The Hourglass Sanatorium

Józef visits the Hourglass Sanatorium looking for his father. Though the old man has already died, here – in the Gothic-like castle full of empty corridors and chambers covered with spider webs – the reallife death is not yet decided. Józef will take off on an extraordinary, oneiric journey into the past, back into the places of his childhood – to his father’s shop, Jewish shtetl and the world of boyish dreams and teenage phantasmagorias. A visionary and exquisitely plastic poetic reflection on time, passing and irreversibility of death.

Selected awards 

written by Wojciech Jerzy Has
director of photography Witold Sobociński
music Jerzy Maksymiuk
production design Jerzy Skarżyński, Andrzej Płocki
costume design Lidia Skarżyńska, Jerzy Skarżyński
make-up Halina Ber, Anna Śmiech
sound Janusz Rosół
edited by Janina Niedźwiecka
cast Jan Nowicki, Tadeusz Kondrat, Irena Orska, Halina Kowalska, Gustaw Holoubek