November 6th

NOVEMBER 6TH, SUNDAY

NARRATIVE FILMS PROGRAM
Screening Room 1

10:00 am
Ceremonia/The Ceremony
dir. Tadeusz Kabicz, short narrative film, 2021, 25 min.

Joanna returns to her home village for her father’s funeral. On the night of her arrival, an explosive argument breaks out in the family. Joanna wants to fulfill her father’s wish for a secular funeral, but her mother is categorically opposed to the very idea. Determined to achieve her aim, Joanna begins to delve into her father’s history and character in more depth. As she does so, she uncovers some shocking facts about her parents’ lives.

10:30 am
Droga/The Road
dir. Edyta Wróblewska, short narrative film, 2021, 30 min.

A wedding in Mazury. Agata, thirty and pregnant, came to the reception with her boyfriend Grzesiek, but in the middle of the night she decides to drive back home alone. Her car ends up in a ditch, and she needs to find a way to get out of it. During her journey, she sees flashbacks from her and Grzesiek’s drive to the wedding last afternoon. The unexpected events and the people she meets make Agata more aware of how her future life is going to look like.

11:00 am
Niewolnik/Slave
dir. Grzegorz Piekarski, short narrative film, 2021, 29 min.

Nikodem serves his sentence under a new penitentiary programme involving work at the house of Maja and Łukasz, who have full power over him. The household members are surprised when Nikodem’s appeal is successful, and he regains his freedom. Even though they can part ways and never meet again, they stay together for one more day.

11:30 am
INTERMISSION

11:40 am
Stancja/The Last Room on the Left
dir. Adrian Apanel. short narrative film, 2021, 30 min.

A young man knocks on the door of an old boarding house, hoping to rent a room. The owner answers the door in her bathrobe. She is hoping to get rid of the unexpected guest, but when she learns that he might be a prospective lodger, she agrees to show him around. The house is rather shabby, and it keeps getting weirder with each room they see and each boarder they meet. The young man wants out but leaving turns out to be pretty hard.

12:10 pm
Podlasie. Granica światów/ Podlasie. The Edge of the Worlds
dir. Katarzyna Lazzeri, documentary film, 2021, 24 min.

The residents of Podlasie are watching the Polish-Belarusian border crisis from the windows of their own homes. Recent months have changed everything in their lives. The forest, which for years had been their breathing place, has now become a source of anxiety and trauma. Almost every day, in the surrounding forest, the residents of Podlasie come across groups of migrants who have become hostages to a brutal political game.

UKRAINIAN PROGRAM
Screening Room 1

1:30 pm
Masza i Walentyna/Masha and Valentyna
dir. Simon Target, documentary film, 2022, 45 min.

17-year-old Masha walked across the Polish border carrying a three week old baby. 41-year-old Valentyna arrived in Poland with her two sons. Both put themselves in the care of Polish families, after they were forced to leave their homes and men behind to defend their country. Filmed by the women themselves, this candid documentary follows the lives of 2 of the nearly 2 million Ukrainian refugees adopted into Polish homes-

2:20 pm
INTERMISSION

2:30 pm
Julia Blue/Julia Blue*
dir. Roxy Toporowych, drama, romance, Ukraine/USA production, 2018, 86 min.

Inspired to study photography by the protest scenes she witnessed in Kyiv during the 2014 revolution, Julia has now set her sights on a future outside her beloved Ukraine. A year after the revolution began and as she awaits news from a prestigious photography school in Germany, Julia volunteers at the military hospital for injured soldiers coming directly from the front. Julia brings a carefree happiness to their ward, until the day she meets an Englishman who has arrived with easily mended surface wounds and deeply set emotional scaring.

* All proceeds from this event will go towards the direct support for Ukrainian filmmakers.

Q&A
with director Roxy Toporowych