Polonica at the 51st PFF – Polish Film Festival

Besides the Main Competition, Polonica is the oldest part of the Festival. For a film to qualify, it must meet the essential criterion of Polish contribution. This year’s edition of the section showcases collaborations between Polish filmmakers and the French, Ukrainian and Latvian film industries. These are films that have already gained recognition and acclaim, having been screened at Cannes and Locarno.

– I am very pleased with this year’s Polonica section programme. We will be screening films in which the expressive form harmonises perfectly with the stories being told. This is cinema featuring strong characters who fight for themselves even in an unpredictable reality. The collaboration between our filmmakers and their colleagues from abroad has been a hallmark of the festival for years, and this year will be no exception – emphasises Joanna Łapińska, the Artistic Director of the Festival.

In Demons by Natalka Worożbyt we meet Nina, a charismatic woman from Poltava (following the collapse of the Soviet Union), who takes in a homeless Russian drifter who claims to be a writer, hoping to build a new life together. In a mystical land where witches live alongside humans and the dead speak to the living, a woman discovers the true nature of the man she has let into her home. Flesh and Fuel (directed by Pierre Le Gall) follows Étienne, whose life unfolds amongst warehouses, borders and motorway service stations, where work and fleeting encounters set the rhythm of his daily existence. Everything changes when he meets Bartosz, a Polish lorry driver, who shows him that even where Étienne sees only weariness and resignation, there is still a chance for happiness to be found. The film’s title character, Ulya (directed by Viesturs Kairišs), is a two-metre-tall girl from a kolkhoz who, in 1968, joins a basketball team in Riga, where her extraordinary height becomes a tool for both sport and politics. In a world that treats her as a mere tool, she must learn to accept her difference and remain true to herself.

List of films in the Polonica section of the 51^st PFF:

Demons, directed by: Natalka Worożbyt. Polonica: edited by: Milenia Fiedler, producers: Dariusz Jabłoński, Violetta Kamińska and Izabela Wójcik (Apple Film Production) and Magdalena Zimecka (ORKA)
Flesh and Fuel, directed by: Pierre Le Gall. Polonica: cast: Julian Świeżewski, producers: Patryk Sielecki, Adrianna Rędzia
Ulya, directed by: Viesturs Kairišs. Polonica: zdjęcia Wojciech Staroń, producer: Małgorzata Staroń