Polish New Wave
The History of a Phenomenon that Never Existed

Friday 3 April – Sunday 5 April 2009
Grzegorz Królikiewicz, Through and Through, 1972
Grzegorz Królikiewicz
Through and Through 1972
© courtesy Filmoteka Naradowa

This rare selection of features, documentaries, and shorts from the 1960s to the present day identifies an a-historical Polish 'new wave' that never existed within a clearly marked period like that of the French New Wave, but which coheres around a conscious rejection of conventional narrative forms. Including the incredible early work of Jerzy Skolimowski and Krzysztof Zanussi, as well as films by Andrzej Żuławski and Grzegorz Królikiewicz, this programme exists somewhere between contemporary art and cinema, in a domain that doesn't properly belong to either field.