“An Eastern European Ridley Scott… the cultural commentary of Szulkin’s oeuvre is universalist… their future is our now.” – Ela Bittencourt
“The Polish ‘cinema of anxiety’ soars from this world within the work of Piotr Szulkin… the movies thrive on imaginative eyesight and sociological absurdity.” – Steve Dollar, Wall Street Journal
Movie at Lincoln Center is very happy to announce Sci-Fi Visionary: Piotr Szulkin, a retrospective celebrating one of Poland’s many filmmakers that are revolutionary September 6-8.
A manager, screenwriter, novelist, theatrical manager, and painter, Piotr Szulkin regularly faced censorship through the Polish Communist regime regarding the belated ’70s and very very early ’80s for his unabashedly governmental works. Szulkin’s films that are profoundly imaginative be considered as existential stories, absurdist parables, or premonitions about contemporary society’s hostility in addition to evils of totalitarianism. Drawing from 20th-century philosophy and Polish literature that is medieval speculative fiction, noir, and grotesque allegories, Szulkin masterfully wielded the shoestring budgets afforded him to generate shockingly iconoclastic technology fiction movies. Called “the undiscovered Fritz Lang of 1980s Mitteleuropa” (Michal Oleszczyk, RogerEbert.com), Szulkin made movies which were rarely seen away from their indigenous Poland but which continue steadily to resonate with chilling truths about humankind, drawing eerily prescient parallels to the present global governmental environment.
Among the biggest retrospectives of their strive up to now, Sci-Fi Visionary: Piotr Szulkin provides an array of brand new electronic restorations and brought in movie images. The show showcases most of Szulkin’s features, including their audacious cult classic Golem , frequently considered a precursor to Blade Runner ; The War associated with Worlds: Next Century, a reimagining for the H.G. Wells novel plus an indictment of mass media’s impact on civilians; O-Bi, O-Ba: the termination of Civilization , which follows the rest of the survivors of a nuclear apocalypse because they await a mythical Ark to truly save them from their serious situation; Szulkin’s research of feminine sexuality into the increasingly delirious and erotic Femina ; the dadaist Ga, Ga: Glory to Heroes , which follows a prisoner aboard a penitentiary spaceship while he is delivered for a objective up to a authorities state hell earth; and Szulkin’s last movie, King Ubu , in line with the 19th-century Albert Jarry play, a brutal commentary on modern Poland into the aftermath of this Communism Szulkin criticized throughout their job. Furthermore, the retrospective will highlight Szulkin’s film that is short, like the folklore-inspired morality play Dziewce z ciortem in addition to documentary Working Women .
Presented in collaboration utilizing the Polish Cultural Institute nyc.
Arranged by Florence Almozini and Tyler Wilson.
Tickets carry on sale Thursday, August 15 and are also $15; $12 for pupils, seniors (62+), and people with disabilities; and ten dollars for movie at Lincoln Center users. Save because of the purchase of three tickets or maybe more.
Acknowledgments: Polish Cultural Institute Ny; Daniel Bird
FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS All tests take place during the Walter Reade Theater (165 western Street that is 65th otherwise noted.
Femina Poland, 1991, 35mm, 84m Polish with English subtitles After her husband leaves for a long company trip and her mom dies, a coolly detached, bourgeois housewife (Hanna Dunowska) embarks on an outre carnal odyssey in search of intimate satisfaction, leading her into increasingly deranged, sinister realms as memories from her childhood mingle with fever-dream seductions. Equal components coming-of-age nightmare, softcore satire, and surrealist cantata, Szulkin’s delirious erotic fantasia unfurls in a nonstop rush of indelibly uncanny images—from a free-floating apparition of the lusty Joseph Stalin to a couple of shockingly randy puppets—as it savages faith, their state, plus the notion of the nuclear family members.
