Paintings That Stepped Out of the Frame

Wilhelm Sasnal’s Paintings in The Assistant

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Anka Sasnal and Wilhelm Sasnal „The Assistant” (2025), film still, photo by Marek Gardulski, courtesy of the artist.

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka

The paintings were created for a film. They were meant to hang on the walls of an elegant villa, accompany the characters, and help shape the atmosphere of the story. Yet before Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal’s film The Assistant reached cinemas, the canvases painted by Wilhelm had already found their way into the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. What was intended as part of a film set became the subject of an artistic story of its own.

These paintings echo the work of the great masters of the European avant-garde — Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Braque. Sasnal, however, does not simply copy their works. Instead, he enters into a dialogue with them, drawing on recognizable motifs and giving them new meanings.

Masters of the Avant-Garde in the Toblers’ Villa

The Assistant, inspired by Robert Walser’s 1908 novel, takes us, among other places, into the elegant villa of the inventor Carl Tobler. Inside, among the furniture and everyday objects, hang paintings that are sure to catch the eye of anyone familiar with the history of modern art.

Familiar shapes, colors, and compositions emerge, as though Matisse, Picasso, and Braque had been invited into the Toblers’ home. Yet none of these canvases was painted by their hands. All were created by Wilhelm Sasnal, who moves freely among the artistic inspirations of these great masters.

Wilhelm Sasnal
Untitled (after Henri Matisse’s “The Green Stripe”), 2023,
Oil on canvas, wooden frame, 72.5 × 52.5 cm,
Photo by Marek Gardulski, courtesy of the artist.

Particularly striking is a 2023 portrait inspired by Henri Matisse’s famous Portrait of Madame Matisse. The Green Stripe (1905). In the original painting, Matisse portrayed his wife, Amélie, dividing her face with a bold green stripe. The intense, almost clashing colors made the portrait one of the most recognizable works of Fauvism.

More than a century later, Wilhelm Sasnal revisits this composition. The familiar face appears in a new context, in a different time and a different story. In one scene, the portrait hangs on the wall behind the characters as they converse. It remains silent, yet it is difficult to escape the impression that it, too, is taking part in the scene. After all, it carries a history of its own, one that reaches far beyond the events unfolding on screen.

Wilhelm Sasnal
Untitled (after Georges Braque’s “Still Life”), 2023,
Oil on canvas, wooden frame, 202.5 × 142.5 cm,
Photo by Marek Gardulski, courtesy of the artist.

The same is true of a still life inspired by the work of Georges Braque. Fragmented forms, geometric divisions, and overlapping perspectives bring a sense of unease to the villa’s interior, reflecting the Cubist way of seeing the world. The painting hangs above Mrs. Tobler’s bed. As Sasnal explained in an interview with Apollo Magazine, the Cubist fragmentation of reality was intended to mirror the disintegration of the Tobler family’s seemingly orderly world. Beneath an outward appearance of stability and harmony lie deep internal fractures.

Wilhelm Sasnal
Untitled (after Pablo Picasso’s “The Absinthe Drinker”), 2023,
Oil on canvas, wooden frame, 110 × 80 cm,
Photo by Marek Gardulski, courtesy of the artist.

Among the paintings created for the film is also Sasnal’s interpretation of Pablo Picasso’s The Absinthe Drinker. In a conversation with Adam Szymczyk, Wilhelm Sasnal recalled that, in choosing the colors for this canvas, he sought to convey Mrs. Tobler’s loneliness. The painting is therefore more than a reference to art history. It also becomes a subtle commentary on the character’s emotional state.

An Encounter Between Eras

Why Matisse, Picasso, and Braque?

Robert Walser’s novel was published in 1908, at a time when European art was undergoing one of its most profound transformations. Just a year earlier, Picasso had painted Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, heralding a radically new way of seeing and representing reality. Matisse was experimenting with color, while Braque was breaking objects down into geometric forms. Painting was freeing itself from the obligation to faithfully reproduce the visible world.

Wilhelm Sasnal evokes the spirit of this artistic upheaval without attempting to reconstruct the period with museum-like precision. Here, the past meets the present, and the boundaries of time become surprisingly fluid.

Alongside references to the early twentieth-century avant-garde, motifs from entirely different decades appear. In one scene, Joseph Marti hangs a painting by Sasnal in his room, inspired by the cover of a 1984 album by the British band The Smiths. The film also makes room for a copy of a 1924 sculpture by Katarzyna Kobro, created by Sasnal himself.

Anka Sasnal i Wilhelm Sasnal „Człowiek do wszystkiego”, 2025 – kadr z filmu.
Joseph Marti wiesza w swoim pokoju obraz W. Sasnala inspirowany okładką albumu brytyjskiego zespołu The Smiths z 1984 r., fot. Marek Gardulski, dzięki uprzejmości artysty.

The result is a space where different eras and artistic styles mingle freely, much like memories that do not always follow a chronological order.

The paintings also reveal something about the villa’s owner. Carl Tobler is an ambitious man, confident in his abilities and eager to be seen as an inventor and a man of the modern age. The art he surrounds himself with may reflect his taste, but also his aspirations and desire for social recognition.

The interior of the house thus becomes a kind of portrait of its owner. What hangs on the walls speaks not only of Tobler’s artistic preferences, but also of the image he wishes to project.

Anka Sasnal and Wilhelm Sasnal, „The Assistant” (2025), film still. Photo by Marek Gardulski, courtesy of the artist.

Paintings That Step Out of the Frame

The story of these canvases, however, does not end on the film set.

In 2024, while The Assistant was still in production, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam presented an exhibition titled Wilhelm Sasnal: Painting as Prop. It was curated by Adam Szymczyk, a Polish art critic known, among other things, for serving as the artistic director of documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens.

The exhibition, on view from March 30 to September 1, 2024, featured 25 paintings, including canvases created for the film as well as other works by Sasnal exploring recurring themes of art history, photography, and memory. The exhibition had already been planned while the film was in production, giving the paintings an opportunity from the outset to exist in both cinematic and museum settings.

The exhibition’s title itself suggested a certain paradox. Does a painting created as a film prop remain merely a prop? Is its meaning defined by the setting for which it was made?

In a film, paintings are part of a larger whole. The camera may linger on them for a moment or pass them by as it follows the characters. In a museum, the relationship is reversed. The paintings themselves take center stage, and viewers can devote as much time to them as they wish.

Yet the story of these paintings did not end with the final clap of the clapperboard. Wilhelm Sasnal returned to some of the canvases, reworking their compositions, enriching their painted surfaces, and moving further away from their original inspirations. In an interview with Apollo Magazine, he acknowledged that the paintings had initially been created rather quickly, primarily as film props. Only later did he feel the need to give them greater depth and independence as works of art.

And so their second life began. Created for the camera, they were now free from its gaze. In the museum, they no longer had to accompany the characters or serve the film’s narrative. They could speak in a language of their own — the language of painting.

Anka Sasnal and Wilhelm Sasnal, „The Assistant” (2025), film still. Photo by Marek Gardulski, courtesy of the artist.

Between Painting and Cinema

Wilhelm Sasnal is both a painter and a filmmaker, although he is reluctant to treat these two aspects of his work as a single artistic practice. In interviews, he emphasizes the differences between them. For him, cinema is primarily about storytelling unfolding over time, shaped by movement, events, and relationships between people. Painting follows a different set of rules.

And yet, in The Assistant, these two worlds come together in a particularly compelling way.

The paintings are more than mere decorations. They bring their own histories and meanings into the film. At times they remain almost unnoticed; at others, they catch the viewer’s eye with a familiar motif or an unexpected combination of colors. Together, they create a second, subtle layer of storytelling.

One can follow the story of Joseph Marti without recognizing a single artistic reference. But a closer look reveals another story unfolding behind the characters — the story of art itself, continually returning, taking on new meanings, and finding its place in new contexts.

In Anka and Wilhelm Sasnal’s film, painting moves beyond the boundaries of its frame to become part of cinema. It then leaves the screen and returns to the gallery, carrying with it the experience of another story.

For a painting, even one created for a film, need not remain in its shadow.

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Sources:

1. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam — Wilhelm Sasnal: Painting as Prop, exhibition, March 30 – September 1, 2024.
2. Conversation between Wilhelm Sasnal and Adam Szymczyk, Stedelijk Museum, 2024.
3. “The Set Pieces of Wilhelm Sasnal,” Apollo Magazine, March 21, 2025.
4. Art Basel — materials on Wilhelm Sasnal’s paintings and his exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum.
5. Robert Walser, Der Gehülfe (The Assistant), 1908.

In Search of Memory

Stefan Tompson. Photo: Stefan Tompson’s personal archive.

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka talks with Stefan Tompson — documentary filmmaker, promoter of Polish history, and co-creator, with Patrick Ney, of Covenant of Blood: The Last Soldiers of World War II.

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Family Roots

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka: You were born in London, have Polish and British roots, and your family history also extends to South Africa. What was your upbringing like?

Stefan Tompson: My father is British, from South Africa. His family has lived there since the early nineteenth century. He left South Africa in the 1980s. On my mother’s side, I’m Polish. She, too, was born in the West. We grew up across several cultures: we spoke Polish with our mother and English with our father, and we attended French schools.

You speak Polish without a noticeable foreign accent. Who do you have to thank for that?

My mother. She put an enormous amount of effort into it. Polish was the language of our home, and we also attended Polish Saturday schools. Before 2004, those schools were primarily places where the children of wartime émigrés and those who had left Poland during the Solidarity era came together. These communities had strong ties to Poland and were firmly anti-communist. Later waves of immigration changed that community considerably.

