Tag: poland

European Film Awards 2023 Review: GREEN BORDER Tackles Human Tragedy, Humanistic Crisis in Geo-Political Crosshair

Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland delivers a powerful and unvarnished portrayal of the refugee crisis, challenging viewers with its raw realism and humanistic depth.

Karlovy Vary 2023 Review: MAMMALIA, Anarchy, Art and Gender

Romanian director Sebastian Mihăilescu delivers a fluid narrative on the intersection of drama, horror, and satire, confronting the rigidity and conformity of traditional gender roles.

Karlovy Vary 2023 Review: IMAGO Explores Non-conformity and Motherhood in Post-Punk Poland

Lena Góra stars in director Olga Chajdas' new film, a raw, gritty exploration of post-punk Poland through the journey of a non-conformist protagonist on her way to artistic fulfillment and motherhood.

Review: EO, Immersive, Biting Allegory

Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, this is not a fairy tale. Unlike some cute Disney family movie starring a talking donkey, it will break your heart.

Friday One Sheet: EO

For the festival poster for Jerzy Skolimowski's Eo, it is all focused on the 'melancholy eyes.' It's inspired by Robert Bresson's classic Au Hazard Balthazar, one of cinema's finest acts of pure empathy, rivaled only by Carl Dreyer's The Passion...

Tallinn 2021 Review: The WEDDING DAY, Masterful, Provocative High-Wire Act of Genre and Arthouse

Robert Wieckiewicz, Michalina Labacz, and Agata Kulesza star in an unorthodox Holocaust movie, directed by Polish provocateur Wojciech Smarzowski ('Clergy').

Tallinn 2021 Review: OTHER PEOPLE, Social Realism Redefined, Cocky and Raunchy

Directed by Aleksandra Terpinska, the drama from Poland stars Jacek Beler, Sonia Bohosiewicz and Magdalena Kolesnik.

Review: MOSQUITO STATE, The Great Recession Meets Cronenbergian Body Horror

Beau Knapp and Charlotte Vega star in a horror thriller, directed by Filip Jan Rymsza, now streaming on Shudder.

Review: USEDOM: A CLEAR VIEW OF THE SEA, Where Nothing Ever Happens, Except Everything

Director Heinz Brinkman's documentary is an absorbing look at a Baltic Sea Island, diving beneath its surface beauties.

Review: QUO VADIS, AIDA?, Searing Indictment of War From Not So Distant Past

Writer/director Jasmila Zbanica presents a powerful, harrowing film, with a stellar performance by Jasna Djuricic in the title role.

Exclusive LEGACY OF LIES Clip: Scott Adkins, I Need Your Help

We are big fans of Mr. Scott Adkins. Period. Full stop. His new action action movie, Legacy of Lies, directed by Adrian Bol, looks likely to keep up his streak of entertaining pictures that fairly well explode on the screen....

L'Etrange 2019 Review: THE MUTE Strikes With Brutal Clarity

Bartosz Konopka's film stars Krzysztof Pieczyński, Karol Bernacki, Jan Bijvoet, and Jeroen Perceval.

Review: COLD WAR, Tragic Love Story, Told at a Breezy Pace

As Pawel Pawlikowski's acclaimed drama opens in theaters, we revisit our review from the New York Film Festival.

New York 2018 Review: COLD WAR, Tragic, Fatalistic Love Story, Briskly Told

Shot again in full frame monochrome by Lukascz Zal, the film is every bit as beautiful as Ida. His use of head space is there and it's lovely. Kulesza has a clear and beautiful singing voice in every style, providing some of the loveliest vocal tracks for the film's great, jazzy soundtrack.

Poland Has A PANIC ATTACK

While I do not understand a single word spoken in the trailer for Pawel Maslona's  upcoming Polish feature Panic Attack (Atak Paniki) there is absolutely zero problem understanding exactly what is happening. The premise is a simple one with the...

Blu-ray Review: Musical Man-Eating Mermaids in Agnieszka Smoczyńska's THE LURE

Part of the appeal of the Criterion Collection for lovers of film is its simple act of curation. Though weighing in at over 900 titles in its current run (The Lure is #896, hitting stores October 10), the collection still...

"One Day You'll Pay": I, OLGA HEPNAROVA Gets A Trailer And Poster For Its March 24th US Opening

While Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Smoczynska's killer mermaid musical The Lure may be getting all the press, there was another film from Eastern Europe quietly racking up award after award and stunning festival audiences last year. Tomás Weinreb and Petr Kazda's I,...

Berlinale 2017 Review: THE ERLPRINCE, The Polish Donnie Darko of Coming of Age Dramas

Emerging Polish director Kuba Czekaj demonstrates genre acrobatics in melancholic coming-of-age The Erlprince

Review: THE LURE, Mermaids, Love, Death, Song and Dance

In the crowded world of cinema, many filmmakers set out to try something different. However, it's one thing to be novel, which normally means stretching a thin gimmick over other recycled bits of past films, but another thing entirely to...

THE LURE: Red-band Trailer for Agnieszka Smoczynska's Superlative Musical

From Sundance to Sitges, The Lure was one of the purest delights on the festival circuit last year. The debut feature from Polish director Agnieszka Smoczynska is a thoroughly unorthodox adaptation of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid, re-envisioned as a 1980s nightclub...