The Culture Commission of the PhD Students’ Association of the Jagiellonian University invites you to vote for the film we will watch during the next edition of the Doctoral Students’ Film Club, which will take place on Thursday April 4, 2024.
You can vote using the following link until Sunday March 17th:
This time, you can choose one of the following films (all of the following descriptions come from the films’ distributors).
White Courage, Poland 2023, dir. Marcin Koszałka. In Polish.
This is a tale of love, treason, and sacrifice in the lives of two families from the Podhale region who must face the most difficult test during the German occupation.
There are exceptional performances from Filip Pławiak, Sandra Drzymalska, Jakub Gierszał, Julian Świeżewski, Adam Woronowicz, and Wiktoria Gorodecka.
The film’s director and cinematographer is Marcin Koszałka, who was awarded at the Gdynia Film Festival and was twice nominated for the Polityka's Passport award.
In late 1930s Podhale, Jędrek Zawrat, a talented mountaineer and progeny of an illustrious Highlander family, likes life on the edge. When he climbs, he chooses the most challenging trails, and in love he is ready to sacrifice everything. His beloved is the beautiful Bronka. However, as a result of his family's decision, her hand is given to the elder of the Zawrat brothers, the staid and serious Maciek. The proud Jędrek abandons his hometown to find oblivion among the Krakow bohemians. On his way there, he meets a German scientist and alpinist, Wolfram, who promotes the theory that the Polish Highlanders are descended from an ancient Germanic tribe. When war breaks out, the Germans make the inhabitants of Podhale an offer of collaboration. Entangled in history, the brothers are forced to make the most difficult decisions. Loving the same woman, they will have to make a decision that will impact not only their personal fate, but also the future of the entire region.
Pianoforte, Poland 2023, dir. Jakub Piątek. In Slovenian, Polish, English, Chinese, Italian, and Russian with Polish and English subtitles.
The emotions are enormous emotions in this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. During the eliminations, there are 160 of them, but only twelve can make it to the finals. The International Chopin Piano Competition is the most prestigious event of its kind in the world. It is held every five years in Warsaw with the participation of the world's most famous pianists. In Pianoforte, young participants in the competition from all around the world as well as their dreams take center stage.
Since childhood, their lives have been subordinated to playing the piano, and they feel ready to compete. For the first time in history, we have the opportunity to observe their arduous behind-the-scenes preparations; we get a peek into their private lives, when they reveal their colorful, rebellious natures.
Some dream of playing their favorite video game, while others spend sleepless nights in Warsaw bars waiting for their verdict. As a result of the ruthless rules of the competition, not all will make it to the podium. This is an engrossing tale of growing up, rebellion, and music in the shadow of enormous expectations.
Kuba Piątek's new film was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival and received the Audience Award at the largest Polish film festival, Millennium Docs Against Gravity.
The Zone of Interest, dir. Jonathan Glazer, Great Britain/Poland/USA, 2023. In Polish, English, and German with Polish and English subtitles.
The winner of the Academy Award for Best International Feature.
In Zone of Interest, British filmmaker Jonathan Glazer takes a closer look at the domestic idyll of Nazi Germany. Rudolf (Christian Friedel), his wife Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), four children, and dog live in a spacious, pedantically clean home with a well-tended garden and greenhouse. They celebrate family means and dream of vacationing in their beloved Italy. On the weekends, they like to go kayaking or walk in the woods with their friends. However, just outside their house they hear unsettling sounds and sometimes screams of despair because Rudolf Höss is the commandant of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.
The Zone of Interest is a shocking study of the banality of evil in which we are witnesses to neither genocide nor the reality of camp life. Everything that is brutal and from which we want to turn away is outside Rudolf and Hedwig's home, hermetically sealed outside their everyday lives. Their family idyll is only occasionally interrupted by smoke from the nearby camp chimneys. Is it possible to enjoy a sterile paradise in the shadow of other people’s hell in a way that prevents its traces from reaching the conscience and consciousness?
Directed by Jonahtan Glazer, creator of Under the Skin and classic music videos by Massive Attack and Radiohead, the film is a Polish co-production. On the Polish side, it was co-produced by Ewa Puszczyńska, producer of Ida and Cold War. The Zone of Interest is an outstanding, novel re-interpretation of Holocaust cinema. Completely shot in Poland, it was awarded the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival and received five Oscar nominations (including for Best Picture), winning two (Best International Feature and Best Sound). The score was composed by Mica Levi, while the cinematographer was Oscar nominee Łukasz Żal (Cold War, Ida). This is a deeply shocking work that opens the viewer’s eyes and transcends the boundaries of cinema. It will enter the history of film.