Why did the Polish side of your family go into exile?

Stefan Tompson: They didn’t leave for economic reasons. There were Polish diplomats in the family, and the war, followed by communism, meant they couldn’t return. When the war broke out, my grandmother was staying at the family estate near Lwów. By 1940, she was in London. My grandfather was a diplomat in Brazil and later ended up in Britain as well.

Is there a story passed down in your family that captures that experience of exile particularly well?

There’s a story about my grandmother. After the war, my grandfather bought her some flower seeds. My grandmother, who had grown up on an estate with vast stretches of land, said she had never imagined that one day she wouldn’t have enough soil to fill a pot and plant some flowers.

To me, that story captures the fate of people who grew up in prosperity and then found themselves in exile with almost nothing. In London, they recreated their world: they established Polish institutions, clubs, schools, and parishes. There were organizations such as Ognisko Polskie and POSK, the Polish Social and Cultural Association. A whole network of families knew one another and kept their connection to Poland alive.

How much of that world has survived in your generation?

A great deal has changed. What pains me most is the loss of the language and the connection to Poland in successive generations. Among the people I know, there are few families like ours, in which those born in the West still speak Polish fluently. That makes me appreciate my mother’s efforts all the more.

I also look at the later waves of emigration. Poles are very hardworking and enterprising. I saw educated people arrive in Britain and take jobs far below their qualifications. There is dignity in all work, but it was difficult to see their potential going to waste. Many eventually became financially secure and joined the British middle class. From Poland’s perspective, though, the question remains: how many will return, and what connection to the country will their children retain?

Jakub Nowakowski, codename “Tomek,” and Daniela Ogińska, codename “Pszczoła.” Photo: Stefan Tompson’s personal archive.

Returning to the Land of My Ancestors

When and why did you decide to settle in Poland?

In 2015. I was 22 at the time. As I mentioned, my family hadn’t ended up in Britain by choice. After the war, they wanted to return and help rebuild Poland, but that wasn’t possible. I felt that, now that Poland was a free country, I could live and work there, pay taxes, and build businesses. I also wanted to start a family and raise my children in Poland.

I still spend a lot of time in South Africa and other African countries, where we also have clients. But I wanted to make Poland my home and contribute to its development.

You say “I returned,” even though you were born in London.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t a return to my birthplace. But across the generations, that is how I see it: as bringing my family’s forced exile to an end. I came with my brother, and my sister later moved here too. Of the four of us siblings, three now live in Poland. Our parents also spend part of the year here.

I’m very happy with that decision. I can see how Poland is developing. It also meant a great deal to me that I arrived in time to get to know many veterans, Warsaw Uprising participants, and members of the anti-communist underground. In 2015–2016, I spent a lot of time with them.

Stefan Tompson with Józef Bandzo, codename “Jastrząb.” Photo: Stefan Tompson’s personal archive.

Family History and Film

Did your interest in communism and the people who resisted it stem from your family’s experiences?

Absolutely. Communism was the reason our family wasn’t in Poland. Two of my grandfather’s brothers were murdered at Katyń. So my relationship with that system is deeply personal.

I see its consequences on several levels: in the murder of people and the destruction of the country’s elites, in the loss of economic potential, but also in the destruction of a sense of beauty. I look at prewar architecture, at the cities and what Poles managed to create despite the partitions. Then I see the grayness and uniformity imposed by communism. To me, those wounds are still visible, not only in Poland but also in other countries across Central and Eastern Europe.

Did that desire to tell the story of life under communism lead to Covenant of Blood: The Last Soldiers of World War 2, the film about Poland’s postwar underground resistance that you co-directed with Patrick Ney, a Briton fascinated by Polish history?

Yes, but paying tribute to the people who actually fought against that ideology was just as important. Earlier, I made a film called Oni budowali nasze szczęście (“They Built Our Happiness”), about entrepreneurs working under communist rule in Poland, including private market gardeners. It was a tribute to the unsung heroes of small business who tried to make a living despite the system.

With the film about the soldiers of the anti-communist resistance, I felt this was our last chance to reach the surviving witnesses. It was also important to me to tell their story in English. I wanted people who don’t have access to Polish-language material to learn about their sacrifice and courage.

Stefan Tompson with Maria Mirecka-Loryś. Photo: Stefan Tompson’s personal archive.

You speak of a debt to these people. What does that debt mean to you?

Above all, it is a moral debt. There were people who not only refused to take part in the system but chose to fight it, risking everything. I think of Hieronim Dekutowski, Łukasz Ciepliński, August Emil Fieldorf, Witold Pilecki, and Zygmunt Szendzielarz and his soldiers. Their lives took different paths, and their forms of resistance varied, but they shared a willingness to make sacrifices.

I also see a continuity of resistance that later found expression in workers’ protests, opposition activism, and the Solidarity movement. Through this film, I wanted to repay my own debt to the soldiers of the anti-communist resistance.

Who is the film intended for?

Two groups. The first is people of Polish descent who no longer speak Polish but are interested in their roots. The second is international audiences interested in Poland and the experience of communism.

In the West, the story of Solidarity and the strikes at the Gdańsk Shipyard is well known. Far fewer people know about those who took up armed resistance after the war. We wanted to tell that chapter of the story too.

Patrick Ney. Photo: press materials.

Collaboration and Personal Encounters

How did you meet Patrick Ney, and what brought you together?

We met online about ten years ago. We were both making short films and conducting interviews, telling stories about Poland in English. Over time, a close friendship developed. We’re very fond of each other and have great respect for one another.

Patrick has no Polish roots. He met a Polish woman and moved first to Wrocław, then to Warsaw. He started a family here and joined the Territorial Defence Forces. To me, he is an example of someone who not only fell in love with Poland but became Polish. He found tradition, faith, and common sense here — things that can also draw people from other countries.

Which of your encounters with veterans have stayed with you most vividly?

I was friends with Józef Bandzo, codename “Jastrząb,” a soldier who served under Zygmunt Szendzielarz, known as “Łupaszka.” He spent sixteen years in communist prisons. I interviewed him for one of my earliest, still very amateur films, W poszukiwaniu ojczyzny (“In Search of a Homeland”). I was 22 at the time.

I asked the veterans what Poles were like. Bandzo replied, “Poles are good. Poles are a good people.” I often return to those words. I think of goodness, truth, and beauty as interconnected values. That simple answer has stayed with me ever since.

Stefan Tompson with Józef Bandzo, codename “Jastrząb.” Photo: Stefan Tompson’s personal archive.

Whose story moves you most deeply today?

Since becoming a father to a daughter, I see Inka’s story differently (Danuta Siedzikówna, a Home Army medic sentenced to death in 1946 as part of the communist regime’s campaign of repression — editor’s note). I knew her story before, but fatherhood has changed the way I experience it. I think of that seventeen-year-old girl and her words to her grandmother: “I behaved as I should.” Those words move me deeply.

I would like to raise my daughter to have that same moral backbone. To me, Inka’s story embodies a healthy Polish patriotism: an understanding that there are values you cannot abandon under pressure. I also think of her family, who lost so much, and of the grandmother to whom she addressed those words.

What do you think the people in these stories have in common?

Extraordinary courage. I am moved by people who knew how overwhelmingly powerful their enemy was and yet chose to fight. I think, for instance, of Zdzisław Badocha, codename “Żelazny,” and the photographs of that young, smiling man. I also think of the tragic fate of Józef Kuraś, known as “Ogień,” and the recollections of his soldiers.

What moves me most is their willingness to give everything, including their lives. I felt that when I recorded my conversations with the veterans, and it has stayed with me ever since.

A Censored Work. The Extraordinary Story Behind the Poster for Andrzej Wajda’s Film "Man of Marble"

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka

One of the Italian posters for Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble conceals a story far larger than the history of the film itself. It begins with a painting by Franco Scepi depicting a man whose head is built like a brick wall, from which a dove emerges together with the hammer and sickle. Then the symbols of communism disappear. Nearly twenty years later, in a handwritten letter to the artist, Andrzej Wajda would write: “I persuaded you at the time to change the concept and censored the work.” And the image, born in the 1970s, would begin an entirely new life as Man of Peace — a symbol associated with Mikhail Gorbachev and Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

Franco Scepi, poster design for Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble, 1978. In this version, the hammer and sickle have disappeared, while the bird emerging from the open brick-built head remains. Photo courtesy of Franco Scepi.

When I approached the Italian artist Franco Scepi to ask permission to display his poster for Man of Marble in an exhibition being prepared for the Austin Polish Film Festival, I expected a brief answer: yes or no.

Permission came. But with it, I received something I had not expected at all.

Franco Scepi sent photographs, documentation tracing the successive incarnations of his work, and a copy of a handwritten letter from Andrzej Wajda. He wrote that he wanted to share a story he considered very important and one that, in his view, is not widely known in Poland. He had created the poster at Andrzej Wajda’s request in 1978.

The most remarkable item, however, was a one-page letter dated March 12, 1996, handwritten by Andrzej Wajda to Franco Scepi. It begins with the words: “Dear Friend.”

Andrzej Wajda writes that he was immensely pleased that the first version of the poster for Man of Marble had been rediscovered. Then comes a sentence one would hardly expect: “At the time, I persuaded you to change the concept and censored the work.”

The director does not shift responsibility onto some anonymous “censorship.” He writes in the first person. He adds that his decision was evidence not only of the pressure he was under at the time, but also — as he himself puts it — of his “smallness of heart.” He admits that he did not believe the communist system would ever collapse or that the hammer and sickle would cease to “haunt the world.”

