14th KINOTEKA Polish Film Festival

KINOTEKA Polish Film Festival returns for its 14th edition with a selection of film and documentary, both classic and contemporary. The films are of different genres, yet they all have one underlying theme: what it means to be human.

In honour of the late filmmaker Andrzej Żuławski (1940-2016), the festival presents a retrospective tribute Andrzej Żuławski: The Man, The Myth, The Films, including the UK premiere of his award-winning last film Cosmos. Awarded the Best Direction prize at the 2015 Locarno Film Festival, the film is a metaphysical thriller and loose adaptation of Witold Gombrowicz's surreal novel of the same name.

The programme also includes three of Żuławski’s most critically acclaimed films. Censored by the Polish communist government for 16 years, The Devil (1972) tells the story of a prisoner of war, who is released only to encounter more human atrocities. That Most Important Thing: Love (1975) stars Romy Schneider as a struggling actress forced to act in erotic films, while cult body horror Possession (1981) features a brilliant performance by Isabelle Adjani as the emotionally disturbed Anna, which won her both Best Actress at Cannes and a Cesar award.

The festival also partners with Frames of Representation to present Wojciech Staroń’s latest documentary Brothers (2015) – an intimate portrait of two brothers reunited after 80 years of exile.