In nineteenth-century Łódź, Poland, three friends want to make a lot of money by building and investing in a textile factory. An exceptional portrait of rapid industrial expansion is shown through the eyes of one Polish town.
Danton and Robespierre were close friends and fought together in the French Revolution, but by 1793 Robespierre was France's ruler, determined to wipe out opposition with a series of mass executions that became known as the Reign of Terror. Danton, well known as a spokesman of the people, had been living in relative solitude in the French countryside, but he returned to Paris to challenge Robespierre's violent rule and call for the people to demand their rights. Robespierre, however, could not accept such a challenge, even from a friend and colleague, and he blocked out a plan for the capture and execution of Danton and his allies.
1920. Jean Rezeau and his elder brother were living happily in their family estate in Brittany, until the death of their grandmother. The return of their mother, a worthy descendant of fairytales' witches, brings an all new atmosphere to their home.
One of Gabriela Zapolska's most famous comedies, it was written in 1907. A realistic story of a marital triangle, precisely constructed in terms of the psychology of the characters. In this classic production, director Tomasz Zygadło emphasizes above all the truth and universality of human characters and behaviors.
In the winter of 1942-43, a Jewish family leaps from a train going through Silesia. They are separated in the woods, and Leon, a local peasant who's now a farmer of some wealth, discovers the woman, Rosa, and hides her in his cellar. Leon's a middle-aged Catholic bachelor, tormented by his sexual drive. He doesn't tell Rosa he's seen signs her husband is alive, and he begs her to love him. Rosa offers herself to Leon if he'll help a local Jew in hiding who needs money. Leon pays, and love between Rosa and him does develop, but then Leon's peasant subservience and his limited empathy lead to tragedy. At the war's end, a ray of sunshine comes from an unexpected place.
During the Cold War, the World Chess Championship clashed complete opposites - personal and political.
The story of Polish pedagogue Janusz Korczak and his dedication to protecting Jewish orphans during the war.
The adventures of Monsieur, a polite young man who is brilliant at ping-pong, who lives with his fiancée's parents and who, pursued by a neighbor, tries to escape the world and people until the day he falls in love...
In the post-war Paris, a young Jewish boy whose parents were deported, met in the subway a well-off boy of the same age with whom he became friends. A second encounter with Max solitary character and rasping will mark him. With these two people the antipodes of one another he will reach adulthood.
This somber drama chronicles the writings of Paltiel Kossover (Michel Jonasz), a Rumanian Jew who was incarcerated in a Stalinist prison. Zupanev (Erland Josephson) is a sympathetic court registrar who smuggles the documents and later presents them to the poet's son Grisha (Vincent David).
Pawel, a Polish man in his early 30s, makes a living with his father Zygmunt importing second-hand clothing from the North of France to Southern Poland. On his way back from one of regular "business trips", Pawel is shocked to discover his father's picture on the cover of a Polish tabloid newspaper. The headline "traitor" is written next to his name. Zygmunt is a genuine hero of the struggle against totalitarianism and a recognized member of the "Solidarnosc" labor movement of the 80s. But now, Zygmunt is suddenly accused by the paper of having acted as a secret informer called THE MOLE by the communist regime.
Oliver (Pawel Szajda) is a talented young pianist of Polish American heritage. After breaking off his European tournée, he is forced to repay the tour organizers 250 thousand Euros. On his journey, he meets the very colorful character of (Janusz Gajos) a retired high school math teacher and a great enthusiast of the horse races. He dreams of returning to America as a somebody, but can only do so after wining a momentous prize. From then on the two friends endeavor to gain success. They discover true friendship. Together they fulfill Franks dream of winning at the horse races, which in turn allows Oliver to buy back his personal freedom. Having recovered from a dramatically ended marriage, the young man is able to open up to a new love.
Story of 11-year old Tadeusz, a prisoner in a children's concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Antoni Krauze reminds one of the darkest history of the cards with PRL. Spectacular reconstruction of the dramatic events in Gdynia, ended a brutal pacification of demonstrators by troops and militia in 1970.
This sumptuously photographed period drama is set in 1791 Vienna. Maximilian Bardo, an opportunistic 18-year old Viennese man with aspirations to rise above his bourgeois upbringing, looks for a chance to shoehorn himself into the nobility. His hopes lead him to the castle of a wealthy inventor, Alexander Plant. It is here that a strange story is played out, as Maximilian, full of naive illusions and innocent ideals of what it means to be wealthy and noble, quickly loses his innocence. Falling prey to the jaded aristocrats in residence, he is cruelly initiated into their decadent games.
