“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 into the work of Piotr Szulkin… the movies thrive on imaginative vision 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 revolutionary filmmakers, September 6-8.
A manager, screenwriter, novelist, theatrical manager, and painter, Piotr Szulkin frequently encountered censorship through the Polish Communist regime of this late ’70s and very early ’80s for their unabashedly governmental works. Szulkin’s films that are profoundly imaginative be considered as existential tales, absurdist parables, or premonitions about contemporary society’s hostility and also the 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 generate shockingly iconoclastic technology fiction films. Called “the undiscovered Fritz Lang of 1980s Mitteleuropa” (Michal Oleszczyk, RogerEbert.com), Szulkin made films which were seldom seen away from their indigenous Poland but which continue steadily to resonate with chilling truths about humankind, drawing eerily prescient parallels to the present worldwide governmental environment.
One of several biggest retrospectives of their strive up to now, Sci-Fi Visionary: Piotr Szulkin provides an array of brand new electronic restorations and imported movie images. The show showcases each of Szulkin’s features, including his audacious cult classic Golem , usually considered a precursor to Blade Runner ; The War regarding the Worlds: Next Century, a reimagining associated with the H.G. Wells novel and an indictment of mass media’s impact on civilians; O-Bi, O-Ba: The End of Civilization , which follows the rest of the survivors of the nuclear apocalypse because they watch for a mythical Ark to truly save them from their serious situation; Szulkin’s research of feminine sex 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 mission up to a authorities state hell earth; and Szulkin’s last movie, King Ubu , on the basis of the 19th-century Albert Jarry play, a brutal commentary on modern Poland when you look at the aftermath associated with the Communism Szulkin criticized throughout their profession. Furthermore, the retrospective will emphasize Szulkin’s film that is short, like the folklore-inspired morality play Dziewce z ciortem in addition to documentary Working Women .
Presented in collaboration aided by the Polish Cultural Institute ny.
Arranged by Florence Almozini and Tyler Wilson.
Tickets carry on sale Thursday, August 15 and so are $15; $12 for pupils, seniors (62+), and individuals with disabilities; and ten dollars for movie at Lincoln Center users. Save with all the purchase of three seats or maybe more.
Acknowledgments: Polish Cultural Institute Nyc; Daniel Bird
FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS All tests occur 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 prolonged company trip and her mom dies, a coolly detached, bourgeois housewife (Hanna Dunowska) embarks on an outre carnal odyssey looking for intimate satisfaction, leading her into increasingly deranged, sinister realms as memories from fever-dream seductions to her childhood mingle. 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 a lusty Joseph Stalin to a couple of shockingly randy puppets—as it savages faith, their state, and also the concept of the nuclear family members.
Preceded by: brand brand New electronic renovation Working Women / Kobiety pracujace Poland, 1978, 6m U.S. Premiere Stylized with dramatic interiors and a distorted framework price, this 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 dystopian satire. In the next where life in the world is now 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 a apparently condemned objective to an uncharted earth. Upon their arrival, he discovers some sort of curiously just like a dilapidated, postapocalyptic world, where he could be welcomed by the population as a “hero,” an ignominious honor, he quickly learns, that is included with a many fate that is barbaric. Using the film’s title that is appropriately nonsensical the babble of their infant daughter, Szulkin provides a bleakly acerbic commentary regarding the absurdity of life in a authorities state. Friday, September 6, 4:30pm Saturday, September 7, 8:30pm
brand brand New restoration that is digital Poland, 1980, 92m Polish with English subtitles in a few dystopian future, boffins try to produce an innovative new, flexible battle of people. an apparently ordinary item associated with work, the genetically engineered Pernat (Marek Walczewski) is susceptible to round-the-clock monitoring while he goes about their life amidst drab bloc architecture that is soviet. Szulkin’s feature that is bold, styled in sepia tones and dramatic illumination, happens to be known as a precursor to Blade Runner , but its title additionally appears back into a more ancient misconception of creation and morality.
Preceded by: brand brand New electronic restoration The Gal plus the Fiend / Dziewce z ciortem Poland, 1976, 14m Polish with English subtitles U.S. Premiere Szulkin stages a morality play of a sinful woman’s encounter aided by the devil, set to your Polish ballad of the identical title and imbued with folkloric imagery. Friday, September 6, 6:30pm Saturday, September 7, 2:00pm
New restoration that is digital Ubu / Ubu krol Poland, 2003, 90m Polish with English subtitles U.S. Premiere predicated on Alfred Jarry’s late 19th-century, proto-Dada political satire Ubu Roi , Szulkin’s last movie is definitely ukrainian women for marriage a crazy, carnivalesque commentary on post-Communist Poland by which drunken degenerate Ubu (Jan Peszek) seizes control over the monarchy in a supposedly “democratic” takeover (their signature policy: universal free alcohol) and then institute his very own absurdist, tragicomic reign of terror. Updating Jarry’s iconoclastic vision with a brand new dosage of dark, post-Soviet cynicism, King Ubu is an incendiary summative statement from a musician whom devoted his career to lobbing grenades during the equipment of totalitarian governmental corruption. Sunday, September 8, 6:00pm
New restoration that is digital, 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 final vestiges of civilization. They truly are 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, in component, because of the increasingly disillusioned smooth (Jerzy Stuhr) while he tries to prevent 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 away like a Sisyphean journey into madness. Saturday, September 7, 6:30pm Sunday, September 8, 4:00pm
brand brand New digital restoration The War for the Worlds: Next Century / Wojna swiatow – nastepne stulecie Poland, 1981, 96m Polish with English subtitles focused on both H. G. Wells and Orson Welles, Szulkin’s followup to Golem starts aided by 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) given that sound of these 1984 -esque propaganda device. But once Iron dares to set off message, he makes an enemy also more than the aliens: the state itself. Released just like Poland was being plunged into martial law and instantly prohibited, The War associated with Worlds: Next Century is just a disturbingly prescient allegory of energy, control, and news manipulation in a post-truth globe. Friday, September 6, 9:00pm Sunday, September 8, 2:00pm