The 25th annual film festival continues with a Sun double-feature
Madison’s annual Polish Film Festival celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. Last weekend featured Call Me Marianna, Karolina Bielawska’s moving documentary in which its subject endures heartbreaking personal realities on her way to transitioning to a woman.
The festival continues this Sun, Nov 22 with a double-feature of contemporary Polish cinema in the Union South Marquee. These Daughters of Mine (1:00p) features the wonderful Agata Kulesza (she stole Ida‘s show as the wounded Aunt Wanda) reconnecting with her sister (Gabriela Muskała) after their mother suffers a stroke. Director Kinga Debska begins with broad humor before morphing her second feature into something more heartfelt and tragic, especially when the sisters’ father, in a standout performance from Polish stalwart Marian Dziędziel, begins to decline in health shortly thereafter. Madison is a movie market more or less defined by limited releases, but this ultra-limited release is a rare attraction for anybody right now. (Seriously, try finding a trailer with subtitles.)
At 3:00p, it’s something completely different in The Photographer. Its eponymous serial killer has teasing Moscow police forces, leaving crime scene placards at the sites of his murders. With the help of a Polish detective, the only survivor (Tatyana Arntgolts) offers herself up as bait to try and catch the killer — and hopefully figure out why he let her live to begin with. Somehow, all this all ties into events from 40 years prior in the southwestern town of Legnica and the story of a young boy locked away for life in a mental institution. Good luck piecing that together.
- The Polish Film Festival continues Sun, Nov 18 at 1:00p in the Union South Marquee. Admission is FREE and open to the public.