go through the Soviet border by train in Brest as the passengers in the film do.

A Jewish boy separated from his family in the early days of WWII poses as a German orphan and is taken into the heart of the Nazi world as a 'war hero' and eventually becomes a Hitler Youth.

Marcel Łoziński tells the story of the crime committed by the NKVD in Katyn in 1940. He interweaves accounts of witnesses and survivors with images from the pilgrimage of members of Katyn Families to the place of murder, death and nameless burial of their loved ones.

In Stalinist Poland, cabaret singer Tonia decides to spend the evening drinking with a group of friends. The next morning, she awakes to find that, for reasons unknown to her, she has been jailed as a political prisoner. As prison officials interrogate, torture and humiliate her, she fights for survival and to maintain her innocence by refusing to sign a false confession. As her years of imprisonment pass, her relationship with her captors grows more complicated.

At the end of the 1980s, high school students watch fragments of a congress of the Union of Polish Artists and Designers that took place in 1949. During the congress, socialist realism and pictures representing the imposed aesthetics were proclaimed. Viewers will learn about the attitude of young people to the communist system and the art of those times.

On July 4th, 1946, the crowd in Kielce, Poland, slaughtered forty-two Jews and wounded many others. Forty years later, in 1987, Marcel Łoziński visited those places and met some witnesses of the carnage.

Irena, a postal delivery worker, is struggling with inadequate housing, a drunk neighbor who wants to take her place, and a heartless boss, knowing that the whole day at work, she is leaving her young son. But the worst is the loneliness, exacerbated by her single mother status. She meets a crippled pensioner Jacek, who appears to be the key to her happiness, but tragedy continues to strike.

A street poll about contemporary youth. The answers are engineered to show the manipulation of propaganda and television.

1982, Poland. A translator loses her husband and becomes a victim of her own sorrow. She looks to sex, to her son, to law, and to hypnotism when she has nothing else in this time of martial law when Solidarity was banned.

A holiday training camp for young married couples who belong to the Polish Socialist Youth Union (ZSMP) begins at the campsite. From the commander's welcome speech, they learn that a film crew will record camp life and training classes under the slogan "Model Family".

A record of the unveiling of the monument to the victims of December '70 that took place in front of gate 2 of the Gdańsk Shipyard. Witnesses to the December events describe their experiences.

A young man in his twenties leaves prison after a three-year sentence. He wants to start a new life in a place where he is not known and dreams only of a job, a wife and a family. He succeeds partially in fulfilling these dreams, but then runs into a conflict on a construction job between the corrupt boss and fellow workers secretly planning a strike. He becomes a pawn in one camp while remaining true to his ideals in the other. Filmed in 1976 and shelved for five years.

A Warsaw Pollena-Uroda cosmetics factory radio broadcaster is working on a programme investigating the workers' sense of factory ownership. The workers' answers come as a surprise, especially to the management. About the ruling and the ruled in communist Poland.

People of different age, profession and social status answer two simple questions: who they are and what they want from life.

Filip buys an 8mm movie camera when his first child is born. Because it's the first camera in town, he's named official photographer by the local Party boss. His horizons widen when he is sent to regional film festivals with his first works but his focus on movie making also leads to domestic strife and philosophical dilemmas.

The film is set in a small town near Warsaw, to which a young and coming director comes to produce a classic play (Wyspianski "Wyzwolenie") with a modern vein. Everyone in the production gets his usual stereotypical role, but the aging idol of the ensemble senses opportunity to give the performance of his life. For young director everything is already set. The leading man, however, is not giving up and is trying to restore the role according to his view. His wife listens to his fears, complaints and frustrations, while resigning herself to a fading career in a puppet theatre.

The final oral exam in history and social studies at one of Warsaw's high schools. The film illustrates the theatre of social life in Soviet Poland where one says different things on the stage and another behind the scenes.

The house of a family of five is to be demolished due to the expansion of the city. The residents who are waiting to move are surprised by the progressive paralysis of their son.

Young people with disabilities are provided with health care and vocational training. Is it enough to prepare them for their independent life? We get to know some charges of the Rehabilitation Center in Konstancin.

A psychologist is asked about a scientific consultation with a girl who attempted suicide.

24 hours in the life of a hospital from the point of view of the doctors and nurses.

“Stu” theatre rehearses “The Patients”, a play based on Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita”.

A communist party control committee interrogates a worker and party activist who is to be excluded from the party.

Shortly before retiring, an old railway worker causes a serious accident which ultimately destroys his whole professional career.

After the doctor's refusal to perform abortion on a 17-year old girl, she and her boyfriend have to cope with the new situation. They both need to learn to take responsibility for their decisions, in spite of numerous hardships facing them.

A "Polityka" weekly journalist Marta Wesolowska and photo-reporter Erazm Ciolek visit Urszula Flis, who runs a country farm. A young woman living on her own, Flis is an untypical villager in that she is interested in culture, corresponds with writers, etc.

Brief portrait of a conformist.

Patients with serious lung diseases, who are now in a sanatorium, tell us about their thoughts and feelings.

A purge in the style of those of March 1968 is to take place at a party meeting. Instead, it turns into a psychodrama.

A commissioned film about the Lubin copper mine.

Commissioned film about the conditions of safety and hygiene in the Lubin copper mine.