Festival archive

mobile navigation

interfilm 2020

PL 04 New Polish Shorts - Turning the Tables


Polish cinema is perhaps second to none in its tendency to react in wave-like motions to social and political developments, or in its capacity to give birth to currents independently of such developments, currents that can be understood as cinematic processing of subconscious thought. With the “Cinema of Moral Anxiety”, Krzysztof Kieślowski and other filmmakers gave voice to a feeling of powerlessness in the 1970s and 80s, itself the product of an immoral political system which could not be opposed. More than 30 years later, contemporary short films are bringing similar emotional complexes to the surface. Thus, it is no wonder that today’s filmmakers are taking up a sort of anxiety once again. They search for its traces in concealed places, examining angst, as they accompany protagonists detached from the settings of their daily existence – while often exhibiting a style best described as a new take on Magical Realism.