POLISH FILM CLUB 'OKO'

What can I say?  Enjoy the holiday season, before it expires. Andre  Rieu, the Dutch violinist and composer (born 1949) should help....  Back to the  films soon. For music (greens sleeves, whose child is this) click here . aleks.

Film about poet Wislawa Szymborska, literature Nobel prize laureate (1996), in 8 parts.  Below link to part one, I hope from there you can access the remaining parts. Besides  that: Happy Holidays everyone. ola Film o poetce Wislawie Szymborskiej, laureatce nagrody Nobla w literaturze (1996), w 8 czesciach.  Ponizej link do czesci pierwszej, mam nadzieje, ze stamtad latwo dotrzec do pozostalych  czesci... Poza tym, WESOLYCH SWIAT WSZYSTKIM! aleks Wislawa  Szymborska film

Sorry,  I have never found the English subtitles version for 'Czeski sen' or 'Angelus'.  So today an offering for the English speaking readers; a very interesting documentary  I came across a few weeks ago: 'The Century of the Self - Happiness Machine' in several installments on youtube. It's a BBC production for public television, about the role of psychoanalysis, marketing and public relations in the United States. From Adam Curtis, the same director as 'the power of nightmares'.  Enjoy! 'The Century of the Self - Happiness Machine' Go to YouTube for the subsequent parts if they are not showing here after part 1...

Something to keep you busy while OKO is on hiatus till January - sorry, couldn't find any of them with English subtitles; if you know about a copy with subtitles, let me know.. Delightful young film on YouTube, cut and pasted in 9 pieces. How is it Polish?  Well, it isn't, except for the Polish text read over the film.  But it's quite Slavic, and it could happen in Poland or anywhere - quite a gem.  Enjoy it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFi5HtNKB5Q The Polish Book Club in Seattle this coming Saturday is doing a book by K. Kutz 'Piata Strona Swiata' ('The Fifth Corner of the World). While at it, watch this Silesian wonder, named 'Angelus' by Lech Majewski, a metaphysical comedy from Slask. I grew up there: in Myslowice, at the very triangle of three emperors.  My sister had a 'dzialke'-garden right at the triangle... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zymTi-foeEs&feature=related

It's a mystery to me who were the people who voted for Krauze's 'Debt', a close runner up for October OKO film, which consequently got scheduled for November meeting.  In private conversations I was told by several people who regularly come to OKO screenings that they are going to skip it, as it's too scary to watch on November evening, they do not wish to squirm before driving home at night.  Frankly, for the very same reason I was planning to bring a book and not to watch it myself (and view this acclaimed movie on some sunny day later). I'm still going to bring 'Debt' on November 17th OKO Film Club, in case the mystery voters show up, but  I'm also going to bring a second film, ironic comedy titled 'Wedding" (Dir. Wojciech Smarzowski, 2004), and let whoever comes decide which film to watch. Wojnar is a wealthy man who is marrying off his beautiful daughter Kasia, in a small town in present day Poland. Wojnar had to bribe the groom wit...

OCTOBER FILM: 10/20  Wed. 7:30 PM THE PROMISED LAND Dir. Andrzej Wajda, 1975 The film won October poll narrowly by one vote, whiff!  My own personal preference, so I'm quite happy about it. The total vote was 18: • Maids of Wilko - 4 votes • The promised Land - 7 votes • The Debt - 6 votes • The White Soup - 0 votes • (Unspecified) Other - 1 vote Based on a novel by Wladyslaw Reymont (1924 Nobel Prize for Literature for Chlopi ), the film is set in the industrial city of Lodz and tells the story of a Pole, a German, and a Jew struggling to build a factory in the raw world of 19th century capitalism.  Wajda presents a shocking image of the city, with its dirty and dangerous factories and ostentatiously opulent residences devoid of taste and culture.  The film follows in the footsteps of Charles Dickens, Emile Zola and Maxim Gorky, who gave testimony of social protest. Starring:  Daniel Olbrychski, Wojciech Pszoniak, Andrzej Seweryn, Anna Nehre...

