Poland
Filmmaker Agnieszka Holland: 'Without journalism, democracy will not survive'Tuesday, 04 February 2020
Agnieszka Holland is one of Europe's leading filmmakers. Growing up in Poland under Soviet rule, her films have often tackled the continent's complex history, including the Academy Award-nominated Europa, Europa, In Darkness and Angry Harvest. In... Read more... |
Tomasz Jedrowski: Swimming in the Dark review – of hypocrisy, both personal and systemicSunday, 02 February 2020
Conjuring up nostalgia for a past readers never had is, perhaps, the litmus test for any good coming-of-age story. Writers have the hard task of making the general particular – because growing up, in one way or another, is universal whereas how and... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Warsaw: musical perspectives on culture beyond communismWednesday, 20 November 2019
The new "eufonie" festival is dedicated to the music of Poland and its neighbouring countries. This is its second year, and the scale of the project has increased substantially from last year’s first run. The programme is primarily classical music,... Read more... |
Wallfisch, Northern Chamber Orchestra, Stoller Hall, Manchester review - Weinberg UK premiereSaturday, 09 November 2019
Everyone’s doing Weinberg now, or so it seems. The Polish-born composer who became a close friend of Shostakovich was born 100 years ago, and there’s plenty of his music to go round. Raphael Wallfisch gave the UK premiere of his Cello... Read more... |
Werewolf review - post-Holocaust horrorsSunday, 06 October 2019
There used to be this myth that we knew nothing about the concentration camps until the victors opened their gates in 1945, and that the survivors were then nursed back to health. The Russians put out newsreels filmed weeks later of nurses tending... Read more... |
Ewa Banaszkiewicz and Mateusz Dymek: 'Is our film porny?'Wednesday, 17 July 2019
Spoiler alert: About sixty-four minutes into our debut feature film, one of the main female characters undresses for the camera. Alicja is being filmed by the other protagonist, a young American documentarian named Katie. As the sexually charged... Read more... |
DVD/Blu-ray: Rosa LuxemburgThursday, 31 January 2019
Barbara Sukowa won Best Actress at Cannes in 1986 for her title role in Margarethe von Trotta’s Rosa Luxemburg, and the power of her performance looks every bit as engaging and insistent today. A century after Luxemburg’s death (she was... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Warsaw - Penderecki at 85Wednesday, 28 November 2018
Krzysztof Penderecki is the elder statesman of Polish music, and celebrations for his 85th birthday in Warsaw were suitably grand. Penderecki has been setting the agenda for contemporary music, in Poland and beyond, since the 1950s. His early work... Read more... |
Fialkowska, BBCSO, Nesterowicz, Barbican review – a cliche-free night in PolandSaturday, 03 November 2018
National feeling – in music, as anywhere else – depends on choice, not blood. This BBC Symphony Orchestra concert at the Barbican to mark the centenary of Poland’s rebirth as a nation never felt remotely like a feast of aural jingoism. In fact, its... Read more... |
Olga Tokarczuk: Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead review - on vengeful natureSunday, 09 September 2018
In a small town on the Polish-Czech border where the mobile signal wanders between countries’ operators and only three inhabitants stick it out through the winter, animals are wreaking a terrible revenge. The bodies of murdered men, united in their... Read more... |
Cold War review - a gorgeous and mesmerising romanceWednesday, 29 August 2018
Can we ever really know the passion that brought our parents together? By the time we are old enough to hear the story of how they first met, that lovers’ narrative has frayed in the telling and faded in the daily light of domestic familiarity. But... Read more... |
theartsdesk in Kraków - Easter music with a British focusTuesday, 03 April 2018
Held annually every Holy Week, Kraków’s Misteria Paschalia is one of the continent’s most vibrant early music festivals. With an increasing focus on international collaborations, the 2018 edition welcomed Edinburgh’s Dunedin Consort as artists in... Read more... |