It is an extraordinary testimony. Not because it reveals the existence of censorship in communist Poland — we know that all too well. What is extraordinary is that, nearly twenty years later, one of Poland’s most distinguished film directors returned to a single decision concerning a poster and described his own conduct without constructing an exculpatory narrative around it.

There is something profoundly human in this letter: the memory of fear, an awareness of compromise, and relief that the original version of the work survived.

Handwritten letter from Andrzej Wajda to Franco Scepi, Warsaw, March 12, 1996. In it, the director revisits the history of the first version of the poster for Man of Marble and writes about his decision to alter the concept of the work. Photo courtesy of Franco Scepi.

A Head Made of Brick

Franco Scepi’s first painting is unsettling. A human head rises from the ground, built like a wall of bricks. The skull is open. Inside it, against a background of sky, are the hammer and sickle, intertwined with the movement of a white bird.

Franco Scepi recalls that the painting was created in 1977 and that its inspiration was connected with Kraków and the then Archbishop of Kraków, Karol Wojtyła. Today, a monumental version of the work is housed at Museo MAGI ’900.

In 1978, the artist created a design based on the same motif. A year later, he returned to it when preparing the Italian poster for Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble. But something had changed. The hammer and sickle had disappeared.

On the L’uomo di marmo poster, the man built of bricks remains. His head is still open to the sky, but now only the bird emerges from within. The hammer and sickle are gone.

If we had only the two images, one might wonder whether this was an aesthetic decision, a change in composition, or an intervention by the Italian distributor. The 1996 letter removes that uncertainty. It was Andrzej Wajda who asked Franco Scepi to change the concept. And years later, Wajda himself described that intervention as censorship.

There is an extraordinary paradox in this story, because Man of Marble is itself one of the most important Polish films about the manipulation of truth by the communist system.

Aleksander Ścibor-Rylski’s screenplay had been written many years earlier, but for a long time it could not be produced because of censorship. The film follows Agnieszka, a young film-school student who tries to reconstruct the fate of Mateusz Birkut — a model worker created by Stalinist propaganda and later erased from official memory.

A film about uncovering the truth beneath a propagandistic image therefore received a poster from which the director himself — under pressure from the political system — persuaded the artist to remove the system’s most direct symbol.

It would be hard to imagine a more ironic commentary on the realities of communist Poland.

Franco Scepi, Italian poster for Andrzej Wajda’s L’Uomo di Marmo (Man of Marble), 1979. The poster notes the critics’ award presented to the film at the Cannes Film Festival in 1978. Photo courtesy of Franco Scepi.

Birkut Built of Bricks

Franco Scepi’s poster is also an exceptionally apt interpretation of the film. Mateusz Birkut is a bricklayer. Propaganda constructs him almost literally out of bricks: production records, newsreels, speeches, and a carefully staged image of the “new man.” In Franco Scepi’s work, the man himself becomes a wall.

There is no conventional portrait of the actor. The face no longer belongs only to Birkut. It is more universal, almost anonymous. The wall encloses the man, yet it is precisely in his head that a space opens through which one can escape. The dove flying upward can be read as freedom, thought, truth — something that cannot be completely walled in.

The first version, however, was more overtly political. The bird was not merely escaping confinement: it was carrying the hammer and sickle away with it.

In 1978, Man of Marble was shown at the Cannes Film Festival and received the FIPRESCI Prize, awarded unanimously by the International Federation of Film Critics. Franco Scepi’s Italian poster belongs to this period.

The film began its international life. As it would turn out, Franco Scepi’s image did as well.

Franco Scepi, original version of L’Uomo della Pace (Man of Peace), 1977. From the open brick-built head emerge a dove and the hammer and sickle. Photo courtesy of Franco Scepi.

The First Version Returns

In 1996, the first, unused version of the work was rediscovered. For Andrzej Wajda, it must have been an encounter with his own past. In his letter to Franco Scepi, he writes that he is pleased not only that the painting has been found, but also that it will be able to “bear witness to the truth about those times.”

The words that follow are even more moving. Andrzej Wajda thanks the artist for not judging his conduct at the time solely as an act of cowardice, but for trying to understand it. The letter ends warmly — with gratitude, a handshake, and an assurance of friendship.

At this point, the history of the poster ceases to be a simple story of “artist versus censor.” Andrzej Wajda himself was operating within the system: negotiating, yielding, and trying to get his films made. Man of Marble, after all, was a film he had waited many years to bring to the screen.

His letter reveals a mechanism far subtler than an official’s red stamp: self-censorship born of an awareness of the boundaries whose violation could have jeopardized the entire undertaking. It also reveals the psychological cost of such decisions, still remembered twenty years later.

Presentation of Franco Scepi’s Man of Peace statuette to Lech Wałęsa, 2001. Miniature versions of the work were presented to Nobel Peace Prize laureates and to individuals particularly engaged in efforts for peace. Photo courtesy of Franco Scepi.

From Man of Marble to Man of Peace

The story could have ended there, but it did not. The motif of the man with a wall-like head reappeared in Franco Scepi’s work under the name L’Uomo della Pace – Man of Peace.

In the 1990s, the work became associated with initiatives led by Mikhail Gorbachev and the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates. In 1999, the image was signed in Rome by Nobel Peace Prize laureates, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Wałęsa, the 14th Dalai Lama, Rigoberta Menchú, José Ramos-Horta, Jody Williams, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, and Betty Williams, as well as representatives of organizations that had received the Nobel Peace Prize.

The signatures of these laureates appear beneath the work. Representatives of organizations awarded the Nobel Peace Prize also signed it, including the United Nations, Amnesty International, UNHCR, UNICEF, the International Labour Organization, and Médecins Sans Frontières.

The symbol whose communist meaning had been softened on the film poster in the 1970s thus returned, after the collapse of that system, in an entirely new context.

Monumental versions of Man of Peace were created. One of them is housed at Museo MAGI ’900 in Pieve di Cento, where a separate section of the collection is devoted to the work. Its history leads from the 1977 painting, through the poster for Andrzej Wajda’s film, to a symbol of peace associated with Mikhail Gorbachev.

According to Franco Scepi, this transformation is precisely what gives the work its particular significance: an image inspired by the experience of communism and by the dream of transcending political walls came, many years later, to function among people who had taken part in the peaceful ending of the Cold War.

Monumental version of Franco Scepi’s L’Uomo della Pace (Man of Peace) during an event associated with the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, Rome, 2002. Photo courtesy of Franco Scepi.

Mikhail Gorbachev with material devoted to the World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates, featuring the motif of Franco Scepi’s L’Uomo della Pace (Man of Peace), 2004. Photo courtesy of Franco Scepi.

The Letter Matters Most

One can admire the later monuments. One can trace the signatures of Nobel laureates. One can tell the story of Gorbachev, Wojtyła, Andrzej Wajda, and the extraordinary journey of a single image through the final decades of the twentieth century. For me, however, the most valuable document remains a single sheet of paper: Andrzej Wajda’s letter. It contains something far rarer than political declarations: an artist’s acknowledgment of his own compromise.

Andrzej Wajda does not write from the perspective of someone who knew from the beginning that communism was bound to collapse. On the contrary. He admits that at the time he did not believe it would. That sentence changes the perspective.

It is easy to look back at the past knowing how it ended. It is far more difficult to remember what the future looked like to someone living within a system that seemed permanent.

In 1978, the hammer and sickle disappear from the poster.

In 1989, the Berlin Wall falls.

In 1996, Andrzej Wajda looks at the rediscovered original image and writes to Franco Scepi that he had never imagined the system would truly pass away. And the image of the man built of bricks lives on.

That is perhaps the most beautiful paradox of this story: the version that once could not be shown ultimately survived as a witness to its time. Exactly as Andrzej Wajda had hoped.

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Card bearing the signatures of Nobel Peace Prize laureates and representatives of organizations honored with the prize beneath the symbol of Franco Scepi’s L’Uomo della Pace (Man of Peace), Rome, 1999. The signatures include, among others, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Wałęsa, the 14th Dalai Lama, Rigoberta Menchú, José Ramos-Horta, Jody Williams, and Betty Williams. Photo courtesy of Franco Scepi.

Message of Pope John Paul II for the 32nd World Day of Peace, January 1, 1999, featuring a portrait of the Pope. The document is entitled “Respect for Human Rights: The Secret of True Peace.” Photo courtesy of Franco Scepi.

Codex Codicum. Ethica Scientia Habita, Vol. I: Pax, 1999. The cover features the motif of Franco Scepi’s L’Uomo della Pace (Man of Peace). Photo courtesy of Franco Scepi.

Franco Scepi, L’Uomo della Pace (Man of Peace), monumental double-sided version of the sculpture installed in front of the Abbey of San Colombano in Bobbio, 2017. The work was unveiled with the participation of Nobel Peace Prize laureate David Trimble. Photo courtesy of Franco Scepi.

Monumental version of Franco Scepi’s L’Uomo della Pace (Man of Peace), 2003. The motif, originating in the 1977 painting and in the poster for Andrzej Wajda’s Man of Marble, later took on an independent life as a symbol of peace. Photo courtesy of Franco Scepi.

2025 APFF Audience Choice Award Winners

We are happy to announce the winners of the 2025 APFF Audience Choice Award for Best Film in two categories:

• Best Feature Film: KULEJ. ALL THAT GLITTERS ISN’T GOLD / KULEJ. DWIE STRONY MEDALU directed by Xawery Żułaski

• Best Documentary: TRAINS / POCIĄGI directed by Maciej Drygas

Franz Kafka. A Prophet of Our Times.

