Królestwo / Kingdom / Königreich

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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