Two brothers living in 1939 Poland decide on a whim to steal the limousine of a German consul. The seemingly small act of youthful rebellion will have massive ramifications on the two, each dealing with the aftermath in their own way - one resorts to art, the other to direct political action.
Vansan is 30 years old, but he never learned to make decisions. Whatever it is. Should he marry his girlfriend, should he start a business with his friend, what color should he buy shoes for? Life for him is an eternal dilemma. But one day, fate made a choice for him. Vansan crashes into an advertising post by car and makes a leap in time for 16 years in advance. Now at about forty, he heads a large corporation, is married to a woman with whom he is barely familiar, has a teenage son who is constantly bold to him, and an early-ripened daughter. And he has absolutely no idea what to do with all this. Realizing that he has become everything that he always despised, Vansan is desperate to go back and make the right choice. But can he turn back the clock? ..
Pernat finds himself in a police interrogation, accused of a murder, and unable to recall any details of the crime, or even his own life. He's released back into a world of raving lunatics and deranged dentists, murderous doctors and scientists who believe the secret of human creation is inside the walls of a cast-iron oven.
Helen, Rose and Lili have survived the Holocaust and have never seen each other since the war has ended. In 1960, they meet again in Berck, France. They learn to enjoy together simple pleasures in life: nice meals, ballads on the beach, playing in the waves.
The true story of a high-school history teacher who decides to hide a progressive sight loss from everyone surrounding him - his colleagues, pupils, even the ones who really care about him, because of the fear of losing his job and trying to save his dignity. Due to a genetic disorder, Kacper is faced with a very real possibility of permanent blindness. Initially heartbroken, he attempts to hide his health problems from his bosses driven by his desire to keep his job and to help his students with the final exams. The only person who knows about Kacper's problem is his best friend Wiktor. Meanwhile, Kacper enters a relationship with his colleague Ewa, and tries to help a rebel student Klara, who hides a secret of her own.
The true story of General Smyslovsky and the anti-Communist 1st Russian National Army receiving shelter in Liechtenstein in 1945 and successfully resisting Soviet pressure to be returned for execution in the USSR.
Set at the turn of the century it presents a story of a famous Polish athlete, Zbyszko Cyganiewicz. It begins in a small town where a traveling circus attracts a shy boy into a phony wrestling game to please the crowds. The youth, however, takes his strength seriously, eventually defeating a name wrestler in a fair match. Angered circus manager fires him; he leaves happily due to two wrestler brothers who were harassing him. The wrestler goes on to fame, performing in the world's top arenas, and one day is serenaded by a tenor from the crowd. Fame brings him women and admirers but he is uncompromising on his profession. He has his revenge on one of his tormentors defeating him in the ring. One day, attending a game in a tuxedo, he is challenged by another of the brothers and drawn into a brutal game, in course of which he kills his opponent. Thus his career ends.
Venice. March 1735. The carnival is in full swing Everybody's happy mood and the lively streets are filled with musicians, mimes, clowns and acrobats of pickpockets who practice their craft each, displaying a colorful rainbow and sounds. At every corner, there is something going on that should not be missed - especially if it's something forbidden. However, some people are concerned about something else. One is Carlo Goldoni young lawyer of 27 years, he dreams only theater and he thinks only the part that wants to ride. Alas, the money was also hard to find at that time than now. His two friends, Antonio Vivaldi and Gian Battista Tiepolo are better known than him but they are also looking for this rare bird: a patron, who was not on ONLY the desire but also the means to sponsor a work of art.
In a remote area of South America, three men, are living, far from the civilization... and from the police. Until a fatal morning when Julie, 25, tries to escape killers who are after her. In 72 hours, the seducing fugitive will strongly change the destiny of each of these three men who, in their different way, will fall in love with her.
Andrzej Wajda's English-language film of a novella by Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, aka Joseph Conrad, about a young man in his first command as a sea captain. A series of crises prove incredibly difficult for his new authority, for the sea is curiously becalmed and the crew is weakened by feverish malaria. When the first mate's fear convinces many that the ship is haunted and cursed by the malevolent spirit of the previous captain, the young man must cope with their superstition as well as the conspicuous absence of much-needed medicine.
A surreal collage of interrelated threads revolving around history of thirty-year-old Kuba who, with his parents' encouragement, decides to take his first job. Though none too convinced, he starts work as a delivery man. Having set out on his first delivery soon after he witnesses a traffic accident. He ends up giving a statement at the police station. And his plans begin to unravel. By a twist of fate Kuba has no idea about the significance of the part he will have to play on this particular day.
Two artists conduct philosophical disputes about practicing art.