Idan Weiss as Franz Kafka in Agnieszka Holland’s film, photo: Marlene Film Production

Franz Kafka. A surname that became an adjective. The Kafkaesque world means one that is absurd, dark, without escape. A bureaucratic labyrinth in which a human being faces invisible power, guilt without cause, and fate without justification. Yet Kafka, although so deeply embedded in the collective imagination of the 20th and 21st centuries, was a surprisingly intimate, almost quiet writer. He wrote mostly at night, alone, in pauses between his duties as an insurance clerk in Prague. He wanted his works destroyed. He never imagined that his voice would become one of the most important in the history of literature.

Today Kafka is part of the global cultural canon — not because of loud grandeur, but thanks to the subtle, pulsing undercurrent of anxiety that he captured with extraordinary intuition.

A Man Under the Pressure of Existence

Franz Kafka was born in 1883 in multicultural Prague — a city where languages and cultures intersected: German, Czech, and Jewish. He wrote in German, though he grew up in a Czech environment, which from the outset placed him at the threshold of identities, belonging, and place. This inability to fully root himself, the inner split, and the constant sense of estrangement would later become a fundamental tone of his writing.

His relationship with his father — Hermann Kafka, a strict, domineering merchant full of expectations — was a source of deep suffering and the inspiration for one of his most important texts, Letter to His Father. In it, we encounter the drama of a crushed individual who cannot find a voice against overwhelming authority — a central motif that echoes through all of his prose.

Kafka is a writer of existential anxiety — but anxiety transformed into art, into precise, cool, almost surgical language.

Idan Weiss as Franz Kafka in Agnieszka Holland’s film, photo: Marlene Film Production

Worlds Without Exit

Although his body of work is not extensive in volume, each of Kafka’s texts has become a point of reference for generations of readers, philosophers, and artists.

His most important novels are:

“The Trial” (1925) — the story of Josef K., who is suddenly put on trial without being told the nature of his supposed crime. A multilayered metaphor for bureaucracy, alienation, and helplessness in the face of a faceless system.

“The Castle” (1926) — the tale of a man attempting to gain access to a mysterious authority — the Castle, whose doors never truly open.

“America” (1927) — a vision of the New World as a realm of chaos and loss of control.

To these one may add numerous short stories, among them “The Metamorphosis,” “In the Penal Colony,” “A Hunger Artist,” “The Judgment,” and “The Country Doctor” — works that complete his panorama of loneliness, fear, and the absurdity of everyday existence.

Kafka’s prose is clear, almost ascetic. His sentences are dense with meaning yet stripped of ornament. That starkness is precisely where the power lies — a pared-down form that reveals the essence: the vulnerable human being confronted with a world he cannot comprehend.

Idan Weiss as Franz Kafka in Agnieszka Holland’s film, photo: Marlene Film Production

The Culture of the 20th and 21st Century in Kafka’s Shadow

Kafka published little during his lifetime. His works were meant to be burned according to his will. They were saved by his friend Max Brod — against the author’s explicit wishes. It remains one of the most paradoxical “betrayals” in literary history, thanks to which the world came to know the work of the Prague visionary.

Today, Kafka’s influence is undeniable.
In literature — from Albert Camus to José Saramago.
In philosophy — from existentialism to Hannah Arendt’s reflections on totalitarianism.
In mass culture — in film, theatre, visual arts, and even contemporary video games.

What is most extraordinary, however, is how Kafkaesque our era has become:

• Bureaucratic systems in which a clash with “the regulations” becomes a metaphysical experience.

• A social sense of guilt and control — from media scrutiny to digital surveillance.

• Difficulties in defining one’s identity in an age of migration and digital existence.

• Fear of a seemingly rational world that brings with it absurdity and helplessness.

Kafka does not describe the past — he diagnoses the present.

Idan Weiss as Franz Kafka in Agnieszka Holland’s film, photo: Marlene Film Production

Why Is Franz Kafka Still Relevant Today?

Because Kafka did not offer answers. He offered questions — questions that remain with us:

What does it mean to be human in a world that cannot be fully understood?

Can guilt exist without wrongdoing?

Are we truly free — or only persuaded to believe we are?

His characters — nameless or identified only by an initial, trapped in an eternal state of waiting — are us. Inhabitants of a world that demands we understand its rules even though we cannot grasp them.

Franz Kafka died in 1924, at the age of only 40. A silent genius who did not believe in his own voice. And yet that voice still resonates today — in every search for meaning, in every confrontation with a system stronger than the individual, in every human fear before the infinite.

Prepared by Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka

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20th Austin Polish Film Festival, Texas

As part of the 20th Austin Polish Film Festival, audiences will have the opportunity to see Franz, directed by Agnieszka Holland — Poland’s official submission for the Academy Awards — during the Closing Gala on November 9, 2025.

More information is available on our website:

www.austinpolishfilm.com

The True Chopin

Reżyser Michał Kwieciński, fot. Bożena Rożek

Michał Kwieciński’s new film Chopin, Chopin! has stirred a wave of emotions and discussions in Poland. For some, it is a groundbreaking work in the way it portrays the composer; for others – a controversial one. The director departs from the romantic myth of the “suffering poet of the piano” and instead shows a living, energetic man struggling with illness, fame, and his own genius.

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka talks with the director about the film, its origins, and the Chopin we have never known.

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Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka:
The film „Chopin, Chopin!” made a profound impression on me. It presents a completely different Chopin from the one we know in our culture. It is not a biography in the classical sense – it is a film about the process of saying farewell to life, about the struggle of genius with the passing moment, about creativity that grants immortality. Was this your intention from the very beginning?

Michał Kwieciński:
Yes. From the very beginning, I wanted Chopin to be a universal symbol – the embodiment of the creator and the genius. I did not personally know many geniuses, but based on his letters and on the literature, I came to understand that Chopin truly was one. My main inspiration was Ferdinand Hoesick’s four-volume biography Chopin. Life and Works. It is a brilliant scholarly study, published at the beginning of the 20th century, based on rich literature and 19th-century sources. After reading it, most later books seemed to me trivial, failing to capture Chopin as he appears in Hoesick’s work. That is why I wanted to portray our great composer in a way that, in my view, comes closest to the truth.

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka:
So you devoted a great deal of time to preparation and to studying the literature from Chopin’s era.

Michał Kwieciński:
For more than six months, I read letters, documents, and memoirs. I know French, so I could access the originals—many of them referenced by Hoesick. Among other things, I read George Sand’s letters to Wojciech Grzymała, which revealed what plans she had for Chopin. Over time, my perception of Chopin changed completely—his patriotism, his illness, his relationships with people. I assumed that letters do not lie.

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka:
I noticed that some quotations from the letters are almost literally transferred onto the screen.

Michał Kwieciński:
I tried to stay true to the sources. For instance, in the scene where Chopin receives a letter from his favorite student, Carl Filtsch, the words spoken are almost exactly the ones that were actually written. Viewers might think that many scenes were invented for the film, but wherever possible, I clung tightly to historical truth.

Still from the film „Chopin, Chopin!„, photo by Jarosław Sosiński

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka:
Whose letters provide the most detailed insights into Chopin’s everyday life?

Michał Kwieciński:
You should read the letters of his student, Friederike Müller. She came to him for lessons and then wrote forty-page letters to her aunts, describing each lesson in minute detail. She must have watched him very closely, because she even notes how Chopin “bent his hand” or “spat into the fireplace.” She was a person who practically obsessed over him—today we would call her a stalker.

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka:
In his book The Purgatory of Fame: Chopin and His Paris, Piotr Witt describes the composer’s life before his spectacular success. He shows that Chopin’s Paris debut did not, as is often claimed, take place immediately in the prestigious Pleyel Hall, but earlier, at the Palace of the Society of Friends of the Arts, known as the Hôtel de Monaco. In your film, however, we see Chopin at the very beginning riding to the Pleyel Hall, surrounded by a crowd of admirers.

Michał Kwieciński:
I wanted to show Chopin right away as a celebrity. We don’t know whether he enjoyed that—I think he would rather not have been a servant to the crowds. Fame may have been a burden to him. My goal, however, was not to reconstruct the facts of his life but to reach into his psyche. In many places, I deliberately abandoned literal accuracy if it did not serve to express what he might have felt.

For example, in Mallorca—I knew it was raining heavily, that the owner expelled them from the villa when he learned of Chopin’s tuberculosis, and that they took refuge in the abandoned Carthusian monastery in Valldemossa. These facts helped me depict his state of mind. But I did not include the thread of George Sand’s children or her conflict with them, because I wanted to focus on the emotions and experiences that influenced Chopin’s decisions.

Still from the film „Chopin, Chopin!„, photo by Jarosław Sosiński

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka:
When I was a representative of the Chopin Festival in Nohant, France, I often visited George Sand’s house. Chopin’s presence could still be felt there. The soundproofed door to his room has been preserved—he was often nervous and dissatisfied with what he composed. He would strike the keys, shout, throw himself on the floor. That is how people remembered him—the household couldn’t sleep.

Michał Kwieciński:
There is also a scene of creative torment in the film. Paris is in the grip of a cholera epidemic; people are terrified, and the sounds coming from Chopin’s apartment become increasingly unbearable. Finally, someone shouts to him: “Stop playing already! You are unbearable!”

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka:
In Nohant, recipes from George Sand’s time have survived. We know that Chopin was on a special diet—he ate light dishes; his favorite meals were pullet and rice stew. This also shapes our image—we tend to imagine Chopin as a frail, sickly, withdrawn man. But your Chopin is not like that.

