Aniela lives alone in a dilapidated mansion in the Warsaw suburbs. The house is full of ornaments and memories from decades of her familys history, but old age and lack of resources have left the garden unattended and the entrance gate rusted. The nouveau riche neighbor in the mansion next door offers to buy the house for a handsome sum, in order to tear it down and expand his real estate. Aniela refuses, and her stubbornness grows after her son tries to convince her to sell. Now it all starts to look to her like a plot. In the last decade and a half, Dorota Kêdzierzawska has been among the outstanding voices in Polish cinema. We saw I Am at JFF 2006, following which the Rehovot Women`s Festival held a retrospective of her films. While her previous film dealt with childhood, Time to Die was written especially for the veteran actress Danuta Szaflarska, over 90 years old. Cinematographer Arthur Reinhart composes amazing baroque images—fearlessly using a black and white reminiscent of the glamorous style of the past and helping Kêdzierzawska open a window into the life and fears of a lonely woman nearing the end of her life. 

In the aftermath of a catastrophic epidemic, the survivors flee from the mainland in huge oil tankers, in search for plague-free lands. The leader, obsessed by the need to save the little that’s left of the human race, takes the healthy ones aboard. 

10 – 19 July, Jerusalem Cinematheque, Derech Hebron 11 Jerusalem

For further info & tickets:  www.jff.org.il 

HOMAGE TO CONTEMPORARY POLISH FILMMAKING AND
SCREENING OF THE FILM "IF IT HAPPENS"

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28^TH, 19:00
TEL AVIV CINEMATHEQUE

The homage opening night opens at 07:00 PM by Dr. Mateusz Werner, film coordinator for the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, showing Polish filmmaking since the collapse of Communism, followed by "If it Happens", a documentary by Marcel Lozinski, one of the greatest Polish documentary makers of all times, and a 2008 Academy Award nominee. For the finale of the opening night, we'll have a panel of Polish filmmakers presenting cooperation opportunities for Israeli filmmakers and Polish producers and franchisers, moderated by movie producer Marek Rosenbaum.

The homage includes a daily showing of a Polish film as part of the co-productions market, until the end of May.

Pls find detailed info about the movies to be screened in this link  (SCREENING OF THE HOMAGE FILMS)  All of the movies have Hebrew subtitles.

See you at the Cinematheque!!!

web site: http://www.copro.co.il

Krzysztof Kieslowski – Retrospective and Exhibition
1 April – 31 May

Krzysztof Kieslowski is one of the most exquisite and best known Polish directors. The cycle of presentations will include student short studies, documentary films and feature films. Apart from titles known all over the world, such as The Decalogue, The Double Life of Veronique, or Three Colours, the audience will be able to acquaint itself with less known productions which too have a permanent place in the history of cinema.

The retrospective will be accompanied by an exhibition prepared by the Museum of Cinematography in Łódź. The exhibition Krzysztof Kieślowski – Traces and memory is a biographical retrospective documentation of the private and artistic life of the director. The exhibition features many items: photographs, press cuts, Polish and foreign posters, reviews, catalogues and many publications, as well as archival materials that have never been displayed before. The exhibition has been prepared in cooperation with the film studio TOR, the Publishing house SKORPION, the Polish Institute in Dusseldorf and the Polish Film Institute in Warsaw. The brochure about the review will be published in Hebrew.

1 April – 31 May 2008

Jerusalem Cinematheque, Derech Hebron, www.jer-cin.org.il

Tel Aviv Cinematheque, Sprinzak 2, www.cinema.co.il

Haifa Cinematheque, Sderot Hanasi 142, www.haifa.gov.il/cinema

Tickets: www.ticketnet.co.il

Polish student films at the 12^th International Student Film Festival
May 31 – June7, Tel Aviv Cinematheque

Every other June a unique cinematic event takes place in Tel-Aviv: The International Student Film Festival. It is a week of youthful and daring cinema, fascinating events, workshops, conferences and exhibitions that brings the scent of the wide world to the city of Tel-Aviv .In its attempt to challenge cultural and social norms, the Festival brings together youth, students, academics, filmmakers, artists, journalists and intellectuals from Israel and around the world. They all get together for a shared experience of vibrant art and fresh points of view on the current cinematic discourse. Usually Polish film students win festival's prizes. We expect the same this year.

