Author: fsk

PL 2025, 90 mins, ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, Dir: Emi Buchwald / Screenplay: Emi Buchwald, Karol Marczak / Cinematography: Tomasz Gajewski / Editing: Anna Łuka / Music: Katarzyna Gawlik, Jerzy Rogiewicz Cast: Bartłomiej Deklewa, Izabella Dudziak, Tymoteusz Rożynek, Karolina Rzepa, Piotr Napierała, Daria Muszyńska, Andrzej Kłak, Gabriela Arak, Aleksander Janiszewski, Krzysztof Drozdowski and others.

The came­ra slow­ly pans through fur­nis­hed rooms; sounds from a distant past can be heard; the flat in the old buil­ding appears to be emp­ty. Yet the­re is someone sit­ting on the win­dows­ill – it is a night­ma­re, a mythi­cal figu­re that sits on people’s chests at night and squeezes the life out of them.
The four very dif­fe­rent siblings cle­ar­ly sen­se the pre­sence of this night­ma­re. The flat belongs to them, alt­hough only one of them still lives the­re. But it is not fig­ments of the ima­gi­na­ti­on that are suf­fo­ca­ting them, but very real worries that pla­gue young peo­p­le sear­ching for their place in life in a big city like Warsaw – toxic rela­ti­onships, panic attacks, fear of com­mit­ment. With refres­hing non­cha­lance and a level of dra­ma­tic matu­ri­ty asto­nis­hing for a debut, Emi Buchwald has her fin­ger on the pul­se of a gene­ra­ti­on in which ever­yo­ne is batt­ling their own demons. Perhaps this batt­le can only be won in one way – as a group, or bet­ter still: as a fami­ly. The sen­se of ever­y­day rea­li­ty, which is also reflec­ted in the lan­guage typi­cal of Gen Z, the blend of tra­ge­dy and come­dy, and a subt­ly appli­ed dose of meta­phy­sics come across to German audi­en­ces as a suc­cessful mix of AKIZ’s Der Nachtmahr and Dietrich Brüggemann’s 3 Zimmer/Küche/Bad. [Rainer Mende]

16 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino / Special guest: Emi Buchwald
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PL 2025, 90 mins, ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, , Dir: Kordian Kądziela / Screenplay: Kordian Kądziela, Michał Wawrzecki / Cinematography: Cezary Stolecki / Editor: Magdalena Chowańska / Music: Jan Sanejko / Cast: Filip Zaręba, Martyna Byczkowska, Hubert Łapacz, Mikołaj Chilimończyk, Maciej Bisiorek, Agnieszka Rajda, Andrzej Konopka, Edyta Olszówka, Michał Balicki, Bartłomiej Topa and others.

The Lower Silesian coun­try­si­de isn’t exact­ly brim­ming with attrac­tions for teen­agers. But its wood­lands pro­vi­de the per­fect back­drop for spraw­ling live-action role-play­ing games. It’s cer­tain­ly no coin­ci­dence that their idol, the cele­bra­ted fan­ta­sy aut­hor Lacroix, hails from their back­wa­ter of all places.
Yet it is in ever­y­day life that the lan­ky, self-con­scious ado­le­s­cent Sergiusz must fight his toug­hest batt­les. He is con­stant­ly bul­lied by the son of the village’s richest man; his sin­gle father would like to mould him into a com­pe­ti­ti­ve ath­le­te; and the beau­tiful Helena, who sud­den­ly turns up at school, is making the wrong fri­ends.
Kordian Kądziela’s cri­ti­cal­ly acclai­med box-office hit has ever­y­thing a clas­sic coming-of-age film needs – social con­flicts, a love sto­ry and a healt­hy dose of youthful exu­berance. What makes it spe­cial, along­side num­e­rous ori­gi­nal visu­al ide­as (inclu­ding an incon­gruous 1990s set­ting) and various ton­gue-in-cheek jibes at the LARP and fan­ta­sy sce­nes, is the magni­fi­cent per­for­mance of Andrzej Konopka, who has won mul­ti­ple awards for his role as an over­whel­med father and pro­vin­cial poli­ce­man. [Rainer Mende]

15 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino
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PL 2025, 112 mins, ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, Dir/Screenplay: Michał Ciechomski / Cinematography: Paweł Grabarek / Screenplay: Agnieszka Białek-Zaborowska / Music: Lubomir Grzelak Cast: Bartosz Mikulak, Julian Świeżewski, Jacek Poniedziałek, Aleksander Kaleta, Dawid Piejko, Mateusz Łasowski, Michał Włodarczyk and others