A bourgeois couple, modern yet conventional. One night by accident, a young prostitute barges into their lives. Hounded down, beaten up, threatened, she will continue to struggle, with the help of a well off lady, first for her survival-her resurrection-then for her dignity and freedom. Stormy encounters for everyone involved.
Young Polish nobleman Jakub is saved from imprisonment by a stranger. In return, the stranger wants to obtain a list of Jakub’s fellow conspirators. As he follows his mysterious savior across the country, Jakub is affected by the overall chaos and moral corruption; he goes insane and becomes a mass murderer.
Francis Ratay witnesses the theft of church painting "Angel with violin". The entire incident recorded by an amateur camera. The thief turns out to Benedict Weber, gallery owner and art connoisseur. Francis comes to his gallery. Blackmails him, that will provide police record, unless the image in three days back in place.
Hester Collyer is rescued by a neighbor after attempting suicide in the flat she shares with her young lover, ex-RAF pilot Freddie Page. The neighbors alert her husband, who arrives at the flat only to find her fully recovered...
During a pogrom in Poland on the eve of World War I, a group of Jews seek refuge from the Cossacks. The fugitives hide out in a rural inn, terrified that they may be given away at any moment.
The film deals with the a clandestine Olympiade held in a German POW camp during WW II, housing many Poles, but also French and Brits. A spit and a Polish German lieutenant is added to the staff of a prison camp. He sees a Pole, the acknowledged leader of the Polish prisoners, against whom he had competed during the Berlin Olympics in 1936. He asks the Pole to train with him but is refused; the Pole points out out that he is a prisoner and nothing more. But that plants the seed and the Pole proposes and Olympics 40 to be held among the prisoners. They ingeniously make a flag and medals, set up a number of races; a croaching hop race is unwittingly organized by a German prison guard who uses it as a torture. The German lieutenant knows that something is going on but cannot find out. Finally the Germans realize the idea and the Polish chief is sent to concentration camp but the others disobey the orders.
A young priest speaks out against the Communist regime in Poland and is killed for it.
Joshua visits his grandfather, a survivor of Auschwitz, five days before his tenth birthday. The elder recalls own childhood in polish countryside at his grandparents'. The grandma had many hens, which were real friends for him. As a young boy he was very sad when each Friday he had to choose one hen to be sacrificed as a Sabbath dinner. In his tenth birthday he received one hen as a gift. Now, as an old man, he gives the same gift to Joshua.
In late 1950s Poland, jazzman Fabian returns from England and forms a swing big band that quickly rises to fame. Their glamorous new singer, the enigmatic Modesta, becomes both the group’s star and Fabian’s love interest. As their success begins to resemble a Hollywood musical, the authorities take a growing interest in their world of music and romance.
Ludwik starts one of the best high schools in Krakow. His life changes with a growing storm of conflicting emotions. First love infatuations, sexual contacts, a rebellion against unjust authorities and the desire to imitate his idol, Marek, an older boy who who fought in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.
Set at the turn of the century, the story concerns a Polish poet living in Cracow who has decided to marry a peasant girl. The wedding is attended by a heterogenous group of people from all strata of Polish society, who dance, get drunk and lament Poland's 100-year-long division under Russia, Prussia, and Austria. The bridegroom, a painter friend, and a journalist each in turn is confronted with spectres of Polish past.
Krzysztof, a 30-something writer has been on a downward spiral ever since the success of his first novel. Struggling to compete his new work, the "Book of All Books" he retreats into alcoholism when he meets Basia, with whom he begins a volatile relationship.
Washed-up actor Franky Pastor and his kleptomaniac, ex-rocker manager Arsene steal a car and embark on a “last-chance” road trip to the Polaris Film Festival at the North Pole. There Arsene insists they’ll meet a famous director who can revive Franky’s career.
During the Nazi era, a Jewish woman on the run takes a trolley which passes near the Warsaw ghetto, where the uprising battle is taking place, and some passengers are struck by stray bullets. They take temporary refuge in an empty building, and there she has a chance meeting with her ex-fiancé. He offers to put her up--that is, hide her--for a few days. He's now married, a professional who lives in an idyllic suburb reached by a trolley that runs through the woods. His wife seems more committed to putting up the fugitive than he is. The story involves the neighbors, the building owner who avoids involvement and seeks solace in classic poetry, and the super and his suspicious wife.
There is a writer who in the late 1970s managed to publish a poem in the monthly "Nowy Wyraz". It was enough to become a self-confessed writer whose name began to appear in the state media. The writer takes full advantage of his privileges - he flirts with power, sympathizes with the opposition, and collapses his studies at the same time. He is saved from going to the army by an exalted essayist whose sister is the head of the psychiatric hospital in Tworki. In a psychiatric institution, a writer meets a schizophrenic who writes a novel. After his suicide, the protagonist takes over the draft, which he publishes outside of censorship under his name, thanks to which he gains fame, fame and money. August '80 breaks out....