May 31 – June 7, Tel Aviv Cinematheque, Shprinzak 2

For further info: www.taufilmfest.com

10^th Doc-Aviv festival
April 3-12, Tel Aviv Cinematheque
Participation of Director Krzysztof Kopczynski

Director Krzysztof Kopcsynski will participate in the international competition with his movie Stone Silence.  The First Day, another of Kopczynski's films, this time as producer, will be screened as well. A meeting with the artist will follow each of the screenings.

Stone Silence (Poland, 2007, 51 Min, Dari, Hebrew Subtitles)

In a mountainous village in North Afghanistan, Amina, 25, is murdered after being found in Karim''s home. In this veiled, harsh environment, these are the only facts that everyone agrees upon. Was she strangled, stoned to death or did she die of a heart attack? Did she have a relationship with Karim - were they lovers?

Attempts to find the truth, allow us a fascinating look at life and at the traditional codes of behavior that tear apart the very fabric of this small, sparse, Muslim community.

The First Day Director: Marcin Sauter (Poland, 2007, 20 Min, Russian, Hebrew Subtitles)

The children, aged 7, are separated from their tents, their families and their native way of life on the frozen plains of the Yamal Peninsula. Taken by boat or helicopter, they find themselves on their first day in the Russian education system. A far cry from nomads to the 21st century.

April 7, 8 at 12:00

April 9 18:00

April 11 10:00

Tel Aviv Cinematheque, Sprinzak 2 Tel Aviv

Selected documentary films by Krzysztof Kieślowski

The years 1966-80 were an especially fruitful period in the career of Krzysztof Kieślowski in terms of documentaries. At that time, he realized a dozen or so documentary films presenting both a collective and individual protagonists. Some of these films are an attempt at rethinking the theses and propagandist opinions which dominated in Poland under the communist rule.

THE PROGRAMME:

REFRAIN (1972, 10 min, Polish, English and Hebrew Subtitles)

The bureaucracy in the office of a town funeral parlor, with close attention to the clerks: pictures of the dead that are torn from their identity cards, requests, approvals, official seals, the prices of the coffins according to the wood and the lining material.

In the shadow of death the routine and the chatter go on.

FROM THE CITY OF LODZ (1969, 17 min, Polish, English and Hebrew Subtitles)

This is the film for which Kieslowski graduated from Film School. With much patience and minimal intrusion, he observes via his camera, children playing, female workers at the big textile factory, the stormy struggle against the cancellation of the town mandolin orchestra. He passes along the streets and houses, and is present at a teary retirement ceremony for one of the long serving factory workers.

BRICKLAYER (1973, 16 min, Polish, English and Hebrew Subtitles)

The story of a party activist that reached greatness, then, as a result of the events of October ''56, quit and became a brick layer. Kieslowski follows him during the May Day celebrations; getting up in the morning at his home, and later documenting him at the march. Alongside the impressive footage taken straight from the propaganda films, we hear the bitter stories of the bricklayer, who sobered up to the slogans he once swore by in his youth.

FROM A NIGHT'S PORTER POINT OF VIEW (1977, 16 min, Polish, Eng and Heb Sub)

This is the only documentary in which Kieslowski chooses an antihero. A factory guard who is cruel and fanatical in his strictness with anyone who happens to cross his path: young couples on a park bench, fishermen going to sea without a license, workers who didn’t stamp their cards in the entrance to the factory – and he recounts the incidents with great pride.

Kieslowski was concerned that his protagonist would be harmed, and so prevented the film from being screened on TV for many years.

I WAS A SOLDIER (1970, 16 min, Polish, English and Hebrew Subtitles)

An amazingly stylish film about five ex soldiers who were blinded in war and speak about their blindness, their dreams, their memories, the moment they realized they had lost their sight, and their rationalization that, "The war is to blame, obviously".

X-RAY (1974, 13 min, Polish, English and Hebrew Subtitles)

Kieslowski returns to the sanatorium where his father died from Tuberculosis when he was still a child. The patients tell him about the sudden change in their lives due to being hospitalized there, about the isolation and the difficult separation from society, and about the uncertainty of their recovery and a full return to life.

All this sadness is contrasted by the beautiful landscape surrounding them.

TALKING HEADS (1980, 14 min, Polish, English and Hebrew Subtitles)

This is a kind of street survey that Kieslowski edited in chronological order, starting with a one year old infant and ending with a one hundred year old woman. In it he asks every participant to present themselves and to answer the question, "What do you want from life?" Everyone is filmed in close-up, and so he creates a collective portrait of world views, changing over personal and public time.

April 9 18:00

April 12 12:00

Cinematheque2 , Sprinzak 2 Tel Aviv

Tickets and further info www.docaviv.co.il