Halina Paszkowska

Tomek, Marcel Lozinski's son, is eighteen now. Exactly twelve years ago, when he was six, his father filmed him while he was visiting a park in Warsaw. Tomek used to stop next to some old people sitting on the benches, and, with childish frankness, would ask them questions about joy, loneliness, fear of death, dreams, love and lack of love. Now, after twelve years, on his birthday, Tomek comes back to the garden of his childhood. A magical encounter will commence.

In the summer of 1988, a wave of strikes broke out in the mines. Miners protested against unsafe working conditions and low wages. The government threatened with reprisals.

Leon Goldring, a Polish Jew living in the United States, comes to Poland after several decades and visits the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. He tells about the shocking details of his stay in the concentration camp. His account is accompanied by the song "Mein sztetełe Bełz".

A young Varsovian talks about discovering his origins and the new identity he is building, Jewish culture and religion. He is supported by an old Jew, a Hebrew teacher.

Another transport arrives at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Former prisoner no. 181970, a member of the Sonderkommando, recounts years later how the gassing and burning of corpses took place. The film ends with the song "El Malei Rachamin" for the souls of the dead.

At the turn of 1980/81, the peasants joined the workers' movement and they voiced their demands. As a result, they’ve registered the Independent Self-Governing Trade Union of Individual Farmers ‘Solidarity’.

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.

A man doing the ironing on the ground floor of a tenement house observes the yard.

This movie is about the visit of Clive Harris, the famous healer, to Warsaw. Incredible crowds gather before the entrance and Harris "heals" thousands of people by briefly touching them. Tireless on his stand, he fulfills his duty for 24 hours a day.

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

A portrait of the inhabitants of Jastrzębie (a mining town in Silesia) – young men and women who came there to begin their adult lives. Jastrzębie received municipal rights in 1963, but it is still a huge construction site. Children slide down the heaps of coal, located between the blocks of flats. Young women, dressed in worker jackets, look for their husbands. The life of the inhabitants is subordinated to communicates released by the council of the mine. Working days are about queues and listening to the radio, and days off are about festivals and performances of the mining band. Boxing in the ring and fights in the streets. The directorial debut of Stanisław Manturzewski, a sociologist, journalist, and documentary filmmaker, made in collaboration with Stanisław Niedbalski, a cameraman.

The race does not begin at the start line, it does not end at the finish line either. The camera observes the participants of the Polish 4x100 metres relay team not racing, but getting ready for the race and slowing down after the finish line. The competition would not exist without the following stages: mobilization, full of anxiety, and composure of the red-hot organism.

A biographical documentary about Krzysztof Penderecki

After finishing her training a young woman returns to the village of her birth to teach but encounters resistance from the children's farmer parents.

This museum does not collect the achievements of mankind. On the contrary, we can find there the evidence of its fall. The Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and its exhibits.

A color-coded testimony of a bygone era. In the documentary, director Jerzy Hoffman presents the magical world of a folk marketplace. As a result, groups of imposters, specialists in black magic, home-grown inventors and charismatic healers are gathered among the stalls. Wonder Fair is a colourful world full of figures of the Blessed Virgin Mary, gingerbread hearts and ointments for all ailments. The documentary, awarded at the 1967 Tourfilm Competition in Warsaw, gives up irony or big-city paternalism, presenting the characters with sympathy and warmth.

Freed Polish soldiers are trapped in a small town in Germany during the last days of World War II. After a doctor's daughter is raped by a concentration camp worker, the Poles allow her and her father to stay in the house that is their temporary quarters. While waiting to be repatriated, the war-weary group is forced to fight some German soldiers who invade the town. The war brings out conflicting emotions of the Poles who find themselves trapped in the house and once again under fire from the enemy.

Documentary record of the first shift in Wujek coal mine in Silesia in 1962. We observe the course of events from the perspective of the mine's dispatcher at a modern desktop. We see one man, but the whole first shift crew is working.

Pigeon breeders (men mostly) are a special kind of enthusiasts. Their hobby includes an element of competition – a long-distance race of carrier pigeons.

Documentary of the Kurylewicz Quintet rehearsing a jazz piece in a recording studio. After a few fits and starts the band finally hits its stride.

Um casal quase atropela um jovem de 19 anos numa estrada e acaba oferecendo uma carona para o rapaz, convidando-o também a passar o dia velejando. A partir daí, estabelece-se uma disputa entre os dois homens, mediada pela mulher.

Documentary short subject based on the photo souvenirs of a German officer who traveled to different fronts during World War II.

A portrait of a traveling circus.

To convince the prison warden against releasing him, a middle-aged Polish man recounts his life, one he considers to have been characterized by exceptionally bad luck.

An experimental short film by Walerian Borowczyk and Jan Lenica.

Documentário que mostra a terrível destruição que a guerra trouxe ao bairro Powisla. Mostram-se as paredes queimadas, as escadas quebradas e o pátio vazio, evidenciando a gravidade do distrito, as condições em que as pessoas vivem.

About the work of the naive painter J. Plaskocinski. A playful tale about the requited love of a shy young man.

A documentary about a housing situation of Nowa Huta workers. They weren’t lucky enough to get a flat in clean and modern estates. It’s a ‘black series’ documentary from the fifties.

Os perigos do álcool: pais arruinan a vida de seus filhos por causa da bebida.

A staged documentary that started the Polish Black Series. The film takes the form of a warning against indifference to the rogue behavior of hooligan groups and their pernicious effect on young people flowing into the cities.