6 November 2017 The Conrad Year - film screenings

To celebrate the Joseph Conrad Year, the Krakow Festival Office and Pod Baranami Cinema invite you to the shows of film productions inspired by the life and work of this prominent writer.

On the programme there will be many times award winning works by Andrzej Wajda, Francis Ford Coppola and Ridley Scott, and the biography of the writer by Lucyna Smolińska and Mieczysław Sroka.

This year we celebrate the 160th anniversary of birth of Józef Konrad Korzeniowski, a British writer of Polish descent, known under the pen-name Joseph Conrad. The year 2017 was declared the Joseph Conrad Year. The Krakow Festival Office and Pod Baranami Cinema invite you to celebrate the work of the writer at film shows inspired by his works.

Krakow audience will see Almayer’s Folly, a film by a renowned Belgian director Chantal Akerman. It is an adaptation of Conrad’s debut novel bearing the same title, nominated for Belgian awards. It tells a story of a Dutch merchant living in Malaysia, who challenges racial prejudice that rules among colonizers to ensure well-being of his dark-skin daughter. The film will be shown with Polish and English subtitles.

The programme will also include two adaptations of The Heart of DarknessConrad’s most famous work. Nicolas Roeg’s film bering the same title is a story of Captain Marlow, who sets off for a journey into the depth of African jungle in quest of Kurtz, commander of a trading post, who clearly lost his mind. Accomplished actors: Tim Roth and John Malkovich play the lead characters. Conrad’s novella has also inspired Francis Ford Coppola, the creator of iconic film Apocalypse Now. Coppola’s plot takes place during the Vietnam War, and his bold production is still an iconic antiwar film in the history of the cinema. Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando featured lead characters, accompanied, among others, by Robert Duvall and Laurence Fishburne. Apolcalypse Now received the Palm d’Or at the Cannes Festival in 1979. It was also nominated for eight Oscars, and finally received two statuettes. Coppola received the Golden Globe for the best director and for the best original soundtrack that he composed together with his father Carmine. Robert Duvall received the award for the best supporting role.

Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine will also appear on screen at Pod Baranami Cinema in The Duelists (on 35 mm tape ) – Ridley Scott’s best directing debut at the Cannes Festival. It is a historical drama set in the times of Napoleonic Wars, based on Joseph Conrad’s story bearing the same title. In addition to great acting, The Duelists by Scott is renowned for elaborate, pictorial images that the director achieved using natural lighting. The story was filmed chiefly in the natural landscapes and existing interiors in England and France.

Andrzej Wajda also adapted a Conrad’s novel – The Shadow Line – for screen. This Polish-British coproduction is a story based on an episode from the life of Conrad, who worked as a seaman for 20 years before becoming a writer. Marek Kondrat plays the lead character, the captain of a merchant ship, an alter ego of the writer. The cast also includes: Graham Lines, Tom Wilkinson and Piotr Cieślak. The Shadow Line won the First Prize of the Jury at the Polish Feature Film Festival in Gdańsk. The film will be shown with English subtitles.

The Polish cinema will be represented by the film Jej powrót directed by Witold Orzechowski, with an outstanding cast. A young businessman abandoned by his wife is played by Jerzy Zelnik, while Beata Tyszkiewicz plays the role of his faithless wife. The film was based on Conrad’s short story Return.

Pod Baranami Cinema will also show a tri-partite staged biographic documentary Ja, który mam podwójne życie…” czyli dylemat Josepha Conrada by Lucyna Smolińska and Mieczysław Sroka. The works by Joseph Conrad won global critical acclaim, but in his times his persona and raised heated polemics, in which he was accused, among other things of the lack of patriotism. The filmmakers try to answer the question if the accusations are justified by an in-depth analysis of the writer’s biography.

TICKETS:

PLN 18 (regular) | PLN 14(concession)