Michał Kwieciński:
I was surprised to learn that Chopin walked very quickly. That contradicts the myth of the delicate artist barely dragging his feet. He couldn’t have moved slowly, since his contemporaries said he loved to joke around, did excellent voice imitations, was sociable, and returned from night outings at ten in the morning. All those “soirées” fascinated him. In the film, he is therefore a lively, energetic man.

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka:
I always thought Chopin was an introvert, withdrawn, spending long hours at the piano.

Michał Kwieciński:
I think he was an introvert—but an introvert often plays the role of an extrovert, not wanting to be seen as closed off. An introvert isn’t necessarily a recluse—he can be the soul of the company, only showing a different face to the world.

Still from the film „Chopin, Chopin!„, photo by Jarosław Sosiński

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka:
The film is set in nineteenth-century Paris. We see many social and cultural details, the richness of costumes, and magnificent sets. What was the work on this historical layer like?

Michał Kwieciński:
The film was prepared with great care—we worked on it meticulously for a year and a half. Modern Paris no longer resembles the nineteenth-century city, so we filmed in Bordeaux instead. That city still looks the way Paris did in Chopin’s time—gray, stone streets, old townhouses, and the atmosphere of that era. It’s no surprise that many films seeking to capture the spirit of nineteenth-century Paris are shot there.

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka:
For me, „Chopin, Chopin!” is one of the best biographical films I’ve ever seen. It’s deeply human and authentic—each of us can find a part of ourselves in it. The film’s Chopin evokes compassion as we witness his dramatic struggle for immortality, for capturing every fleeting moment in music. Why, then, do you think the film has caused such controversy?

Michał Kwieciński:
Probably because viewers expect a typical biography, whereas this is a psychological drama. When I attend screenings, I always step onto the stage and say: “Let go of your own Chopin.” Each of us carries an image of him—from school, from trips to Żelazowa Wola, from concerts. That’s why it’s important to encourage audiences not to approach the film defensively, but simply to let themselves be immersed in it.

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20th Austin Polish Film Festival, Texas
As part of the 20th Austin Polish Film Festival, the film Chopin, Chopin! will be screened during the Opening Gala on November 2, 2025.

More information is available on our website:

https://www.austinpolishfilm.com/

The Piano and the Pen

George Sand’s Manor in Nohant, France, photo by the George Sand Museum in Nohant

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka (Austin, Texas)

When, in the mid-1990s, I became the Polish press officer for the Chopin Festival in Nohant, I could never have imagined what a long and extraordinary adventure my encounter with Fryderyk Chopin and George Sand would become.

It was a warm summer. The whole region of Berry was in bloom, its meadows spread across rolling hills. From time to time, the view was crossed by a stream and, beside it, a mill surrounded by a tangle of wild grapevines climbing the stone walls, with the mill wheel turning in rhythm with the falling water. A pond or a lake added shades of blue to the green–yellow–red palette of the landscape. Tiny houses with picturesque shutters and tiled roofs, nestled in lush greenery in small hamlets, were a constant feature of the area—just like the numerous, still fairly well-preserved medieval castles scattered throughout the region.

I stayed with a very kind French family in a house typical of Berry—charming, full of atmosphere, and steeped in tradition passed down from generation to generation. Every morning I was served fresh rolls “à la George Sand” for breakfast, and each day I was made to feel that, as a compatriot of Chopin, I was a special guest.

The George Sand estate is a small hamlet with a unique character. The country manor, built in the Louis XV style and surrounded by a wild park, was rather neglected at the time. Although open to visitors and listed as a national historic monument—thus under state protection—it did not have the air of a museum. It felt more like a slightly disordered home that its inhabitants had hurriedly left after a “storm,” taking only what was necessary. Yet within its walls and furnishings lingered the warmth of a refuge, memories of happy moments, and traces of the many visits and lively gatherings of remarkable guests.

***

George Sand was born in Paris on July 1, 1804 — six years before Chopin — as Aurora, the daughter of a Napoleonic officer named Dupin. He died when Aurora was only four years old, thrown from his horse near their home. On her father’s side, she was the great-granddaughter of Maurice de Saxe, a French marshal and the illegitimate son of Augustus II the Strong, King of Poland. On her mother’s side, she was a distant cousin of Louis XVI. Her mother, the child of a socially unequal marriage, did not continue the royal traditions. As the daughter of a bird seller on the banks of the Seine in Paris, she became a minor actress. When Aurora was born, her mother already had a daughter from a previous relationship.

J. Sokołowska-Gwizdka inside George Sand’s manor in Nohant

Aurora Dupin (later known as George Sand) was raised first in a convent and later in her paternal grandmother’s home — in an atmosphere of freedom, unrestrained by convention or social constraints. At the age of sixteen, according to her grandmother’s will, she became the owner of the country estate in Nohant and inherited a substantial sum of money. This made her wealthy and gave her independence and a sense of self-determination.

At eighteen, she married Baron Dudevant of Gascony — a young, educated man but, reportedly, a terrible spendthrift who had been deprived of his inheritance by his stepmother. The marriage was ill-matched from the start — physically, emotionally, and intellectually. The baron soon transformed from a former officer into a rustic reveler. He drank daily, disappeared without a word, slept with the servants, dozed off over books, and could not stand music.

The young baroness therefore sought emotional and spiritual fulfillment elsewhere — suddenly leaving home without explanation and riding aimlessly through the countryside. The couple’s children, Maurice and Solange, were deprived of affection and raised by servants, creating in their imagination myths that gave them the love and security they lacked.

This situation lasted eight years until Aurora, after yet another quarrel with her husband, announced that she was leaving for Paris. Her mother had urged her before the wedding to sign a prenuptial agreement, but Aurora, proud of her independence, refused — to her later regret. The laws of the time discriminated against women: an unfaithful wife could be imprisoned, and all property belonged to her husband. This injustice deeply angered the future writer and led to her later adoption of a masculine image — both in appearance and in the choice of a male pseudonym.

Through her strong will, she eventually secured a divorce on her own terms and retained ownership of Nohant. Throughout her life, she sought love and intense emotional experiences. Her numerous informal relationships — with prominent figures of Parisian bohemia, artists, titled individuals, as well as with lesser-known men such as her household doctor or a shy law student — were widely discussed in Paris, keeping George Sand constantly in the public eye.

***

Interior of George Sand’s manor in Nohant, photo by the George Sand Museum in Nohant

There are many rooms in Nohant, but only a few reflect the vivid and exuberant imagination of its former inhabitants. These are the rooms of Chopin and George Sand. The others—such as those of Solange and Maurice—are quiet and submissive, coated with the patina of time, powerless in the face of their mother’s strong individuality.

The legend of Chopin and George Sand has never left this place. Chopin’s stay in Nohant and the eccentric personality of the estate’s owner have ennobled the surrounding community. The locals feel themselves heirs to their genius and thus, generation after generation, they preserve the traditions of this place and keep the memories alive. One has the impression of speaking to people who truly knew them. In a small antique shop in nearby La Châtre, I once admired an old carafe. When I picked it up, the owner told me its story: it had supposedly been found in the park beneath George Sand’s window, thrown out in anger by the mistress of the house after a stormy quarrel with Chopin. Whether this story is true or merely a local legend created for convenience, no one knows. Yet the people of the region have preserved in their memory the storms and passions of that relationship.

Chopin’s first years in Nohant passed in harmony. The creative freedom, artistic atmosphere, and George Sand’s flamboyance deeply impressed him. At last, he found the refuge he had long sought. Nohant became a substitute for the family home he so greatly missed. When Chopin met George Sand, he was still engaged to Maria Wodzińska. The failed engagement—broken by Maria’s parents due to Chopin’s poor health—caused a spiritual crisis and deepened his depression born of the unfulfilled dream of a real home. His relationship with George Sand offered him a home, artistic inspiration, and the fulfillment of his most intimate desires.

During their first summer in Nohant in 1839, Chopin and George Sand spent most of their time in the bedroom, upholstered in blue fabric, under a lace canopy, pausing only for horseback rides through the countryside. They visited nearby medieval castles and climbed hills to admire the landscape from above. After returning from their rides, they would again retreat beneath the canopy, exhausted, while the servants brought their meals to the room. At that time, their apartments were connected.

Gradually, however, things began to change. Conflicts appeared. Chopin and George Sand spent the winters in Paris, returning to Nohant in spring and remaining there until autumn. Chopin’s room was on the first floor, with windows overlooking the garden. From his room one entered the guest salon with the piano. George Sand’s room was nearby, with a charming writing desk full of secret compartments, drawers, and boxes locked with tiny keys, and a delicate, feminine dressing table with an oval mirror. Only Chopin’s room had special soundproof shutters and thickly padded doors.

George Sand worked mainly at night and slept during the day. Chopin was the opposite—he slept at night and worked in the daylight. The residents of Nohant remembered him as a deeply complex man. Seemingly gentle, quiet, and withdrawn into his imagination, he could suddenly erupt in bursts of anger and nervous tension. Everything disturbed him. He would shut himself in his room, close the shutters, block out all light, and remain that way for weeks.

Chopin was convinced that he was far from a genius. A perfectionist, he strove endlessly to be the best. He would spend hours at the piano, bent over his scores, trying to capture his thoughts. He often fell into fits of despair—throwing himself on the floor, shouting, tearing up his music, pounding the keys, claiming that he was talentless and would never compose anything worthwhile, that he was just another mediocrity in the world. His self-doubt and constant revisions exhausted his publishers, as engraved plates often had to be redone.

George Sand said that Chopin composed in a burst of emotion, then spent months at the keyboard crossing out and rewriting, only to return, after much toil, to his first version. For the household, his fits of rage were exhausting, hence his room remained an isolated fortress—with soundproofed doors and windows.

