Play Poland 2015: Preview
90s disco underdogs, sex changes, and bringing cartoons to the kids: we get with the programme as Play Poland turns five
For the past five years, Play Poland has been bringing cinema to UK screens exploring the country’s contemporary cinema as well as its rich cinematic and political past. Disco Polo (Filmhouse, 19 Nov), one of the highlights of this year's festival, is steeped in the latter. The wry comedy's backdrop is the exciting and optimistic new era that followed Poland's break with communist rule at the fag end of the 1980s. Following this triumph of liberal democracy, the country enjoyed rapid economic growth with a newly introduced market economy, as well as long-overdue improvements to human rights legislation. And out of this ebullient time in Polish history grew a new music sub-genre: disco polo. This fourth feature film from director Maciej Bochniak recounts the misadventures of disco buds Tomek and Rudy as they try and make it big in the fickle music biz. It's a glitzy, hyperactive fairytale with a shamelessly addictive soundtrack – think Baz Luhrmann meets Tim Burton – and is as much about the music as it is about the vibrant do-anything attitude of a post-communist 90s Poland.
The preceding era under communist rule was, however, a fertile period for Polish cinema, and with it came a rich history of distinctive film posters. For the festival's fifth edition the organisers have again pulled focus on to their nation’s iconic promotional aesthetic. In charge of curating PPFF’s “visual aspect” this year is Professor Sławomir Witkowski, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Graphic Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk. At the Filmhouse Cafe Gallery in Edinburgh there will be an exhibition of work from both the Polish School of Posters of the 60s-80s, and from Professor Witkowski’s own design students attempting to imitate – and innovate – that unique style.
On the same graphical theme, there is also a competition to win film tickets and goodies for inventive use of the festival’s logo template, available as the front cover to this year’s programme as a handy stencil. The organisers – and The Skinny – must warn budding graffitists that defacing property without permission is still illegal, in the name of art or otherwise! Winners will also be showcased at the poster exhibition at the Filmhouse. Check Play Poland's website for more details.
In addition to PPFF’s main strands of features and shorts, the festival is, for the first time, bringing cinema to young ‘uns, screening an animations for children programme at nearby Polish schools in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Livingston, Motherwell and Coatbridge. Like the posters exhibition, the selection of cartoons spans the 60s to the 80s; many are from the Warsaw-based Studio Miniatur Filmowych (Miniature Film Studio), a significant and long-running animation house responsible for many beloved Polish children’s cartoons.
It’s not all focused on the past, of course; many of the productions in the 2015 programme deal with important contemporary issues. Notably Call Me Marianna (Grovenor, 22 Oct; Filmhouse, 12 Nov), a documentary already decked with multiple awards on the Polish film festival circuit. The doc centres on Marianna Klapczyńska, who lived as a married man – with children – until the age of 43, at which point she faced up to her gender dysphoria and made the switch. Due to difficulties with the Polish legal system, she was forced to sue her own parents in order to finance her sex change operation. It’s a moving, brief (just 70 minutes), and unmelodramatic account of her gender reassignment, and Karolina Bielawska deftly captures Marianna’s bubbly, pragmatic attitude in spite of everything that has happened to her. Inspirational and heartbreaking in equal measure, and fittingly scored by Antony and the Johnsons, it’ll have all its screening audiences in floods – you have been warned.
Play Poland runs 15 Oct-22 Dec
For full programme details, go to playpoland.org.uk