Even if you don't plan to come and see the movie, PLEASE VOTE. I'm getting considerable amount of pressure to choose movies for viewing, instead of putting them up for a vote.  As I'm reluctantly inching in that direction, I would at least like to be an informed leader/dictator (depending which part of of bossing you around you prefer), and know your general tastes in films:  Old? New?  Documentaries? Surprise Me?   So far I'm definitely not in sync, because I would never guess that 'Strike' would get majority of votes for September;  I put it up for vote because of the Solidarity round anniversary, but didn't think anybody would want to watch 2 documentaries in a row (our August film, "The Peretzniks" was also a documentary). To help you vote I asked Asia in Poland (she is a film school graduate, and the author of the October OKO film choices) to share with us how she arrived at those four movies (from 309 Polish-themed films she looked up at ...

9/15 • Wed. 7:30 PM STRIKE Dir. Volker Schlöndorff Like “Norma Rae,” “Strike” tells the story of a tough, resilient working woman who refuses to back down from her fight with the bosses. The difference is that in this case the bosses are not greedy capitalists but Communist bureaucrats, committed, in theory, to defending the interests of the workers. There is a delicious poetic justice in the way Mr. Schlöndorff, in telling part of the story of Poland’s Solidarity movement, has used some of the crude, effective techniques of Socialist realism to depict the collapse of socialism. He calls the film “a ballad inspired by true events,” and its occasional bouts of clumsiness and sentimentality are inseparable from its power. More from  New York Times review here. Strike  (click on the title for trailer)  is a Polish language film produced by a mainly German group, released in 2006 and directed by Volker Schlöndorff. The film is broadly a docudrama. It covers the formation ...

NEXT FILM: August 18, 2010 7:30 PM The Peretznics (Perecowiczowie) Dir. Slawomir Grunberg, 2009.   Here is the trailer for the film on YouTube. The events of March '68 are still somewhat obscure in Poland. The political background is known, as are the film archives, and press coverage. However, little is known about how it was to grow up in Poland of the sixties as a Polish Jew, or as a Pole of Jewish origin. How it was to be a kid in the heart of a country still recovering from a horrific war, in a family severed by the Holocaust, and then to come of age and experience first loves at the outbreak of the disturbing March events. The experience of the 'Peretz School' pupils in Lodz in some way reflects the experience of the Jewish minority in Poland in the 50 and 60 of the previous century. It is the experience of adolescents nevertheless, who were much more interested in the Beatles than they were in politics. It was the latter, however, which caused for most of ...

NEXT FILM: July 21, 2010 • Wednesday 7:30 pm 'EVERYTHING FOR SALE' Wszystko na Sprzedaz Elzbieta Czyzewska , a great star of Polish movies and television of the 1960s, died on June 17, 2010 in New York. Film Club OKO presents 1969 film ' Everything for Sale ' as a tribute to her. Here is a video-clip from the movie 'Wszystko na sprzedaz' (this clip is in Polish only, but you can see the actress; Club OKO version has English subtitles). Here is a link to New York Times 6/18/2010 obituary for Elzbieta Czyzewska. Here is a link to Nowy Dziennik 7/15/2010 article 'A Step into one filmmaker's reality'. Here is a link to Gazeta Wyborcza 7/12/2010 article (in Polish) 'Elzbieta Czyzewska'. Inspired by the tragic death of the great Polish actor Zbigniew Cybulski, the film focuses on behind-the-scenes lives of a director and his actors when they are disrupted by the mysterious death of their leading man. Director: Andrzej Wajda Starring: Elzbi...

June 16, 2010 • Wednesday, 7:30 pm 'The lost Requiem' Polish Film Club OKO invites everyone to the screening of the documentary "The Lost Requiem" by Khosrow Sinai (DVD 1980, 80 minutes. In Farsi with English subtitles) The film tells the story of the World War 2 era Poles coming to Persia from the Soviet gulag camps in Siberia. The filmmaker follows the life of several individuals, while describing the general fate of several hundred thousand former Polish prisoners. Introduction: Roxanne Emadi; discussion after the film. ________________________________________ It turned out to be rather large 'club' - there is obviously a hunger for this kind of information, because we had the house packed. Several former Siberian exiles came, some of their family, friends and many people simply interested in the stories of people deported to Siberia during the WW2. While the fate of the people whose lands were occupied by Hitler is generally well known, because it was ...