Kinoteka

★★★★★ “Since the days of Cain, no punishment has improved the world or deterred anyone from committing crimes.” A Short Film About Killing (1988) – Krzysztof Kieslowski’s expansion on the fifth chapter of his lauded Dekalog series – sets out its stall. Far more than mere advocacy against the death penalty (although the film played…

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★★★★☆ With the fires of the Second World War still smouldering European cinema rose from the embers across the continent. At one time such resurgence took place through the Polish Film School, a movement intended to make films that would help their country come to terms with the war and all that had happened within…

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★★★★★ The post-war years begat a period of enormous creativity across European cinema and Krzysztof Zanussi’s Illumination (1973) stands out as a prime example of the incredible Polish craft of the time. It’s a profound and cerebral ride through the life of Franciszek Retman (Stanislaw Latallo) in his never-ending quest for enlightenment bulging with tremendous…

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★★☆☆☆ Krzysztof Zanussi position as Poland’s moral cinematic conscience is presumably the one he was playing up to for his latest film, Foreign Body (2014). Best known for films that betray her fierce intellect – a la Camouflage (1977) or The Illumination (1973) – this is an entirely different kind of prospect. Imagine, if you…

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★★★★☆ If all of life is a beautiful equation, then madness is re-running it over and over with the expectation of a different outcome. This is the cycle that young idealist Witold (Tadeusz Bradecki) finds himself entrenched in during The Constant Factor (1980), Krzysztof Zanussi’s withering critique of corruption in Communist Poland. Unlike his other…

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★★★★☆ Krzysztof Zanussi is a filmmaker that has, for much of his career, been considered by many as the cinematic conscience of Poland. There is arguably no clearer demonstration of this than during a purple patch towards the end of the 1970s and into the following decade in which he turned an unflinching eye on…

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On Wednesday 8 April at 6pm, the BFI will host a screening of Krzysztof Zanussi’s dialectic satire Camouflage (1977) – followed by a Q&A with the great filmmaker – to launch this year’s Kinoteka Film Festival in London. For the event’s thirteenth year, it is expanding its horizons and offering a bumper selection of Polish…

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