Contemporary Poland is a war zone. Warsaw’s sky­scra­pers are ridd­led with holes, the streets are lit­te­red with corp­ses and shot-up cars, the govern­ment has gone into hiding, and the civi­li­an popu­la­ti­on is try­ing to flee the coun­try whilst the ‘Neo-Barbarians’ con­ti­nue their attacks.
After losing his job too, Dawid actual­ly intends to be smug­g­led abroad with his par­ents. But then he fol­lows his brot­her to the ‘Black Spiders’ – a dubio­us, strict­ly hier­ar­chi­cal group of mar­ti­al-loo­king skin­heads with subt­le homo­ero­tic under­to­nes. They appear to be the last to still stand up to the inva­ders, pre­pa­ring for the final batt­le with small-sca­le mili­ta­ry ope­ra­ti­ons.
Michał Ciechomski’s fea­ture film debut is cine­ma­tic art in its purest form. In his mas­terful­ly craf­ted dys­to­pia, no long take is ordi­na­ry; every shot by Paweł Grabarek’s came­ra embo­dies an ori­gi­nal idea. Jacek Hamela’s expe­ri­men­tal sound design, too, con­sis­t­ent­ly fol­lows a crea­ti­ve prin­ci­ple. This visi­on of war is not heroic action cine­ma, but an audio­vi­su­al chall­enge that makes the col­lap­se of an order almost phy­si­cal­ly pal­pa­ble. [Rainer Mende]

14 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino / Guest: Michał Ciechomski
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PL 2025, 107 mins, Original ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, Director: Wojciech Smarzowski / Cinematography: Paweł Tybora / Screenplay: Krzysztof Komander / Music: Mikołaj Trzaska, Cast: Agata Turkot, Tomasz Schuchardt, Agata Kulesza, Maria Sobocińska, Łukasz Gawroński, Arkadiusz Jakubik, Magdalena Smalara, Julia Kijowska, Andrzej Konopka and others.

Gośka, no lon­ger a spring chi­cken, can bare­ly stand living with her shrewish mother, who can’t stop drin­king or nag­ging her daugh­ter, even at Christmas. Fortunately, the sophisti­ca­ted Grzesiek turns up, a man with both feet firm­ly on the ground. When things go pear-shaped at home once again, Gośka spon­ta­neous­ly packs her bags and moves in with him.
Suddenly, ever­y­thing seems to be taking a turn for the bet­ter – they tra­vel the world tog­e­ther; the mar­ria­ge pro­po­sal in Venice is fol­lo­wed by the wed­ding and the birth of a daugh­ter. Yet the dome­stic idyll gra­du­al­ly turns into a night­ma­re. For within their own four walls, Grzesiek beco­mes a tyrant who does not shy away from psy­cho­lo­gi­cal and phy­si­cal abu­se.
With his ninth fea­ture film, Smarzowski once again impres­si­ve­ly mana­ges to gar­ner cri­ti­cal accla­im and awards, whilst also raking in box-office takings and spar­king a social deba­te. Once again, along­side Krzysztof Komander, he pro­ves hims­elf a mas­ter at the editing desk and – thanks in part to the per­for­man­ces of Agata Turkot and Tomasz Schuchardt as Gośka and Grzesiek – mana­ges to strike a balan­ce bet­ween a wide­ly acces­si­ble dra­ma and a sophisti­ca­ted art­house film. [Rainer Mende]

13 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino / Guest: Wojciech Smarzowski
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PL/VN/CH/CZ/QA 2025, 93 mins, ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, Dir/Screenplay: Weronika Mliczewska / Cinematography: Mikael Lypinski / Editing: Marcin Sucharski, Mateusz Romaszkan / Music: Joaquin Garcia

