Play Poland Film Festival 2021

As recently reported on Film-News, after a four year hiatus the PLAY POLAND Film Festival made a much anticipated comeback and this year saw the festival morph into a ‘hybrid edition’ with physical screenings both in Edinburgh and Glasgow as well as online screenings via The Blob vod platform.

The PLAY POLAND Film Festival (www.facebook.com/PlayPoland), which ran from Nov 11th until Nov 25th, had an exciting programme on offer including various feature films, shorts, documentaries and ‘100 Years of Lem’ – a selection of films and an exhibition by illustrator Daniel Mróz to celebrate the works of Polish writer Stanislaw Lem (this September marked his 100th anniversary). Edinburgh-based Blob Studios (The Blob Studio Ltd) provided the vod platform to watch selected films and shorts for free. This year’s category included the topics culture, ecology and society. Here then is an overview of the best and some of the not so great works on offer.

Among the short films, the 30 min docu RUST (dir: Rafael Malecki) stood out thanks to its timeless topic of both urban and rural destruction by mankind. We follow Polish artist Mariola Wawrzusiak-Borcz as she roams post-industrial areas in search of scrap metal out of which she creates a multitude of sculptures… all of which are a critique of the ravages of civilization – be it air pollution or the gradual deforestation of rural parts. Mariola studied at Kracow’s Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts and is now assistant professor at the academy where she works at the Department of Sculpture. Her speciality revolves around sculptures depicting the animal kingdom for which she uses chains or nails which are turned into spine or claw. Even the insect world gets a special treatment but also sculptures of children and androids can be seen at her exhibitions – depicting horrified facial expressions and physical afflictions due to wars past, present and future. Despite a hereditary medical condition for which there is no cure and which has left her with chronically painful hands she soldiers on – occasionally escaping to a deserted island with her family and her dog – far away from the follies of civilisation and on a quest to re-connect with nature. As Mariola rightly observes: “We are so dependent on technology and all that comes with it, if one day everything broke down we wouldn’t even know how to keep ourselves warm….”
On the topic of ecology and climate crisis, the 7 min sci-fi PM 2.5 (dir: Piotr Biedon) is set in the future and we follow a man dressed like someone out of a Mad Max film who lives in a deadly polluted city – a city in which you can only exist by wearing an oxygen mask. Eventually he finds himself facing an uncomfortable choice…

Cleverly constructed is the 26 min long SUBMISSION (dir: Michael Ciechomski) which opens with a quote by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft and bears a slight nod or two to the author’s famous short story ‘Dagon’. In director Chiechomski’s short, a man lives with his family in a fictional colony somewhere far away from Poland although the community is comprised of Poles. Every year the annual fishing contest takes place and the angler who catches the biggest specimen wins the coveted trophy. When one angler catches a particularly huge specimen it turns out to be… well, not exactly a fish, at least not a fish that belongs to any known species. Although we never actually see the catch it emerges the ‘fish’ in question is more like some otherworldly amphibian creature… part fish, part human perhaps… it breathes and is referred to as ‘She’. Around the same time reports of freak weather and other natural disasters are coming in thick and fast. In the end, the angler committee decides that the fisherman in question must return the creature to the sea and make a sacrifice to prevent the end of the world… This is a very smart and thought-provoking film which makes for some uncomfortable watching whilst the supernatural element ensures it isn’t too bleak. Imagine what SUBMISSION could be like with a big budget!

In the ‘Society’ category we have the 15 min short HELENA (dir: Joanna Rozniak) which, despite its best intentions, doesn’t entirely grip. The story concerns middle-aged Helena whose sole companion in her lonely life is her beloved cat. It is never explained why Helena is lonely and doesn’t seem to make (let alone hold) contact with fellow human beings but when the animal is found dead in the street Helena is forced to re-examine her existence. That’s where the film ends and really, it would have needed something more to draw some sort of conclusion as we never find out whether the woman’s efforts to move on are successful.

Considerably more engaging is the 15 min short THE UNICORN (dir: Maya Teryaki and Marta Bogdasnka) which is an insightful and often humorous portrait of the late Kim Lee (born Andy Nguyen) who was an absolute icon of Poland’s drag queen scene (if you can imagine such a thing) and sadly passed away last year due to Covid. Speaking frankly, Kim Lee – a Vietnamese drag queen who had been living in Warsaw (of all places) since the 1990s and spoke fluent Polish reveals tricks of the trade but also why he became a drag queen – because by wearing glamorous clothes and make-up he could be another person and turn his insecurities (especially physical ones) into assets. He’s also rather frank on camera and says that in his native and Buddhist orientated Vietnam no one would ever attack someone for their appearance or sexual orientation but in Catholic Poland (there are only about 30 drag queen in the entire country!) homophobia is widespread and being a drag queen is no longer just fun but becomes a political stance before adding that even a straight woman who chooses not to get married and have children is ostracized for being different and not conforming to the rules of society. No wonder so many Poles want to get out of Poland! We also get to see Kim Lee’s extraordinary wardrobe which really is the size of a shop and he shows us his so-called ‘work-in-progress’ rail with various outfits waiting to get altered and vamped-up before we see Kim in action (RIP).

The award-winning feature film LOVE TASTING (dir: Dawid Nickel) has a very restrained LGBT subtext and depicts the last week in a small Polish town’s Junior High School in which several young students encounter personal trials and tribulations as they try to get to grips with love, friendship, school, family, sex and the ever looming Catholic church. Olivia – a young girl on probation (we don’t find out why) becomes distressed when a pregnancy test results in ‘positive’. Meanwhile, Tomek struggles to come to terms with his sexuality when he realises his feelings for Kuba – the new boyfriend of his twin sister. So fascinated is Tomek by Kuba that he takes up all sorts of sports in order to gain an impressive physique just like Kuba but will the latter be touched by Tomek’s efforts and feelings? This is much more a coming-of-age drama than a LGBT-orientated film though it’s a very personal project for director Dawid Nickel and his own experience as a teenager. The film won an award at the Gdynia Film Festival in the ‘Microbudget Films’ category.

Last but not least are two fascinating documentaries worth mentioning: AUTHOR SOLARIS (dir: Borys Lankosz) is a partly re-enacted docu about Polish writer Stanislaw Lem’s life which was full of paradoxes and we find out a lot more about his family and his traumatic childhood – all contributing to the person he became.
THE PRINCE AND THE DYBBUK is an intimate portrait of wealthy Polish aristocrat Prince Michal Waszynski who became a leading figure in the world of 1930s and 40s films, both as director and producer involved in big Hollywood productions like ‘The Fall of the Roman Empire’ and even as an (uncredited) actor in ‘The Barefoot Contessa’. But who really was this enigmatic man born as Moshe Waks - son of a humble Ukrainian blacksmith, and why was he so obsessed with THE DYBBUK – a Yiddish-language fantasy film which he directed back in 1937?

PLAY POLAND Film Festival 2021 offered a wide range of entertaining, thought-provoking and creative films – many on a visibly low budget but nonetheless creative.
Let’s hope next year’s follow-up will top it with even more exciting titles.