Author: fsk

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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DU CÔTÉ DE ROBINSON (1964) Two young men out loo­king for women one Sunday after­noon in Montmartre. The film focu­ses on ever­y­day occur­ren­ces that were not nor­mal­ly depic­ted in the cine­ma of that era.
FR 1964. Director: Jean Eustache. Starring: Aristide Demonico, Daniel Bart, Dominique Jayr. 42 mins. French with German subtitles

LE PÈRE NOËL A LES YEUX BLEUS (1966) To rai­se money for a coat, a young man takes a job as a depart­ment-store Father Christmas. Once again, Eustache blends obser­va­tions of ever­y­day life with fic­tion, ther­eby pain­ting a melan­cho­lic por­trait of a pro­vin­cial town.
FR 1966. Director: Jean Eustache. Starring: Jean-Pierre Léaud, Gérard Zimmerman, Henri Martinez. 47 mins. French with German subtitles

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Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

Two docu­men­ta­ries about the elec­tion and the fes­ti­val of the Rose Queen in Pessac, near Bordeaux, which take place every year in April and June. The com­pi­la­ti­on does not take an expli­cit stance on the events; its straight­for­ward docu­men­ta­ti­on, film­ed in 1968 and ele­ven years later, high­lights the chan­ges that have taken place.
FR 1968. Director: Jean Eustache. 65 Min. French with German sub­tit­les &
FR 1979. Director: Jean Eustache. . 67 Min. French with German subtitles

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UNE SALE HISTOIRE (1977) con­sists of two films: first, a 16mm film was made in the style of ciné­ma véri­té, in which a man recounts his voy­eu­ristic expe­ri­en­ces in the toi­let of a Parisian café, whe­re he dis­co­ver­ed a hole in the wall lea­ding to the ladies’ toi­let. Eustache later had his text nar­ra­ted by a pro­fes­sio­nal actor, shot on 35mm. However, the films are scree­ned in rever­se order, with the fic­tion shown befo­re the docu­men­ta­ry – which natu­ral­ly rai­ses the ques­ti­on of what is real and what is not in the sto­ry told by Picq. In this way, Eustache suc­cee­ded in crea­ting a uni­que reflec­tion on the rela­ti­onship bet­ween the docu­men­ta­ry and the fic­tion­al.
FR 1977. Director: Jean Eustache; Film 1: Cast: Michael Lonsdale. 28 Min. frz. OmU, Film 2: Cast: Jean-Noël Picq. 22 Min. frz.. OmU 

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Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

NUMÉRO ZÉRO (1971) – the title refers to a kind of start­ing point, and inde­ed, Eustache has, in cine­ma­tic terms, star­ted afresh here: he lets his grand­mo­ther, Odette Robert, recount her life, inter­rupt­ed only by brief ques­ti­ons or comm­ents from Eustache to keep the con­ver­sa­ti­on flowing.
FR ¹⁹⁷¹⁄₂₀₀₂. Director: Jean Eustache. Cast: Odette Robert, Jean Eustache, Boris Eustache. 110 Min. french OmU

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