Polish Zoom, a celebration of contemporary and classic Polish cinema, will take place starting June 5 at the cinematheques in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa.
This program, which was created by the Polish Institute in Tel Aviv in cooperation with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute in Poland, began in 2019. This year, for the first time, the events will include a collaboration with the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival (TISFF), which will open late in June at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque. Polish film students who participate in the TISFF will be hosted by their fellow film students at Tel Aviv University and the two groups will participate in cinema workshops together.
Director Agnieszka Smoczynska will attend the festival and be present at a screening of her acclaimed film, The Silent Twins, in a special event which will be a joint production of the TISFF and Polish Zoom and she will conduct student workshops. The Silent Twins is a dramatization of a fascinating true story of two black British sisters who withdrew from their unwelcoming community into an artistic fantasy world and after a spree of vandalism, were confined to a mental hospital. The movie won four Polish Film Awards, including Best Film, in 2022. The movie stars Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance.
Opening film
The opening film of Polish Zoom will be Bread and Salt, Damian Kocur’s movie about a music student who gets involved in a conflict between local youths and foreigners in his hometown, which won the Special Jury Prize in the Venice Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival, in 2022.
For the full program, go to the individual cinematheques’ websites or visit: https://instytutpolski.pl/telaviv/en/2023/05/15/polish-zoom-a-celebration-of-polish-films-at-the-cinematheques.