POLISH FILM FESTIVAL SYDNEY returns this May to Palace Norton Street and The Ritz Cinemas with a fresh line-up of entertaining comedies, gripping crime stories, captivating dramas, and a bit of romance.
Commencing Sunday 7 May, the festival will show the latest in Polish film through a selection of film productions released in the last three years representing diverse genres and creative approaches.
Recent box-office hit and Audience Choice Award winner at the 38th Warsaw International Film Festival DANGEROUS MEN will premiere in Australian on Sunday 3 June as the closing film of the festival. Set in the bohemian town of Zakopane in the stunning Tatra Mountains, it is a fast-paced comedy crime story merging humour, flamboyant historical figures and vibrant Polish folklore.
The dramatic authors are not at all shamefully hindered in the intolerable situation of representing Joseph Conrad in this Polish picaresque, which explodes off the screen with the force of sympathy, and a sympathy for farce.
Featuring an outstanding cast including Cold War’s Tomasz Kot, Marcin Dorociński, Andrzej Seweryn and Australian based actor Jacek Koman impersonating colourful well-known characters, this feature debut by Maciej Kawalski is a wacky, loony, hysterical histrionic history tour.
If you took a shine to SHINE, The Geoffrey Rush Oscar winning starrer, you’ll embrace SONATA with open arms and an open heart.
The winner of eight international film festivals, SONATA by Bartosz Blaschke, tells the beautiful true story of musician Grzegorz Płonka and his incredible journey to achieve the impossible. Misdiagnosed as an autistic child, on the eve of his 15th birthday he learns that the cause of his distant behaviour isn’t autism but a major hearing impairment. When implanted with a cochlear hearing aid, he discovers speech, sound, and music, with which he falls in love. It turns out that underneath his disability, great musical talent has been hidden for many years.
SONATA is a stunner with a brilliant central performance by Michael Sikorski as Grzegorz and a heartbreaking turn by Malgorzata Foremniak as his mother.
Another absolute highlight is POLANSKI. HOROWITZ. HOMETOWN, the winner of multiple Audience Awards, including at the recent Polish Film Festival in Perth. This is a low tech high emotion documentary exploring the most personal memories from childhood and youth of two world famous artists who first met as children in the Jewish ghetto established by Germans in occupied Poland. Photographer Ryszard Horowitz, one of the youngest kids rescued by Oscar Schindler, and controversial filmmaker Roman Polański, meet after several decades in their beautiful hometown of Cracow to wander around the cobbled streets and recall happy memories of childhood as well as tragic wartime experiences.
All films screen with English subtitles. Tickets are now on sale and full program is available at http://www.polishfilmfestival.org/sydney