Get An Inside Look At The State Of Polish Cinema Through 70 Films This Month

By Joel Wicklund in Arts & Entertainment on Nov 6, 2015 8:54PM

“11 Minutes” (Photo: © HanWay Films).

While we're still recovering from the Chicago International Film Festival, the city's busy movie fest calendar rolls on with the start of the 27th Polish Film Festival in America, running Nov. 6 to 22 at Facets Cinémathèque, Carmike's Muvico Rosemont 18, and the Gallery Theatre at The Society for the Arts.

New York may have surpassed Chicago as the U.S. city with the largest population of Polish immigrants, but the Polish-American community is still a huge part of the Windy City's ethnic mix and this festival has become a major cultural event for residents of Polish ancestry, as well as those simply interested in European cinema.

With over 70 films on the schedule, attendees can certainly get a good sense of where contemporary Polish cinema stands. Potential highlights include the serial killer drama, The Red Spider, which played in the New Directors Competition at CIFF; These Daughters of Mine, winner of the Audience Award at the Gdynia Film Festival; and 11 Minutes, the latest from veteran director Jerzy Skolimowski, whose career includes such notable films as Moonlighting, The Shout and Four Nights with Anna. Skolimowski also is a busy character actor who has had roles in films including Eastern Promises and The Avengers.

Almost half of the feature-length films in the festival are documentaries and the schedule also includes several revivals of Polish classics showing as part of a tribute to the 70th anniversary of the victory over fascism in World War II. Those fims include 1959's war drama, Lotna, directed by Andrzej Wajda, one of the country's most esteemed filmmakers.