POLISH FILM CLUB 'OKO'

  Film Aperitif:  ' Tango' by Polish animator Zbigniew Rybczynski won the Academy Award for Best Short Animation in 1983. It is a mesmerizing 8 minutes animation set entirely in one room in which a series of events take place, repeat and overlap each other in time to a tango soundtrack.  After being rescheduled and cancelled THREE times Santa Rosa: Odyssey in the Rhythm of Mariachi ( 2013,  by Slawomir Grunberg) will finally make it to OKO on January 20, 2017, 7:30 pm - see you there! Below a copy of the original post and a trailer. Documentary film about over 1400 Polish refugees from the Soviet camps in Siberia who in 1943 arrived in a Mexican ranch of Santa Rosa at the invitation of President Manuel Ávila Camacho. Santa Rosa became their home for a number of years to come. Mexico was the only country outside the British Commonwealth that offered assistance in solving the humanitarian crisis of thousands of Polish WW2 refugees displaced in t...

Well, another change: the film originally scheduled for November is sitting at Scarecrow awesome collection and could be brought in anytime so it can wait, while  OKO member and the film co-producer, Krzysztof Poraj-Kuczewski offered to present on our November session his documentary film about Alex Herbst and invited Alex to our screening! Attention: 11/25 is FOURTH Friday of the month (the day after Thanksgiving) - change from 3rd Friday due to scheduling problems. Spitfire Liberator: The Alex Herbst Story,  directed by Sławomir Ciok. Captain Witold "Alex" Herbst is a WWII fighter pilot who was flying Spitfires with the famous Polish RAF squadrons 303 & 308 in missions over Great Britain and Europe. "[...] Alex Herbst tells his story for a documentary which is about the will of flying that never dies. This is also a sentimental and partly virtual trip to the most important places of Alex Herbst’s life in Poland, Romania, Turkey, and France, UK and the USA i...

Kino OKO will be back in November (see listing at the bottom of this post), as October is Seattle Polish Film Festival (SPFF) time!!!! After its world premiere in Lithuania in October 2015, a new film about Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara, "Persona Non Grata," opens SPFF (Seattle Polish Film Festival) next Friday, October 14 at SIFF Cinema Uptown at 6:30 pm. Director Cellin Gluck will be present for the film screening, followed by Q &A. The film tells the story of Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara who was posted in Lithuania during World War II, and who defied orders and issued over 2,000 transit visas to Jewish refugees, famously continuing to sign visas even as his train pulled away from the station. He is estimated to have saved over 6,000 lives from the Nazis, who invaded Lithuania a year later in 1941. Directed by Japanese American Cellin Gluck , "Persona Non Grata" was filmed in Poland and stars Japanese actors Toshiaki Karasawa and Koyuki, and...

OKO is going on summer vacation (Polish Home closed July and August) - the next film will be a repeat screening of the Slawomir Grunberg's 2013 documentary 'Santa Rosa: Odyssey in the Rhythm of Mariachi' (originally screened May 6 at UW campus). For info and trailer see the previous post below (under info about 'Karski' film. ) See you all  Friday, September 16 at 7:30 pm for the tale of Polish refugees from  Siberia who ended up in Santa Rosa, Mexico during WW2.   Safe summer travels!

May 5 & 6 – two documentary films by Sławomir Grünberg, who will be in Seattle for the premiere of his latest film Karski and the Lords of Humanity. 1.) Thursday, May 5th, 2016, 7:45 pm - Karski and the Lords of Humanity, 2015 (at Ezra Bessaroth) Jan Karski was a WWII Polish underground envoy who in 1942 brought from occupied Poland eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust to the attention of to the personal attention of President Roosevelt and other powerful world's leaders.  It is a feature-length documentary that combines animation with actual footage and narration from interviews with Jan Karski. Watch a trailer: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/jankarski The film will be presented by Congregation Ezra Bessaroth and supported by the Polish Honorary Consul in Seattle, Seattle Polish Foundation , the UW Polish Studies Endowment Committee, and Seattle Polish Film Festival Where: at the Congregation Ezra Bessaroth in Seattle, parking entry from Wilson Ave; ticket $10  or $...

May harbinger : Double with Slawomir Grunberg (dir. will be present at both screenings): 5/5, Thu, 7:30 pm: ' Karski ' at Ezra Bessaroth,  for tickets/directions  click here :  & 5/6,  'Fri, 7 pm ' Santa Rosa ' at UW Thomson Hall 101, Free.  More details later. Spring Bazaar in Polish Home is on Saturday, March 19th - the room needs to be prepared a day in advance and cannot accommodate the Kino OKO goers on usual 3rd Friday of the month.  Therefore the screening of the film 'Papusza' is moved to Friday, April 15th 22nd (sorry, another event collision caused another date change). Friday, 4/22: 'Papusza', directed by Joanna Kos-Krauze & Krzysztof Krauze, music by Jan Kanty Pawluskiewicz, 2013. In Roma/Polish with English subtitles. True story of Papusza - the first Roma woman who put her poems into writing and published them, and therefore confronted the traditional female image in the gypsy community. The film follows Papusza...

Friday, February 19th at Polish Home, upper room - start at 7:30 (room set up and short intro about the film and its director);  actual screening at 8 pm sharp: Tomasz Konecki's   Ladies / Lejdis ,  comedy, 2008. Polish with English subtitles. Plot: Four childhood girlfriends, now adult women,  gather each New Year's Eve (which they celebrate in summer) to track the progress of their lives, make resolutions, and discuss their relationships with men. The film was a huge hit in its homeland when released - we might discuss the issue of the use of humor in the film form and what happens when translated, since the cognitive process of amusement is very much dependent on the social and cultural context.  It was was shown at SPFF several years ago and met a very good reception. There is not much about the director, Tomasz Konecki in English on the internet;  this is from wikipedia : Tomasz Konecki (born 22 April 1962 in Warsaw) is Polish film directo...

This friday, 1/15 at Polish Home, upper room - start at 7:30 (room set up and short intro about the director);  actual screening at 8 pm sharp: Kieslowski’s  'The Double Life of Veronique' (1991). Polish/French with English subtitles. [...] (French: La double vie de Véronique, Polish: Podwójne życie Weroniki) is a 1991 French- and Polish-language drama film directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski and starring Irène Jacob. Written by Kieślowski and Krzysztof Piesiewicz, the film explores the themes of identity, love, and human intuition through the characters of Weronika, a Polish choir soprano, and her double, Véronique, a French music teacher. The two women do not know each other, and yet they share a mysterious and emotional bond that transcends language and geography. The film is notable for Sławomir Idziak's innovative cinematography and Zbigniew Preisner's haunting operatic score. The film was Kieślowski's first to be produced partly outside his native Pola...