Kinoteka Polish Film Festival comes to Tyneside Cinema

A Ukrainian family of four on vacation in the Canary Islands become refugees when Russia’s ongoing occupation of Ukraine turns into a full-scale invasion, in Damian Kocur’s tense and timely sophomore feature.

Farewells, also known in English as Lidia Ate the Apple, Wojciech Has’ heartbreaking adaptation of Stanisław Dygat’s novel evokes the despair pervading Poland in the years before and after the Second World War.

After another row and an attempt to divorce, Janek and his wife give themselves an ultimatum and decide to go on a 400-kilometer hike along the Baltic Sea in the middle of winter in a final attempt to salvage their love.

In Agnieszka Zwiefka’s extraordinary documentary, a 16-year-old Kurdish refugee girl is stranded in an icy pine forest between Belarus and Europe with her family in a dirty political power play. She has only one choice: to grow up in an instant and save her family.

This 1965 classic from director Wojciech Has is largely a lighthearted work, laden with warm comedy, ribald drama, Gothic atmospherics and unforgettable imagery, as two soldiers discover a strange manuscript at an inn, during Napoleon’s invasion of Spain.

Mara Tamkovich’s debut feature paints a chilling picture of political repression in the 21st century, when access to the internet, drones and social media have become entwined with public life. Inspired by a true story it depicts the personal toll of political activism and its necessity.