Pawel Juzwuk

Considered to be one of the most prestigious competitions in classical music, the International Chopin Piano Competition, held in Warsaw every five years since 1927, has been a career launchpad for such piano virtuosos as Krystian Zimerman, Mitsuko Uchida, Kevin Kenner, and Vladimir Ashkenazy. The competition itself is a real roller coaster of a classical ride, with extremely tough qualifying rules, multiple stages, legendary jurors (Arthur Rubinstein!), and a whole lot of pressure.

Jakub Piątek’s (Prime Time, 2021 Sundance Film Festival) fly-on-the-philharmonic-wall documentary takes us behind the scenes of this fascinating contest. We meet some of the most talented young professional piano players from all over the world and watch them navigate this fever dream of a competition, along with its intense practices, new friendships, lots of drama, and even more nerves.

“Sometimes I can only groan, and suffer, and pour out my despair at the piano!” said Chopin. Pianoforte is a testament to the power of remarkable music. Nearly two centuries later, it still inspires, excites, and, yes, causes some despair and suffering, too.

Pianoforte has become the first Polish documentary to win an International Emmy. “We have an Emmy,” wrote the film’s producer, Maciej Kubicki, in a social media post sharing images from Monday’s award ceremony in New York, where Pianoforte won in the best arts programming category.

The International Emmy Awards are handed out annually by the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (IATAS) for works produced outside the United States. Pianoforte won in its category after being shortlisted alongside the productions Robbie Williams from the United Kingdom, Virgilio from Argentina, andWho I Am Life from Japan.

A young Ukrainian theater director takes us on a search for the Hamlets of today. Her theatrical production becomes the starting point for a thrilling portrait of a young Ukrainian generation marked by war and time of huge political change.

CINEMATOGRAPHY BY Piotr Rosołowski

EDITED BY Agata Cierniak

MUSIC BY John Gurtler and Jan Miserre

PRODUCED BY

Magdalena Kamińska, Agata Szymańska / Balapolis

Mathias Miegel, Andreas Banz, Robert Thalheim / Kundschafter Filmproduktion

CO-PRODUCED BY

Beata Ryczkowska, Alicja Gancarz / CANAL+

Eva Witte, SÜDWESTRUNDFUNK / ARTE

They were everywhere, though they tried to be invisible. Filming from hiding in restaurants, on the street, in shops. They registered illegal bottling of regulated fuel, lovers meeting in the hotel. They wiretapped phone calls with a man living abroad, during which Poles placed orders for hemorrhoid ointment. They filmed interviews during which, through blackmail, they carried out the process of breaking a detainee to persuade them to cooperate. Another time, they interrogated a woman from whom they required detailed billing of household expenses, including the type of meat and the number of butter cubes used. ‘An Ordinary Country’ is a found footage creative documentary based on film and videotapes recorded by officers of the Polish communist security services in the 1960s through the 1980s…

Dir.: Jolanta Dylewska, Andrzej Wajda
Script: Jolanta Dylewska, Agnieszka Holland
DOP: Kuba Kijowski

“Why does nobody ask if there was love in the ghetto? Why is nobody interested in it? Love made people last.” The  question put forward by Marek Edelman, the former commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, aims to prove that amidst all the hell of the ghetto goodness and beauty were present there as well. And love. Love turned out to be the most important value, more important than life itself.

10-year-old Yula is growing up in Putin's Russia in the Svalka, the largest junkyard in Europe, just 13 miles from the Kremlin. She has one dream-to escape the Svalka and have a normal life. For 14 years, we follow Yula as she grows up.

LESSONS OF LOVE
LEKCJA MIŁOŚCI

Free-spirited Jola, after escaping from a marital nightmare is letting loose with her girlfriends and finds herself thrust into a new romance at a latino dancing class. The drama evolves when the conservative powers of her generation try to justify her abusive husband. A highly cinematic and joyful journey into a woman’s battle to reinvent herself in her best age of life, when she is 69.

DIRECTING: Małgorzata Goliszewska, Kasia Mateja
SCRIPT: Małgorzata Goliszewska, Anna Stylińska
DOP: Mateusz Czuchnowski, Kasia Mateja, Tymon Tykwiński
EDITOR: Alan Zejer
PRODUCTION: Anna Stylińska / Widok

Deep in a dark forest Kora meets herself as an 8-year-old girl. Agnieszka Holland watches herself as a young rebel shown in multiplied images - projections. Rafał Olbiński seeks inspiration for his painting in and under water. Tomasz Stańko explains how errors of evolution can be turned into art. Janusz Gajos tries to find a way out of a dream that has haunted him for years. 

Five countries of Warsaw Pact occupied Czechoslovakia in 1968. 50 years after, 5 directors from these 5 countries are going to shoot 5 short films about invasion from the point of view of people, who took part as occupants. Documentary project about August 1968 is a collective subjective look on the soldiers of “friendly” armies and their thoughts and impressions about Czechoslovak occupation and their tasks within it.

A portrait of contemporary society that, while travelling, concentrates primarily on recording its foreign journeys "as a keepsake. The screenplay is based on the several year long documentation of recordings taken by tourists from different countries and excursions. Everything constitutes one, never-ending, emotional POV - everything is a composing part of a Human-Tourist. We observe that a constant, almost obsessive recording of visited sites changes the meaning of the journey and becomes its essence.

The Ukrainian city of Uman is the burial site of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, one of the most important figures of Hassidism. Every year tens of thousands of pilgrims come here to celebrate Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. The film shows the tensions arising between pilgrims and local residents.