The paths of the two artists gradually diverged. It is said that George Sand found a new partner, while her children—deprived of a father and of the love of a mother absorbed in herself—were growing up. Maurice tried to attract her attention, but his attempts at painting evoked little enthusiasm from her. Feeling wronged and rejected, he directed his resentment toward Chopin, whom he saw as the man who had taken his mother away.

Dining room in George Sand’s manor in Nohant, photo by the George Sand Museum in Nohant

A different kind of bond developed between Chopin and Solange. During the seven years of Chopin’s relationship with George Sand, Solange grew from an eleven-year-old girl into an eighteen-year-old young woman, and she projected her first romantic feelings onto Fryderyk. To her, he was a prince from a fairy tale—someone who partly filled the void left by the absence of parental love. Chopin, accustomed to the little girl running around the house, one day suddenly realized that she had become a woman. George Sand was often away, their relationship was nearing its end, and under the same roof, a young and innocent affection began to bloom. No one knew when they fell in love. One day, George Sand returned from Paris earlier than expected and found Chopin with her daughter. Feeling humiliated and rejected, burdened by her age, she flew into a rage.

George Sand’s room looked as if someone might return to it at any moment; Chopin’s, however, was in ruins—devastated by a storm of hatred and jealousy. George Sand took cruel revenge on them both. She threw Chopin out of the house. To erase all memories of him, she ordered his room to be destroyed. All the furniture was burned in the courtyard, the wallpaper torn down to the plaster, even the floorboards ripped out. Only the soundproof shutters and doors—remnants of the hours the great Fryderyk spent composing—remained to remind of its former occupant.

Solange was married off to a coarse sculptor, Auguste Clésinger, much older than she, who had once been her mother’s lover. She received an estate as her dowry, and George Sand never wanted to see her again.

That, at least, is what people say—but historical sources seem to contradict this version. Surviving letters suggest that Solange was already married to Clésinger when she quarreled with her mother. Since Chopin tried to mediate between them, and in 1847 wrote a letter to George on Solange’s behalf, George was enraged by what she saw as his open siding with “the enemy camp” and broke off their relationship. She destroyed his letters and declared that she had long been weary of him.

Jan Potocki – A Traveler of Infinite Imagination

Jan Potocki, ca. 1810, photo: Wikipedia, public domain

In the history of Polish literature, few writers are as mysterious, multidimensional, and tragic as Jan Potocki (1761–1815), the author of The Manuscript Found in Saragossa—a work that has become legendary, inspiring filmmakers, philosophers, and poets, while turning its creator into an almost mythical figure.

Potocki was an aristocrat whose lineage traced back to the great hetmans and magnates of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was born in Pików, in the Podolia region—a land belonging to the old borderland tales, filled with steppes, manors, Cossack legends, and a tapestry of diverse cultures. Yet from the very beginning, his horizons extended far beyond the borders of his homeland. He was a man of the Enlightenment in the fullest sense of the word—a scholar, traveler, diplomat, archaeologist, ethnographer, and writer.

Between Science and Adventure

Potocki studied in Lausanne, attended lectures in Geneva and Paris, and then set out on journeys that took him across almost all of Europe and half the world—from Spain to Morocco, from Egypt to the Caucasus. His reports from scientific expeditions, especially his studies of the peoples of the Caucasus, testify to the remarkable openness and curiosity of a man who sought to understand the world in all its diversity.

He was one of the first Poles interested in anthropology and comparative linguistics, studying the languages and customs of the peoples he encountered. Yet in his travel notes there always lingers a note of melancholy—a sense of transience and the fragility of human experience.

“The Manuscript Found in Saragossa” – A Labyrinth of Meanings

From these experiences emerged his greatest work—The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. It is a frame narrative composed of dozens of interwoven stories that form a complex labyrinth of dreams, adventures, and philosophical reflections. The protagonist, a young officer named Alphonse van Worden, travels through the mountains of Andalusia and finds himself in a world of mysteries, spirits, scholars, bandits, Kabbalists, and beautiful women.

Beneath this baroque construction lies much more than an adventure tale—it is a meditation on human nature, faith, and knowledge. Potocki, raised in the rationalist spirit of the Enlightenment, seemed to sense that reason has its limits and that true wisdom is often hidden beneath the mask of myth.

It is no coincidence that The Manuscript later fascinated such artists as Luis Buñuel, Martin Scorsese, and Francis Ford Coppola. The 1965 film adaptation by Wojciech Jerzy Has became one of the most beautiful and hypnotic works in the history of cinema. Scorsese called it “the most extraordinary film ever made.”

Jan Potocki – The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, 1847 edition, photo: Wikipedia, public domain

Jan Potocki – The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, 1847 edition, photo: Wikipedia, public domain

A Man Who Belonged to No World

Jan Potocki belonged to a world that was disappearing before his eyes. The Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth had fallen, and he himself—despite serving various monarchies—never found a place where he truly belonged. It is said that he sank into a melancholy bordering on madness.

His death—by suicide, using a silver bullet he had cast himself from the handle of a sugar bowl—became a tragic symbol of the end of an era.

Jan Potocki’s Final Journey

On a December morning in 1815, in his estate in Uładówka, Podolia, Jan Potocki ended his life. He departed as he had lived — in the shadow of mystery, with a gesture full of symbolic meaning.

It is said that he crafted a bullet from the silver knob of a sugar bowl, which he asked the local priest to bless. Then, after prayer and receiving communion, he locked himself in his study and shot himself with a pistol. In this legend echoes the clash between Enlightenment reason and the darkness of the human soul. Some scholars believe that the story of the silver bullet is merely a romantic embellishment, yet no one doubts that Potocki’s death carried both dramatic and deeply symbolic significance.

He spent his final years in solitude, immersed in depression and mystical contemplation. Weary of a world he no longer understood, he sought solace in prayer and philosophy. His death marked not only the end of the life of an aristocrat and scholar but also the metaphorical closure of The Manuscript Found in Saragossa — a world where reality and fantasy intertwined, reason met madness, and light blended with shadow.

The Legacy of an Eternal Journey

Today, Jan Potocki remains a fascinating figure who defies classification. He was the Polish Don Quixote of the Enlightenment—a dreamer who sought to unite the worlds of science and poetry, reason and mystery. His life and work form a tale of an unending search for meaning in a world that had lost it.

Perhaps that is why The Manuscript Found in Saragossa continues to captivate generation after generation—for within it, each of us can find a fragment of our own journey, our own labyrinth of questions without end.

View of the Łańcut residence.
Wall painting from the late 18th century, created by artists from the circle of decorators working for Izabela Lubomirska, probably associated with Vincenzo Brenna’s workshop. Photo: Łańcut Castle Museum.

View of the Łańcut residence.
Wall painting from the late 18th century, created by artists from the circle of decorators working for Izabela Lubomirska, probably associated with Vincenzo Brenna’s workshop. Photo: Łańcut Castle Museum.

Biographical Note

Jan Nepomucen Potocki (1761–1815) — Polish aristocrat, writer, traveler, historian, and scholar of the languages and peoples of Asia and the Caucasus; author of the first Polish philosophical–adventure novel, The Manuscript Found in Saragossa. He studied in Switzerland and France, served in the Austrian army, and undertook diplomatic missions, including in Spain and at the court of Tsar Alexander I. Fascinated by Oriental cultures, he was a pioneer of ethnographic studies and historical geography.

Privately, he was married to Julia, the daughter of Princess Marshal Izabela Lubomirska of Łańcut. For the Princess’s private theater, he wrote the celebrated Parades. After the death of Princess Lubomirska, the Łańcut estate passed into the hands of the Potocki family. The memory of this remarkable ancestor was never forgotten in the Łańcut Castle—portraits, manuscripts, and memorabilia connected with Jan Potocki were carefully collected there.

In 2015, UNESCO declared the Year of Jan Potocki, marking the bicentenary of the death of the famous traveler and writer (1815–2015). Łańcut became the center of the commemorations, hosting the international scholarly conference Jan Potocki After 200 Years. On the day of the jubilee inauguration (June 25, 2015), a symbolic balloon flight was launched from the castle grounds, carrying commemorative mail—stamped and delivered by balloon—recalling Potocki’s own historic balloon flight.

In the Sculpture Gallery, an exhibition of illustrations to The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Sławomir Chrystow, commissioned by Marek Potocki, was presented. In November 2015, a new exhibition opened, featuring drawings inspired by The Manuscript…—including Potocki’s notebook, manuscripts, and a signet ring with the Pilawa coat of arms. Many of the exhibits were shown to the public for the first time, coming from both private and state collections in Poland and abroad. The Łańcut Castle Museum also prepared a special jubilee publication to commemorate the occasion.

Compiled by Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka

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20th Austin Polish Film Festival, Texas

As part of the 20th Austin Polish Film Festival, audiences will have the opportunity to see Wojciech Jerzy Has’s masterpiece “The Manuscript Found in Saragossa.”
We warmly invite you to join us.

https://www.austinpolishfilm.com/

The Spirit of a Cowboy over Bandera

12 października 2024 Culture Avenue

Conversation with Artur Owczarski, Director of the Documentary Film „The Cowboy Capital,” About the Residents of Bandera, Texas, Before the Screening at the Austin Polish Film Festival 2024.

