Pola Negri - Life is a Dream in Cinema
November 7th at 6:00PM
Director: Mariusz Kotowski, 2006
Location: Harry Ransom Center
Duration: 89 min
Admission: $30 (Opening Reception & Film Screening)*
Pola Negri - Life is a Dream in Cinema (2006), Kotowski - a biographical documentary examining the life and work of the Polish-born actress Pola Negri. Few people today are aware of this magnificent actress or the dramatic events of her life, including her engagements to Charlie Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino. The documentary is a remarkable collection of images and interviews covering Pola Negri's long acting career from Europe to Hollywood and reveals her amazing rags to riches story. In later life, Pola Negri retired in San Antonio, and lived there until her death in 1987.
U Pana Boga w Ogrodku / In God's Little Garden
November 8th at 6:30PM
Director: Jacek Bromski, 2007
Location: Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, Texas Spirit Theater
Duration: 115 min
Admission: $8.50*
In God's Little Garden (2007), Bromski - a lively comedy which takes place in a small village in Poland, but is universal in its humor. Mr. Bromski was praised for creating a successful sequel to the award winning "In Heaven As It Is On Earth" (1998). "In God's Little Garden" received a Special Jury Prize at the prestigious Polish Film Festival in Gdynia.
Katyń (Best Foreign Film 2008 Oscar Nominee)
November 9th at 4:15PM
Director: Andrzej Wajda, 2007
Location: Texas Spirit Theater at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum
Duration: 120 min
Admission: $8.50*
Katyń (2007), Wajda - this World War II drama tells the story of the near-simultaneous Soviet and German invasions of Poland in September 1939, and the Red Army's subsequent capture, imprisonment, and murder of some 20,000 Polish officers in the forests near the Russian village of Katyn and elsewhere, among them Wajda's father. After the German invasion of 1941, Nazi soldiers announced the discovery of the graves of those murdered by the Soviet secret police in Katyn. The Soviets denied and accused Germans of the crimes. The Soviets deliberately fabricated evidence to authenticate their lie. "In Poland, the very word "Katyn" thus evokes not just the murder but the many Soviet falsehoods surrounding the history of World War II and the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. Katyn wasn't a single wartime event, but a series of lies and distortions, told over decades, designed to disguise the reality of the Soviet postwar occupation and Poland's loss of sovereignty.", says Anne Applebaum in the New York Review of Books. Families of the murdered officers and civilians had to live with the awareness of this great loss and of this great lie. Their fate is the focus of this film.
"While Stalin's crime deprived my father of life, my mother was touched by the lies and the hoping in vain for the return of her husband...This is why, for years, Katyn has been an open, festering wound in the history of Poland that begged for a Polish film to address this topic." - Andrzej Wajda