Sang is a ‘dust child’ – he has a Vietnamese mother and an American father who left the coun­try after the end of the Vietnam War and has been miss­ing ever sin­ce. As a fat­her­less child of mixed eth­nic heri­ta­ge, this slum dwel­ler and illi­te­ra­te man has felt mar­gi­na­li­sed all his life and has always lived in pre­ca­rious cir­cum­s­tances. But he has not given up the fight for a life of digni­ty – whe­ther by start­ing a fami­ly or by sear­ching for his father. And even in a docu­men­ta­ry, mira­cles some­ti­mes hap­pen: a DNA test leads Sang to his father, who­se child­ren in the US had pre­vious­ly known not­hing of their brot­her in Vietnam. Crossing all cul­tu­ral and lin­gu­i­stic boun­da­ries, they make cont­act and soon embark on a joint pro­ject: to bring Sang to the United States so that he can be clo­se to his second fami­ly and, even­tual­ly, bring his wife and daugh­ter over to join him. With her first fea­ture-length film, Weronika Mliczewska has hers­elf achie­ved a small mira­cle. She gets asto­nis­hin­gly clo­se to her prot­ago­nists and uses her came­ra to docu­ment a blend of dra­ma, crime thril­ler and fami­ly tra­ge­dy, brim­ming with extra­or­di­na­ry sce­nes and sur­pri­sing twists. In doing so, she tack­les ques­ti­ons of home, social struc­tu­re, guilt, respon­si­bi­li­ty and ato­ne­ment at a breathl­ess pace.
[Rainer Mende]

13 September / 3:00pm / fsk Kino / Guest: Weronika Mliczewska
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PL 2025, 90 mins, ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, Dir: Robert Kwilman / Screenplay: Robert Kwilman, Malwina Górecka, Kirk Kjeldsen / Cinematography: Kasper Lorek / Editing: Ming-Wei Chiang Cast: Daniel Felipe, Jimenez Vaquez, Ivan Sharan, Josiana Costales, Justa Beatriz Blanco Rojas, Alejandra Herrera, Victor Venecia Fuentes, Gerson Isai Lam Lopez, Sebastian Stankiewicz, Michał Balicki and others

A group of men and women from Latin America are dri­ven in a small mini­bus to a remo­te part of the Polish coun­try­si­de. There, they are pre­sen­ted with con­tracts writ­ten in a lan­guage they do not under­stand, in which the 3,500 dol­lars pro­mi­sed back home have sud­den­ly beco­me 3,500 zło­ty. Worse still: they are forced to hand over their pass­ports and, ins­tead of working in a hotel, the­se con­tracts bind them to mono­to­no­us, gruel­ling work in a butcher’s shop. They are also fleeced for extra money for the shab­by hos­tel, and health and safe­ty is a for­eign con­cept. What was plan­ned as a stay to earn money soon feels like a pri­son with forced labour.
Robert Kwilman brea­thes new life into social cine­ma in the style of Ken Loach and skilful­ly employs his tech­ni­ques. In the style of a docu­men­ta­ry, with a shaky hand­held came­ra, wit­hout music or arti­fi­ci­al light­ing, he brings us as clo­se as pos­si­ble to the film’s tra­gic heroes, who soon ask them­sel­ves: should they sil­ent­ly endu­re this bla­tant inju­s­ti­ce, rebel, or flee? Without sugar-coa­ting any­thing, Kwilman por­trays a Poland that has trans­for­med from a coun­try of emi­gra­ti­on to one of immi­gra­ti­on, with all its dark sides. [Rainer Mende]

12 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino / Guest: Robert Kwilman
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PL 2026, 102 mins, Original ver­si­on with English sub­tit­les. Dir: Łukasz Ronduda / Screenplay: Łukasz Ronduda, Agata K. Koschmieder / Cinematography: Weronika Bilska / Editing: Agata Cierniak. Cast: Jan Sałasiński, Izabella Dudziak, Anita Poddębniak, Adam Szyszkowski, Aleksandra Justa, Andrzej Konopka and others.

Patryk comes from the coun­try­si­de, whe­re his desti­tu­te par­ents scra­pe by sel­ling scrap metal on a run-down farm. But he doesn’t want to beco­me a far­mer – he rents a cheap room in Warsaw, wears bright­ly colou­red second-hand clo­thes and tri­es to make a name for hims­elf as an artist.
One day, he stumbles upon a per­for­mance art exhi­bi­ti­on whe­re Maria buys visi­tors’ tears and dis­plays them. She comes from a wealt­hy fami­ly in the city – yet during a role-play, it beco­mes clear that Maria, just like the tearless Patryk, is deep­ly bur­den­ed by trau­ma. In some respects, they are kind­red spi­rits. Their rela­ti­onship deve­lo­ps into a rol­ler­co­as­ter ride that beco­mes a tri­al by fire on social, ero­tic, emo­tio­nal and artis­tic levels. Once again, Łukasz Ronduda pulls off a mas­ter­stro­ke by seam­less­ly embed­ding artis­tic ques­ti­ons and real works of art into a film nar­ra­ti­ve, ensu­ring that neither the dis­cour­se beco­mes too intellec­tu­al nor the art is tri­via­li­sed. Having alre­a­dy por­tray­ed an artist cou­ple in Heart of Love (2017), he now intro­du­ces the aspect of clas­sism into a rela­ti­onship sto­ry. In doing so, he once again draws on real-life models – Patryk’s model is the artist Patryk Różycki, whilst the visu­al artist Karolina Balcer ser­ved as the inspi­ra­ti­on for the cha­rac­ter of Maria. [Rainer Mende]