Roy Dugosh, a still from the film

The interest in the film is enormous. The premiere took place in Bandera on July 20, 2023, at the 11th Street Cowboy Bar on a giant screen set up in front of the stage, where country music stars usually perform. On a hot Texas night, over 300 residents of the town gathered. The reactions were enthusiastic. It’s one of those events in my life that I will never forget. (Artur Owczarski)

Artur Owczarski during the filming

Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka:

You have traveled across the United States several times in search of people and their stories. You have reached forgotten towns and places with rich, though often lesser-known, histories. In your projects, whether books or films, you capture a world that may soon change. Where does your fascination with America come from?

Artur Owczarski:

At first, I discovered America as most tourists do. I explored large American cities and amusement parks in Florida. Later, I decided to travel Route 66. I’ve always liked being on the road. It’s the journey that matters, not the destination, as someone once wisely said. Traveling across America from Chicago to Santa Monica, I saw the American countryside. I had the chance to meet people who live in tiny towns. Time moves more slowly there, and their way of life embodies a different state of mind. After publishing my first book, which is partly a guide to Route 66, I wanted to meet more people who chose this way of life and ask them to share their stories with me. That’s how I started discovering Texas, traveling through it extensively. While preparing to write a book about Texas, and later while working on material for it, I met more and more people, some of whom have become very good friends over the years. It was the same when I worked on the book about Louisiana. Year by year, I became more immersed in the culture, and I don’t think that will ever change. I disagree with the idea that this world will disappear. There will always be people who reject the fast pace of big city life.

What interested you in the culture of the American Wild West?

Definitely the sense of freedom and independence. The legend of the Old West, as Americans more often call it than the Wild West, still lives in the hearts of people, especially in rural Texas. A commitment to family, responsibility, and a natural willingness to help neighbors is part of daily life here. Engaging in local community life and the natural desire to connect with other families are also very common. Just two months ago, at 11 p.m., I witnessed several neighbors from different directions come to help my friend save a sick horse. A few days later, they were all having a beer together at the local honky-tonk. During conversations with people, I was often asked whether, living in a big city, one even knows one’s neighbors, because if you live on a big ranch, even if your nearest neighbor is several kilometers away, you know their entire family and are always willing to lend a hand. Of course, this isn’t a perfect world. Like everywhere in the world, there are good and bad people, and there are tensions between individuals, but the question was about this way of life, and that, in my opinion, is fascinating.

One of the places where residents continue to uphold cowboy traditions is the town of Bandera, Texas, which is the subject of your latest film, The Cowboy Capital. In Poland, we grew up on westerns, mass-produced by Hollywood. Were the legends of the Wild West one of the inspirations for your journey?

I grew up in Communist Poland, where Westerns were shown every Saturday. In addition to that, I read books that my father recommended to me. The legends of the Old West are part of global culture—still vibrant and appealing. Major productions set in that era are still being made, so you could say that everyone has seen at least one Western. While these legends weren’t an inspiration for me, I wanted to get to know American culture. After several years, I have to say that I had no idea how different the American mindset is from our European one. Even though both worlds are generally considered part of the 'West,’ they are completely different, and that’s fascinating.

What differences do you see between the image created by Hollywood and reality?

Hollywood creates myths, and while these myths are visually appealing, they are often heavily distorted. As one example, documents and records unequivocally confirm that before European settlers conducted large cattle drives in the Far West, such drives were already happening in Louisiana in the 18th century. Imagine thousands of cattle being driven through the swamps of Louisiana from its western parts to New Orleans by cowboys, some of whom were Black. Hollywood doesn’t show this, although we’ve seen in recent years that the Black community is increasingly emphasizing its contribution to the legend of the West and the cowboy myth. Films are being made, music videos by hip-hop artists are being produced, and Beyoncé has recorded a country album in Western style, and so on. That’s just one example. It’s fascinating that nearly every small town in the Desert Southwest has its own legends and true stories connected to that period. From California to Texas, these stories are still alive; they are part of the tourism industry, but more importantly, they remain ingrained in the cultural identity of the residents.

Roy Dugosh, a still from the film

The characters in your film often emphasize that being a cowboy is not just about distinctive attire like hats or boots, but above all, it’s about an attitude toward life and a set of values. What are modern cowboys like?

A cowboy is a person, not a mythical figure. People are different, regardless of their profession. To be a cowboy, you have to love being outside, be willing to work very hard, and enjoy being around your coworkers. You sleep in a cowboy bunkhouse whenever you get the chance, wake up at 4 a.m., and take care of the animals. I know people of all genders who do this job. It’s a mindset, a life choice. It’s fair to say that they’re all tough.

In the film, Gaven Hauck—a rodeo rider—represents the younger generation of the cowboy community in Bandera. He upholds the traditions and values associated with ranch life. Do young people know how to embrace the future while preserving traditions?

Yes. Many young people raised on ranches tie their future to this way of life. Many also leave but return after a few years, appreciating the small-town atmosphere. Countless country songs talk about life in the countryside, attachment to the land, and the simplicity of ranch life. In one of my favorite songs, the artist mentions a teacher and a sheriff, singing that in his community, those are the „famous” people. Gaven is a rodeo rider, 18 years old. I met him when he was 14, and his only dream was to become a bull rider. It’s a passion and a dream that he pursues in a very professional manner. PBR (Professional Bull Riding) is a league associated with big money, full of riders, sponsors, and fans, and it even has its own dedicated TV channel. Gaven is very good at what he does, and he already earns more than his parents. He recently won a major competition in San Antonio. There are many young men like him in America, from Alaska to New Mexico, all dreaming of a world championship and, after their careers, living on a ranch. Many American entrepreneurs, after achieving success in business, buy a ranch and raise cattle. It’s the dream of many people.

An interesting element of the film is that many of your interviewees have Polish roots. They are descendants of settlers who came to Texas in the mid-19th century with Father Leopold Moczygemba. Did you seek out the Polish connection, or did you come across it by chance?

The settlers came at the invitation of Father Leopold Moczygemba from the area around Strzelce Opolskie. While preparing to write a book about Texas, I came across information about the town of Bandera, which was built by several families from this migration. An interesting twist is that, thanks to the efforts of the late Eleonora Dugosh Goodley and others, Bandera holds the title of the Cowboy Capital of the World. It’s a beautiful contribution by Poles to the legend of the Old West and the cowboy myth. This story, or rather the contemporary image of Bandera, became an important part of my book. I’ve been going back there for years; I can’t count how many times I’ve been to Bandera. I have friends there and my own favorite places, and together with Dakota Wortman and Roy Dugosh, I created a film in which Bandera’s residents answer questions about what it’s like to live in rural America, why they wouldn’t trade this life for anything, who a cowboy is, and what freedom means to them.

Roy Dugosh, whom you mentioned, is a living legend of the cowboy world. Along with his sister, Eleonora Dugosh Goodley, he traced his roots and found out that their family was originally named Długosz and came from the town of Rozmierz near Strzelce Opolskie. What did this discovery mean to Roy, and did he feel a connection to being Polish?

Roy is not only a character in the film but also its narrator and co-creator, responsible for casting and set design. For many years, Roy was the head of Bandera’s historical commission. Along with his sister Eleonora and other residents, he frequently traveled to Strzelce Opolskie. For many years, groups of Silesians visited Bandera at their invitation. It was Eleonora who made Bandera and Strzelce Opolskie sister cities. Roy proudly emphasizes his Polish heritage. Their parents continued to speak Polish. He has spoken about this many times in both Polish and American media. Roy is passionate about history and actively promotes Bandera. He has been named Resident of the Year multiple times by the local Chamber of Commerce. On Saturdays, he and a group of friends perform historical reenactments for tourists, using blank ammunition.

But the Polish roots of Bandera’s residents are only one aspect of the film.

Yes, the story of immigration and Polish heritage is a small part of the film. We dedicated just a few minutes to it. We aimed to create a film about contemporary Bandera. What the audience might not know is that a large portion of Bandera’s residents, including some of the characters in our film, chose to live there. At a certain point in their lives, they decided to settle in Bandera because of its cowboy culture and traditional values. In Bandera, large retail stores are not allowed, billboards are forbidden, and the buildings must adhere to the traditional architecture set by the Polish settlers. The title of Cowboy Capital of the World enhances this process and draws the attention of people seeking such a lifestyle.

You’ve definitely succeeded in capturing the spirit of cowboy culture in the film. Was it difficult to tap into the sensitivity of your characters, to bring out their nostalgia and longing for bygone times?

When we finished the interviews, we had about 12 hours of footage. Aside from one, I conducted all the interviews myself. Some of the characters I’ve known for years, and they had already shared their stories with me when I was writing Texas is a State of Mind. Interviewing them made my job easier. However, I met many people for the first time while shooting the film. Watching these interviews later and discussing the editing with Dakota, I realized how privileged I was to be able to talk to people about such important topics. How often do we have deep discussions with friends, let alone strangers, about what freedom is? How do we define it? What is important to us in life? What values guide us? What discourages us about the modern world? These conversations were an incredible adventure, and I hope we find time someday to release each interview separately online. It will be a snapshot of Bandera and its residents in 2023, preserved forever.

How was your collaboration with the local community? How did the residents react to the idea of appearing in a Polish film?

