11 October 2017 Films at the Conrad Festival

As usual, the Kino pod Baranami cinema, which has been a friend to the Festival, prepared a special film review. Come and watch six showings related to the programme of the largest literary event this autumn, from Monday (23 October) to Saturday (28 October).

These will be no ordinary screenings – a Festival guest will introduce the audience into the atmosphere of each film.

We start on Monday (23 October) at 21.30 with the film Beksińscy. Album wideofoniczny (Beksińscy. Audiovideo album) – a shocking documentary drama meticulously reconstructed from private audio, film and photographic materials of the Beksiński family archives that had not been made public in such a form before. The script is based on the bestselling biography by Magdalena Grzebałkowska, Beksińscy. Portret podwójny (published by Znak). Introduction will be held by director Marcin Borchardt.

A truly big event awaits us a day later (Tuesday 24 October at 21.30): a screening of the Polish Oscar candidate Pokot (Spoor) directed by Agnieszka Holland with none other than Olga Tokarczuk introducing the audience into the climate of the film.

The Wednesday evening (25 October) is a gesture towards the fans of Siri Hustvedt’s writings. At 21.30, the writer will open a screening of the film Of Woman and Magic directed by Claude Miller, based on her novel The Blindfold. Claire Weygand, a thirty-year-old woman who is about to defend her anthropology thesis, unfortunately not only feels bad but even worse and worse with each passing day. The migraine attacks she suffers from keep her from working as hard as she should and in despair she decides to consult Doctor Fish. When the medicine the physician prescribes for her fails, Claire, who cannot take it anymore, asks him to hospitalize her. In hospital, Claire shares her room with Odette, a young woman who has lost the use of her legs and Eléonore, a frightening old woman.

On Thursday (26 October at 21.30) the Kino pod Baranami cinema will screen The Da Vinci Code directed by Ron Howard – adaptation of the bestselling novel by Dan Brown. The writer will meet his readers two hours earlier that day. Will you find the time to go to cinema? Anything can happen.

On Friday (27 October at 21.30) – the multiple award winning Raoul Peck’s film I Am Not Your Negro. In 1979, the African American novelist and essayist James Baldwin wrote a letter to his literary agent describing his next project – Remember This House. The book was to be an account of the lives and assassinations of three of his friends: Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. The book had remained unfinished by the time of Baldwin's death in 1987. He left behind only 30 completed pages. The writer’s heirs entrusted the manuscript to filmmaker Raoul Peck, who decided to finalise the story outlined in Baldwin’s book and created a film journey through the history of African Americans, revolving around the writer’s verse. He delved into the complex heritage of life and death of the three eminent figures in the American antiracist movement who changed the US social and political landscape forever. The introductory speech will be held by Jean-Ulrick Désert – artist participating in A New Region of the World exhibition presented in the Bunkier Sztuki Gallery and related to the Conrad Festival programme.

The finale of the film review cycle (Saturday 28 October at 14.00) will feature Ezer Kenegdo directed by Deniz Demirer and Daniel Kremer. Yisroel "Izzy" Jonigkeyt, a Chassidic Jew from Crown Heights in New York, travels to San Francisco to visit Polish-born Catholic friend Marek Wiśniewski with the intent of discovering why a famous iconoclast named Harry Kierk, of whom they are both fans, seeks to destroy his own works. Their only gateway to contact Kierk is Marek's anti-Semitic cousin. Frictions develop as the visit progresses, when Izzy and Marek discover for the first time that their different backgrounds and complex historical baggage impinge on their friendship and, soon, they begin to understand why Kierk is driven towards destruction. NOTE: a meeting with the makers of the film will be held after the screening.

Tickets priced at PLN 18 (normal) and PLN 14 (discount) are on sale.