Sci-Fi Visionary: Piotr Szulkin Celebrates Certainly One Of Poland’s Most Revolutionary Filmmakers

“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 globe into 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 most 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 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 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 to produce shockingly iconoclastic technology fiction movies. Referred to as “the undiscovered Fritz Lang of 1980s Mitteleuropa” (Michal Oleszczyk, RogerEbert.com), Szulkin made movies which were seldom seen outside of their indigenous Poland but which continue steadily to resonate with chilling truths about humankind, drawing eerily prescient parallels to the present global climate that is political.

Among the biggest retrospectives of their strive up to now, Sci-Fi Visionary: Piotr Szulkin provides a selection of brand brand new electronic restorations and imported movie images. The show showcases each of Szulkin’s features, including their audacious cult classic Golem , frequently considered a precursor to Blade Runner ; The War associated with the Worlds: Next Century, a reimagining associated with H.G. Wells novel and an indictment of mass media’s impact on civilians; O-Bi, O-Ba: the termination of Civilization , which follows the residual survivors of a nuclear apocalypse because they watch for a mythical Ark to save lots of them from their dire 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 objective to a authorities state hell earth; and Szulkin’s last film, King Ubu , in line with the 19th-century Albert Jarry play, a brutal commentary on modern Poland within the aftermath associated with the Communism Szulkin criticized throughout their profession. Also, the retrospective will emphasize Szulkin’s quick movie work, like the folklore-inspired morality play Dziewce z ciortem plus the documentary Working Women .

Presented in collaboration because of the Polish Cultural Institute ny.

Arranged by Florence Almozini and Tyler Wilson.

Tickets carry on sale Thursday, August 15 and therefore are $15; $12 for pupils, seniors (62+), and people with disabilities; and ten dollars for movie at Lincoln Center people. Save because of the purchase of three tickets or even more.

Acknowledgments: Polish Cultural Institute Nyc; Daniel Bird

FILMS & DESCRIPTIONS All screenings occur during the Walter Reade Theater (165 western 65th Street) unless 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 looking for 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, while the notion of the family that is nuclear.

Preceded by: brand brand New digital 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 depicts 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 on the planet became therefore wonderful that only prisoners are employed for the dangerous company of room 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 because of 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 infant 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 brand New electronic renovation Golem Poland, 1980, 92m Polish with English subtitles in a few dystopian future, boffins try to produce a brand new, flexible competition of people. a apparently ordinary item associated with work, the genetically engineered Pernat (Marek Walczewski) is subject to round-the-clock monitoring while he goes about their life amidst drab bloc architecture that is soviet. Szulkin’s bold function debut, styled in sepia tones and dramatic illumination, is called a precursor to Blade Runner , but its name additionally appears back into a more ancient misconception of creation and morality.

Preceded by: New restoration that is digital Gal therefore 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 name and imbued with folkloric imagery. Friday, September 6, 6:30pm Saturday, September 7, 2:00pm

New electronic renovation King 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 can be a crazy, carnivalesque commentary on post-Communist Poland by 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 his or her own absurdist, tragicomic reign of terror. Upgrading Jarry’s iconoclastic eyesight with a brand new dose of dark, post-Soviet cynicism, King Ubu can be an incendiary summative statement from a musician whom devoted their profession to lobbing grenades during the equipment of totalitarian corruption that is political. Sunday, September 8, 6:00pm

brand 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 up to a squalid underground bunker where survivors toil desperately to uphold the past vestiges of civilization. These are typically spurred in by their fervent belief in a fabled Ark that will deliver them from their residing hell—a misconception propagated by the powers that be, and distribute, to some extent, because of the increasingly disillusioned smooth (Jerzy Stuhr) as 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 down like a Sisyphean journey into madness. Saturday, September 7, 6:30pm Sunday, September 8, 4:00pm

New electronic renovation The War associated with Worlds: Next Century / Wojna swiatow – nastepne stulecie Poland, 1981, 96m Polish with English ukrainian-wife.net safe subtitles aimed at both H. G. Wells and Orson Welles, Szulkin’s followup to Golem begins with the Christmastime takeover of Poland by way of a band of hyperintelligent, bloodthirsty martians (played by silver-painted dwarfs in puffer jackets) who enlist hapless television newscaster Iron Idem (Roman Wilhelmi) since the vocals of these 1984 propaganda machine that is-esque. But once Iron dares to set off message, he makes an enemy also more than the aliens: the continuing state itself. Released in the same way Poland was being plunged into martial legislation and straight away prohibited, The War for the 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