A black political comedy, which, as a backdrop, uses the election race and the accompanying chaos in the media. The film's protagonist is a presidential candidate in the 2000 elections in Poland who suddenly withdraws from the election campaign despite his best ratings. During the election battle, he portrays himself as a professional liar and decides to give away everything he has previously won. What he doesn't expect, however, is how difficult a problem giving can be.
Funny adventures of Engineer Stefan Karwowski. One day he meet the famous star Irena Orska and fall in love. But there are three problems: his wife and two children. He must choice what is more importent for him - family or Irena.
Cast out of his insular community, a damaged and down on his luck man teeters between a life of crime and the path to redemption.
Six-years-old and terminally ill, Felix dreams of meeting an extra-terrestrial. Hearing this his Dad decides to make his dream come true by finding a 'saucer' and playing the part by dressing up as an alien.
The trial of Yeshua Ha-Notsri is led by prosecutor Pontius Pilate who believes in the innocence of the accused but is forced to sentence him to death. This biblical story is set in present-day Germany.
In 2011, a psychiatric patient is visited by a postulate. The patient is a retired head of the "D" Group – a secret department of the Security Service to fight against the Polish Catholic church. Murders, beatings, blackmails, provocations, robberies, those are standard methods of operation for its officers. The postulate wants to unravel the mystery of the death of priest Roman Kotlarz, a parish priest from Pelagow.
A Hollywood studio is producing another spectacular when the top billed male stars suddenly show up as corpses, killed before the critics could ever put pen to paper. Under suspicion is a talent agent. Is he guilty or not? These macabre events have everyone off their feed, from the producers down to the lowest gofer.
In 1931, just before the New Year, in a house of architect Henryk Zaremba scream rips the night. The daughter of Zaremba is found killed in her bedroom, obviously killed with a pickaxe. The police arrives and starts the investigation. Rita Gorgonova, the governess of the girl and also lover of Zaremba becomes the main suspect. Film based on real events - investigation and court trials of the most famous pre-war Polish murder case. Despite being historically accurate the movie is both involving and entertaining since the case was simple on the surface, but very complicated in details.
Lazowski, an expelled university student, investigates the supposed suicide of the famous artist Witkacy and tries to prove that the artist is in fact still alive.
A nearly illiterate woman becomes one of the founders of Poland's Solidarity union.
A man is tried in court for failing to help his brother to avoid suicide.
Told in flashback as Mieszko lies feverish in his bed just before the Battle of Cedynia, Gniazdo recounts how the revered leader extended Poland's borders, formed an alliance with Emperor Otto I, and ultimately strengthened his country's autonomy by achieving victory during that crucial battle in the year 972.
In this adaptation of an historical play by Pope John Paul II, painter Albert Chmielowski decides to devote his life to helping the homeless.
Shortly after the beginning of World War 2 a young idealist doctor is employed in a psychiatric hospital, where his notions of proper care for the patients are challenged by staff and the German occupation.
Everyone has a secret. Twins Sarah and Gaëlle near 25; for ten years, Sarah has been a fundamentalist Carmelite in a Brazilian convent, and Gaëlle has been in prison for a heinous crime. Sarah comes to the attention of Fr. Joachim, a priest and physician; he can find no cause for her debilitating abdominal pain. When Sarah and he are transferred to Paris, Joachim looks for Gaëlle, now on probation and finding no respite from society's approbation. An enterprising reporter is digging into Gaëlle's life, the mother superior of Sarah's convent hovers over her, and Joachim investigates the phenomenon of twin's symmetry. Is there any release from the past?
Young Poland period in Kraków before WWI. Young doctor Edward comes back from Paris and meets his friends belonging to artistic bohema.
The story of a rabbi and his talking cat, a sharp-tongued feline philosopher brimming with scathing humor and a less than pure love for the rabbi's teenage daughter.
In 1924, Oskar Matzerath is born in the Free City of Danzig. At age three, he falls down a flight of stairs and stops growing. In 1939, World War II breaks out.
Depicts the final years of the life of 19th century Austrian composer Franz Schubert. This is the shortened theatrical version of the miniseries, released in 2006 as a DVD in the series The Austrian Film.
A young, well-off engineer decides to leave his current life and seek what he deems a "manly" adventure.
A suggestive, lyrical story about friendship, loneliness and illusory hope.