12 September / 3.00 pm / fsk Kino / Guest: Andrzej Konopka
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PL 2025, 70 mins, ori­gi­nal ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les, Dir/Screenplay/Cinematography: Natalia Pietsch, Grzegorz Piekarski / Editors: Alan Zejer, Michał Buczek / Music: Jozef van Wissem, Ali Ayhan

The anci­ent town of Hasankeyf on the Tigris, set amidst the rug­ged moun­tai­nous land­scape of Northern Kurdistan, is home to an old fort­ress. Its caves, too, are of gre­at cul­tu­ral and his­to­ri­cal value. Yet time and again, loud explo­si­ons shake the town – not from gun­fi­re, but from blas­ting. The Turkish govern­ment has deci­ded to build a huge dam that will gra­du­al­ly flood the town.
Life is gra­du­al­ly fading away; bit by bit, the buil­dings are being demo­lished and the resi­dents evacua­ted. A few kilo­me­t­res away, a brand-new town awaits them – meti­cu­lous­ly plan­ned and effi­ci­ent, but devo­id of histo­ry and soul. This is whe­re Burak, a hair­dress­er, and his deaf father, along with the young Rengin, who dreams of stu­dy­ing far away, are also due to move. They are among the last to remain in Hasankeyf, whilst next door the excava­tors are dis­mant­ling the his­to­ric buil­dings. The direc­tors do not pre­sent a poli­ti­cal pam­phlet on the deli­be­ra­te des­truc­tion of natu­re and cul­tu­re, but rather a sen­si­ti­ve por­trait of peo­p­le who­se fami­li­ar sur­roun­dings are sim­ply dis­ap­pearing. Using a sta­tic came­ra and subt­ly employ­ed music, they casual­ly gather small details which, taken tog­e­ther, tell a grand sto­ry. [Rainer Mende]

11 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino / Guests: Natalia Pietsch & Grzegorz Piekarski
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PL/FI/NO 2025, 78 mins, Original ver­si­on with German and English sub­tit­les Director: Natalia Koniarz / Cinematography: Stanisław Cuske / Editor: Yael Bitton / Music: Yngve Leidulv Sætre, Marcin Lenarczyk

Over the cour­se of five cen­tu­ries, vast quan­ti­ties of sil­ver have been extra­c­ted from Cerro Rico. It has brought gre­at wealth to the Bolivian city of Potosí at its foot, but also count­less casu­al­ties. Today, the hol­lo­wed-out moun­tain resem­bles a Swiss cheese, with only a handful of dare­de­vils – or despe­ra­te souls – ven­tu­ring into the crumbling tun­nels. They have neither modern tech­no­lo­gy nor insu­rance cover, nor a health­ca­re sys­tem. The poli­ce have with­drawn; the area is dan­ge­rous and rife with crime, and the water is con­ta­mi­na­ted. Many of the miners are underage; hard­ly anyo­ne lives to see their 40th bir­th­day.
In her dis­ar­ming and remar­kab­ly matu­re stu­dy of this milieu – remar­kab­le for a debut – Natalia Koniarz plun­ges us right into the heart of this hosti­le envi­ron­ment, which reflects much of what is going wrong in the glo­bal eco­no­my. She takes us into claus­tro­pho­bic shafts whe­re dyna­mi­te is con­stant­ly explo­ding, into makes­hift huts wit­hout elec­tri­ci­ty, into brot­hels and onto spoil heaps that beco­me play­grounds. The focus is on child­ren who were born into the­se con­di­ti­ons and who, from the moment of their birth, had vir­tual­ly no future. We stumb­le through the men­acing sce­n­ery wit­hout any sen­se of chro­no­lo­gy or spa­ti­al ori­en­ta­ti­on, sens­ing that we, too, bear some of the bla­me. [Rainer Mende]

10 September / 8.00 pm / fsk Kino / Special guest: Natalia Koniarz
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