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Argentinean Lesson
Argentyjska lekcjaPoland 2011 56'
2015 Tuesday December 1st, Spazio Alfieri, 9:15 pm
Directed by: Wojciech Staroń
Janek is 8 years old when he moves from Poland to North Argentina with his family: his mother, a teacher of Polish, his little sister, and his father with his camera. In his daily struggle for integration in such a distant world, Janek meets Marcia, 11, the daughter of Polish emigrates. With a vivid, dynamic pace, Staroń’s lens follows cleverly this friendship and depicts it through the eyes of childhood, in an intimate and moving journey of maturation.
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El Misionero
Poland 2000 50'
2015 Sunday, November 29th, Spazio Alfieri, 5:00 pm
Directed by: Wojciech Staroń
Father Casimiro drives to the remotest corners of the Bolivian Andes to bring the Lord’s blessing and Christian faith to the peoples who live in these isolated areas of the world. It is not easy to make oneself understood, be welcomed, and listened to. Worried and diffident faces open up rarely with a warming smile. The camera follows up close the profile and journeys of this missionary, recording his meetings, holy masses, devotion, and the pure sense of mission that pervades him, including the most critical moments and most extreme circumstances of his travels.
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El Premio
Poland/Mexico 2011 103'
2015 Thursday, December 3rd, Spazio Alfieri, 8:30 pm
Directed by: Paula Markovitch Fotografia/DOP: Wojciech Staroń
Argentina, 1970’s. In an era marked by the return under the military dictatorship, the young Lucia and her daughter Cecilia live in a rundown house on the beach. Despite her seven years of age, Cecilia knows she must protect a secret that might determine the survival of her family. But one day, the little girl puts herself in danger when the army asks that all students at her school write a composition in honour of the military…
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For a While
Na chwilePoland 2005 25'
2015 Monday, November 30th, Spazio Alfieri, 6:30 pm
Directed by: Wojciech Staroń
Wojciech Staroń travels with his family to an isolated place in the Polish countryside, Mołtajny, near the “geographic centre of Europe,” with the goal of making a film about the difficult living conditions of those who live in those areas, further impoverished after the fall of the communist regime. At first, the camera observes the hardship and poverty of the inhabitants. Then Staroń turns his attention towards his four-year-old son, Janek, who in spite of the differences effortlessly creates for himself a group of friends to play with and share moments of life and fun.
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GLASS TRAP
Szklana PulapkaPoland 1999 15'
2015 Monday, november 30th, Spazio alfieri, 6:00 pm
Directed by: Pawel Kędzierski Fotografia/DOP: Wojciech Staroń
A group of tough men from near Warsaw organize a new form of entertainment. Their customary meetings over alcohol and drugs start to include fights between aggressive aquarium fish, which are, of course, accompanied by bets for large sums of money. Such is the extent of this hobby that one of the characters hopes that his champion will contribute significantly to the purchase of a new Subaru.
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Refugiado
Argentina 2014 94'
2015 Saturday, November 28th, Spazio Alfieri, 10:30 pm
Directed by: Diego Lerman Fotografia/DOP: Wojciech Staroń
Matias is seven years old when he finds his mother, Laura, lying on the floor, gasping and brutally wounded after the umpteenth fit of rage of his father. This time, though, Laura means to turn the page and protect herself and her son from her husband’s violence. Refugiado is an attempt to escape from a family drama, not without setbacks and second thoughts. There is the torment of a woman who, like several other victims of domestic violence, is subliminally tied to the man who attacks her, but also that of a child torn away from the innocence of childhood too early to be able to understand the reasons, and still desiring a normal life, with a father, a mother, and a home filled with joy and toys.
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Siberian Lesson
Syberyjska lekcjaPoland 1998 58'
2015 Saturday, November 28th, Odeon, 4:00 pm
Directed by: Wojciech Staroń
In 1996, Wojciech Staroń travelled to Siberia with his fiancée Malgorzata, who means to teach Polish thanks to a government programme. The Siberia they discover is an impervious, dilapidated land, marked by poverty and the void left by the collapse of Communism. In this place dominated by cold it seems impossible to live. Malgorzata will find not only friendship and bonds with people from whom she will learn a lot, but also love, filmed in the luminous and warm intimacy of Staroń’s 16mm.
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Silence and Darkness
CiszaPoland 1999 19'
2015 Monday, November 30th, Spazio Alfieri, 6:30 pm
Directed by: Pawel Kędzierski Fotografia/DOP: Wojciech Staroń
In a centre for blind and deaf people, the patients attend a class in Sculpture. The camera focuses on their faces, then on their hands, repeatedly. Handwork and creative act are like balm for the soul: modelling, caressing the clay fills the silence and sets the unconscious free from darkness, allowing it to find an expression, just as human contact would do.
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Six Weeks
Szesc tygodniPoland 2009 18'
2015 Monday, November 30th, Spazio Alfieri, 6:30 pm
Directed by: Marcin Janos Krawczyk Fotografia/DOP: Wojciech Staroń
In Poland, a mother who thinks she doesn’t have the means to bring up a child has six weeks’ time on the day of birth to decide whether she wants to have her new-born adopted. The camera follows the six weeks of a woman who has made this tormenting decision and those of the newborn babies in the maternity ward who are now beginning their life’s adventures.
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