Preceded by: brand brand New electronic restoration Working Women / Kobiety pracujace Poland, 1978, 6m U.S. Premiere Stylized with dramatic interiors and a distorted framework rate, this very very very early documentary miniature from Szulkin illustrates six sequences of solitary, repetitious work. Saturday, September 7, 4:30pm Sunday, September 8, 8:00pm
Ga, Ga: Glory to Heroes / Ga, Ga – Chwala bohaterom Poland, 1986, 35mm, 84m Polish with English subtitles Resistance is useless in Szulkin’s stunningly nihilistic satire that is dystopian. In the next where life in the world has grown to become therefore wonderful that only prisoners can be used for the high-risk company of area research, poker-faced intergalactic inmate Scope (Daniel Olbrychski) is delivered for an apparently condemned objective to an uncharted earth. Upon their arrival, he discovers some sort of curiously such as a dilapidated, postapocalyptic world, where he could be welcomed by the population as a “hero,” an ignominious honor, he quickly learns, that accompany a many barbaric fate. Using the film’s title that is appropriately nonsensical the babble of their child child, Szulkin provides a bleakly acerbic commentary in the absurdity of life in a police state. Friday, September 6, 4:30pm Saturday, September 7, 8:30pm
brand New restoration that is digital Poland, 1980, 92m Polish with English subtitles in a few dystopian future, boffins try to produce a unique, flexible battle of humans. a seemingly ordinary item associated with the work, the genetically engineered Pernat (Marek Walczewski) is susceptible to round-the-clock monitoring while he goes about their life amidst drab Soviet bloc architecture. Szulkin’s feature that is bold, styled in sepia tones and dramatic illumination, is known as a precursor to Blade Runner , but its name additionally appears back into a more ancient misconception of creation and morality.
Preceded by: brand New restoration that is digital Gal and also the Fiend / Dziewce z ciortem Poland, 1976, 14m Polish with English subtitles U.S. Premiere Szulkin stages a morality play in regards to a sinful woman’s encounter with all the devil, set into the Polish ballad of the identical title and imbued with folkloric imagery. Friday, September 6, 6:30pm Saturday, September 7, 2:00pm
New digital renovation King Ubu / Ubu krol Poland, 2003, 90m Polish with English subtitles U.S. Premiere centered on Alfred Jarry’s late 19th-century, proto-Dada political satire Ubu Roi , Szulkin’s last movie is a crazy, carnivalesque commentary on post-Communist Poland for which drunken degenerate Ubu (Jan Peszek) seizes control of the monarchy in a supposedly “democratic” takeover (their signature policy: universal free alcohol) and then institute their own absurdist, tragicomic reign of terror. Upgrading Jarry’s iconoclastic vision with a new dosage of dark, post-Soviet cynicism, King Ubu can be an incendiary summative statement from a musician whom devoted his profession to lobbing grenades at the equipment of totalitarian corruption that is political. Sunday, September 8, 6:00pm
Brand New electronic renovation O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization / O-bi, O-ba – Koniec cywilizacji Poland, 1985, 88m Polish with English subtitles What stays of mankind post–nuclear apocalypse is restricted to a squalid underground bunker where survivors toil desperately to uphold the very last vestiges of civilization. They have been spurred in by their fervent belief in a fabled Ark which will deliver them from their residing hell—a misconception propagated by the powers that be, and distribute, to some extent, by the increasingly disillusioned smooth (Jerzy Stuhr) as he attempts to push away collapse that is total. Involved in an expressionistically grimy, grey- and palette that is blue-toned Szulkin crafts a shattering existential parable concerning the false claims of politics and faith that plays down like a Sisyphean journey into madness. Saturday, September 7, 6:30pm Sunday, September 8, 4:00pm
Brand brand brand New electronic renovation The War for the Worlds: Next Century / Wojna swiatow – nastepne stulecie Poland, 1981, 96m Polish with English subtitles aimed at both H. G. Wells and Orson Welles, Szulkin’s followup to Golem starts because of the Christmastime takeover of Poland by a band of hyperintelligent, bloodthirsty martians (played by silver-painted dwarfs in puffer jackets) who enlist hapless tv newscaster Iron Idem (Roman Wilhelmi) whilst the sound of the 1984 -esque propaganda device. But once Iron dares to go off message, he makes an enemy also more than are russian brides real the aliens: the state itself. Released just like Poland was being plunged into martial legislation and instantly prohibited, The War for the Worlds: Next Century is really a disturbingly prescient allegory of energy, control, and news manipulation in a world that is post-truth. Friday, September 6, 9:00pm Sunday, September 8, 2:00pm