We didn’t encounter any refusals. The selection of characters was thanks to Roy, who is a well-known and respected figure in Bandera. We had a diverse group of people in front of the camera: an 18-year-old PBR (Professional Bull Riders) competitor, an over-80-year-old judge who has held office in the town for several decades, cowboys and cowgirls working on local ranches, ranch owners, the owner of the 11th Street Cowboy Bar (one of the most famous Honky Tonks in Texas), who worked for years at CNN and later in the music industry, a woman who raises ten horses by herself and runs horseback camps, and a local legend—incidentally, a Finn—who worked for Volvo in Helsinki before moving to Bandera with her husband. They now own dozens of horses, often saving them at auctions from being sent to slaughter, and they live off organizing horseback rides for tourists. Also featured is a famous sculptor who moved there from New York several decades ago and a Hollywood animal trainer from California, who, among other things, trained ostriches for the film Prince of Persia and worked with Viggo Mortensen on Hidalgo. He too decided to settle in Bandera. For several years, he ran a private rodeo where mules jumped into a pool through a flaming hoop from a seven-meter platform. Our characters are fascinating, colorful people from different parts of America and even Europe, who chose to live and shape contemporary Bandera because of their mindset.

In addition to the residents’ stories about their lives, their desire for freedom, and their choice to live in harmony with nature away from the hustle and bustle of city life, nostalgia is a recurring theme throughout the film. What stylistic devices did you use to give these lengthy conversations a metaphysical dimension?

In the film, the symbol of nostalgia and longing for the 19th century is the recurring image of a sleeping cowboy. Roy is seen sleeping on the ground, in the courthouse, and in many other places. He represents the spirit of the cowboy, hovering over Bandera. At the end of the film, he is awakened by children, symbolizing the future and the continuation of tradition.

The photographs are from Artur Owczarski’s archive.

Artur Owczarski – journalist, writer, producer, and director of documentary films. He is the author of books about the USA, including Droga 66, Droga Matka. O historii, legendzie, podróży (Route 66, Mother Road: On History, Legend, Journey), Teksas to stan umysłu (Texas is a State of Mind), and Luizjańskie gumbo (Louisiana Gumbo). For many years, he has traveled the American South, giving voice to the residents of small towns and rural communities in his books. He writes about places and people that are off the beaten path, allowing readers to discover the American countryside. Owczarski portrays America not from the perspective of political debates or economic processes, but by describing the daily lives of extraordinary individuals. In 2019, he was awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of Bandera, Texas, the Cowboy Capital of the World. He has sailed through the swamps with hunters in Louisiana, listened to jazz and interviewed Grammy Award winners, talked with a Voodoo priestess in New Orleans, and documented the annual rattlesnake roundups in Sweetwater, Texas. He feels most at home in unconventional destinations—America far from the usual tourist trails—such as small local rodeos and cookoffs. Each trip to the U.S. covers thousands of miles, interviews with people, and observations on American culture. In 2023, together with Dakota Wortman and Roy Dugosh, he made the film The Cowboy Capital, which was shown at numerous film festivals, won several awards, and will be released globally in 2025. (Press materials).

Author’s website: www.owczarskiartur.pl

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The Cowboy Capital will be screened at the Austin Polish Film Festival on Nov. 9th, 2024, at 2:00 p.m.

2023 APFF Audience Choice Award Winners

The winners of last year’s 2023 APFF Audience Choice Awards were:

Best Feature Film:

Winner: “Święto ognia” / “Feast of Fire” directed by Kinga Dębska

• 2nd place:    “Raport Pileckiego” / “The Pilecki Report”

• 3rd place:    “Prorok” / “Prophet”

Best Documentary:

Winner:    “Burning Questions” directed by Mishael Porembski

Patrycia Longawa Poster Exhibition to be held on Thursday, Oct. 26, 7-9 pm at AO5 Gallery

 This year, we are inviting our audience to the:

PATRYCJA LONGAWA POSTER EXHIBITION

Opening Night: Thursday, October 26, 2023, 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm at AO5 Gallery in Arboretum in Austin

This poster exhibition is curated and produced by our partner, Dot Dot Dot Connect, and sponsored by Austin Polish Society.

The Price of Truth - conversation with Agnieszka Holland→

During the APFF 2019, when Agnieszka Holland’s film “Mr. Jones” was being screened for the Festival’s audience, the director, who was the Festival’s guest of honor, talked about the film with Joanna Sokolowska-Gwizdka of Culture Avenue. HERE is the English translation of the conversation, supplemented by their most recent online exchanges about the present day relevance of the film’s themes.

Photo: Agnieszka Holland (left) receives The Honorary Citizen of Austin certificate issued by the City of Austin, on stage with Joanna Gutt-Lehr, the APFF 2019 Director.

Winner Announced for Audience Choice Award for The Best Feature Film at the APFF 2021

Out of 10 feature films presented during the in-person segment of the 16th Austin Polish Film Festival, the picture that garnered the most votes from the audience was the The In-Laws / Teściowie by director Jakub Michalczuk!

Charmed by the superb cast and masterful long shots by the cinematographer, Michał Englert, the viewers appreciated a witty commentary on the social dynamics through a lens of a weddings event during which, it turns out, everybody can easily do without the bride and the groom – their photograph suffices.

Congratulations to Jakub Michalczuk on his directorial debut!

Learn more …https://www.austinpolishfilm.com/films2021/#tesciowie

Radio KOOP, 97.1, “Lights, Camera, Austin”.

Robert Sims talks with Margaret Meub, Austin Polish Society President and Dr. Lukasz Jasina, Polish film historian about the 15th Austin Polish Film Festival 2020.

You can listen to the interview at RADIO KOOP

Filmy dokumentalne na temat przemian w Polsce lat 80. i 90.

Artykuł o filmach "My ,narod" i "Amnezja" przygotowala Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka

“MY, NARÓD”

Film dokumentalny, 2019 (58 min.), dostępny on-line 14 – 20 listopada 2020 r. na platformie APFF, na terenie USA.

Reżyseria: Ewa Ewart, scenariusz: Jacek Stawiski, zdjęcia: Mateusz Kruszelnicki, Maciej Grubiak,  muzyka: Szymon Nidzworski.

W filmie została pokazana historia trzydziestu lat polskiej transformacji, zapoczątkowanej częściowo wolnymi wyborami do parlamentu, opowiedziana z zachodniej perspektywy, ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem roli, jaką  Stany Zjednoczone odegrały w tym procesie.

Historyczne wybory 4 czerwca 1989 roku doprowadziły do upadku komunizmu nie tylko w Polsce, ale także wywołały efekt domina w całym regionie – od obalenia Muru Berlińskiego po rozpad Związku Radzieckiego. Więcej informacji o filmie na Culture Avenue

“AMNEZJA”

Film dokumentalny, 2019 (41 min.), dostępny on-line 14 – 20 listopada 2020 r. na platformie APFF, na terenie USA.

Scenariusz i reżyseria: Maciej Kuciel, zdjęcia: Piotr Wacowski, Witold Nogieć, muzyka: Wojciech Borek, Bartosz Gwóźdź, Grzegorz Zmarz.

Kazik, Muniek i Liroy. Trzech muzyków obserwujących i prezentujących przez ostatnie 30 lat polską rzeczywistość w dokumencie TVN „Amnezja” opowiada subiektywną wersję historii. Na podstawie życiowych doświadczeń, obserwacji sceny politycznej, z perspektywy trzech dziesięcioleci pokazują sukcesy i porażki uwolnionego od komunizmu kraju.

Teledyski, unikatowe archiwalia Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, zdjęcia agencyjne i prywatne  oddają atmosferę minionych lat. Do dzisiaj rozgrzewające emocje polityczne rozmowy opozycji z komunistami w Magdalence i przy okrągłym stole, pierwszy niekomunistyczny premier Tadeusz Mazowiecki, rodzący się na straganach polski kapitalizm i inne wydarzenia tych czasów połączone z bezkompromisowymi tekstami bohaterów dokumentu tworzą konstrukcję filmu.

Więcej informacji o filmie “Amnezja” można przeczytać na Culture Avenue

Filmy historyczne na XV Festiwalu Polskich Filmów w Austin

Zapraszamy widzów Festiwalu Polskich Filmów w Austin, do zapoznania się z prezentowanymi w tym roku filmami historycznymi. Będzie je można zobaczyć zarówno on-line na platformie APFF, jak i w sali kinowej w Austin. Wszystkie projekcje będą poprzedzone wstępem historyka Dr. Łukasza Jasiny.

Artykuł przygotowała Joanna Sokołowska-Gwizdka na swoim portalu “Culture Avenue”.

„PIŁSUDSKI”

Dramat historyczny, 2019 r. (108 min.), dostępny on-line na platformie APFF 0d 14 do 20 listopada 2020 r.

Scenariusz i reżyseria: Michał Rosa, zdjęcia: Piotr Śliskowski, muzyka: Stefan Wesołowski, występują: Borys Szyc, Magdalena Boczarska, Jan Marczewski, Maria Dębska, Józef Pawłowski, Tomasz Schuchardt i inni.

Jest rok 1901. Józef Piłsudski „Ziuk” (Borys Szyc) po brawurowej ucieczce ze szpitala psychiatrycznego ponownie staje na czele polskiego podziemia niepodległościowego. Nieugięty na polu walki, w życiu prywatnym poddaje się namiętności, rozdarty między dwiema kobietami jego życia – żoną (Magdalena Boczarska) i przyjaciółką, która zostaje jego drugą żoną (Maria Dębska). Przez zachowawczych członków Polskiej Partii Socjalistycznej uważany za terrorystę, Piłsudski wraz z najbliższymi współpracownikami nie cofa się przed niczym – zamachami na carskich urzędników i najwyższych oficerów, szmuglowaniem bomb, zuchwałym napadem na pociąg, by osiągnąć swój cel: niepodległą Polskę. Zbliża się rok 1914 i „Ziuk” widzi nowe szanse na osiągnięcie niemożliwego. „Piłsudski” to nie tylko biografia wielkiego przywódcy, ale i kino akcji, które trzyma w napięciu.

Opisy kolejnych filmów historycznych Culture Avenue