MX35

The world’s most talented young pianists compete in the International Chopin Piano Competition, held every five years in Warsaw, Poland. A rare behind the scenes look at the triumphant highs and crushing lows of competition, Pianoforte is both a testament to the remarkable power of music and an intimate coming-of-age portrait.

Zuzia, a very sensitive teenager with an artistic talent, is struggling with a drug addiction. Her brother, the film director, decides to take a closer look at the family to understand what might have caused this difficult situation.

Amid December’s festive glow, refugees remain hidden in forests along the Poland-Belarus border. This powerful documentary gives voice to their silent cries.

Based on a script by Andrzej Żuławski, this is a fascinating on-screen dialogue between father and son that combines nostalgia and fury, the sublime with humor, and old-school style with a sharp, penetrating look at Polish reality. The eponymous bird talk is the language used by those excluded from the aggressive majority: a history teacher tormented by children, a teacher of Polish studies fired from his job, a girl who cleans a banker’s villa, a florist with a club foot and a student with a fascination for cinema. Pushed to the margins by the extreme right, they defend themselves with irony, songs and quotes from the classics.

In a Polish seaside town, Miecia, known as the local “Queen,” rules over her smokehouse—a beloved community fixture. For forty years, her dedication has sustained both the business and its employees. But when health issues force her to step back, its survival is at stake.

69-year-old Jola puts on elaborate make-up, while her husband spouts casual abuse in the background, how she never had much in her head and is basically worthless when it comes down to it. So Jola leaves Italy on a train bound for her native Poland. There, on the beach, she takes a trip down memory lane with her girlfriends: how she married the young man who got her pregnant, swore to care for him “in good times and in bad”, raised her six children and put up with punches, put-downs and her husband’s drinking problem. And now? Now she dresses elegantly, and takes singing and dance lessons. In the process, she meets a gentleman her age, Wojtek, and the two strike up a friendship. But divorce, at her age? What will her family, her friends or the church say? Of course, one can just leave, everyone is free to choose, but is it the right move?

The Polish village of Stare Juchy has been pulled apart. A third of the population left to work in Iceland, and those who stayed behind—most of them from the older generation—are hoping for their return. But by now their children and grandchildren are settling into new lives on the other side of Europe. The distance separating them is great and the journey expensive, so they don’t get to hug each other very often. The best alternative is intensive contact by Skype.

The true story of Wanda Rutkiewicz, the first woman in the world and the first person from Poland to climb the highest peaks on earth, told by herself.

A life story of bees and people. In order to get to the bottom of the mysteries of the life of bees and show them to the audience, the camera enters a contemporary hive and a traditional wild beehive drilled in the trunk of an old tree. It wanders the forests in Poland and Ural, mountains in Nepal and... roofs of Paris and Warsaw. For millions years bees have been laboriously building the natural environment of our planet. These days, they started to die by millions. A programme of wild tree beekeeping reintroduction was launched in Polish forests. It has been an ancient local tradition. Maybe reaching for the past, the original model of coexistence of bees and people, for wild tree beekeeping, can help us to save the bees? After watching “Honey Hunters” everyone wants to have their own beehive and harvest their own honey!

The main character of the documentary is a 16-year-old Kurdish girl who, after the tragic death of her mother on the Polish-Belarusian border, has to become a mother to her 4 younger brothers.

Sang is one of 300.000 children left behind by American soldiers after the Vietnam War, born to Vietnamese woman. When he unexpectedly finds his father in the U.S., he wants to meet him, even though it comes at a price of leaving his beloved family. Cultural barriers and unspoken pain collide when the past catches up with the present.

History of Teutonic Order and Commonwealth of Poland and Lithuania.

Kacper, who works as a foreman, has an affair with the wife of his best friend Oskar, also a miner. To meet his mistress, he assigns Oskar to the distant and dangerous coal seams. As the lovers enjoy their rendezvous, Oskar gets buried underground, so they throw themselves into a rescue mission.

Julia Polniuk is ten years old. She trains figure skating – and there is not much time left for her to succeed in sports and to meet the expectations of her family, which has moved to Poland from Ukraine. The girl has the opportunity to take part in the Polish Figure Skating Championships. This could bring her fame and success, and maybe even help the whole family to obtain Polish citizenship. But can a child spread its wings and fly with such a burden on its shoulders?

Barbara is 25 and lives in Accra, the capital of Ghana. As an eight-year-old girl, she shared the fate of thousands of Ghanaian children who were put to slave labour by their own parents. For years Barbara functioned in a world full of abuse, violence and fear but she survived. Although full of anger, she has been supporting her parents and pays for the family, but their expectations keep rising. One day, together with her eldest brother, Kweku, she returns to her hometown to solve some family problems. Before that can happen, Barbara has to finally confront her parents.

Every third woman in the world will have an abortion. That’s a fact. But in Poland there's a near-total abortion law as the government treats the life of the fetus as more important than the life of a woman. Luckily, there is Abortion Dream Team - a group of four women who run a hotline supporting their sisters in need. They inform on how to perform self-managed abortions at home or direct them to clinics abroad. They work all around the clock and they brag on TikTok that they facilitate 100 abortions per day or shock people with the slogan "Abortion is OK!”.

A documentary project about what the filmmakers claim to be the greatest, unfulfilled dream of Polish cinema, the 1970s science fiction epic "On the Silver Globe".

The Ursus factory once covered 170 hectares and employed 20,000 workers, producing 100 tractors a day. Now, its buildings stand derelict and empty; half have already been demolished by investors with new plans. The symphony of mechanical sounds and gestures that is gradually built up throughout the film is produced by former factory employees. Proud of their factory, they reminisce about the huge numbers of people and the parties they had. They were a community, passionate about supporting agriculture through their factory. The Ursus tractor was well-known, not only in Poland but throughout the world.

Krystyna is 72 years old, but she has never known true love. In order to change something, she signs up with a matrimonial agency. Newcomming dates bring nothing than disappointments. Meeting elderly men let her realize, relationship may not be a lack in her life.