Piggies

The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.

In 1880s Australia, a lawman offers renegade Charlie Burns a difficult choice. In order to save his younger brother from the gallows, Charlie must hunt down and kill his older brother, who is wanted for rape and murder. Venturing into one of the Outback's most inhospitable regions, Charlie faces a terrible moral dilemma that can end only in violence.

A dramatization of one man's rescue of Jewish refugees in the Nazi-occupied city of Lviv. In Darkness tells the true story of Leopold Soha who risks his own life to save a dozen people from certain death. Initially only interested in his own good, the thief and burglar hides Jewish refugees for 14 months in the sewers of the Nazi-occupied town of Lviv (formerly Poland).

19 year old Irena Gut is promoted to housekeeper in the home of a highly respected Nazi officer in Poland when she finds out that the Jewish ghetto is about to be liquidated. Determined to help twelve Jewish workers, she decides to shelter them in the safest place she can think of – the basement of the German Major's house. Over the next eight months, Irena uses her wit, humour and immense courage to hide her friends as long as possible.

Poland, 1990. The first euphoric year of freedom, but also of uncertainty for the future. Four apparently happy women of different ages decide it's time to change their lives, and fulfill their desires.

Detective James Quinlan has left his alcoholic wife, sprouting a bloom of insecurity, anger and self-motivation within him to expose the corrupt police force that surrounds him. He abandons his straight life to join his partner Detective Church in order to get on the inside of the circle of double-agents. He secretly sides with a reporter and an Internal Affairs lawyer to expose them to the press.

A boy comes of age under an oppressive, cruel socialist government and watches as it slowly but surely distorts his family, his school and even his own thoughts.

Lola, a hot-blooded Spaniard, is deserted by her husband for a cool and calculating Aussie blonde. Lola is pregnant again but she and their daughter Lucia are left to starve while Ricardo spends all their savings on a sleek new set of wheels for his mistress. When he dies unexpectedly the family fortune, one flash car, remains with the mistress. Despite all his betrayals, Lucia sides with her father. Desperate and destitute in a country she doesn't like or understand, Lola's quest for revenge begins. Caught in the tempests of begrudging love, revenge, sibling rivalry, jealousy and passion, fourteen year old Lucia must find the strength to survive on her own terms. Aided to break free of her mother by her eccentric Aunt Manolo she struggles to find her own identity and her own quest for justice puts her on a collision course with her mother.

Helina, a modest checkout assistant at the Butterfly retail chain, dreams about getting a better life for herself and her daughter. An opportunity presents itself when Helina becomes a store manager. However, she soon discovers that the price for better wages and an improved standard of living is dishonesty, employee exploitation, and fraud.

Ogrodowa Street in Lódz - just opposite a crowded shopping center, a state-of-the-art museum and a posh hotel - is where some of the city's poorest live, completely forgotten by the world. A heart-warming and funny portrait of people excluded from the mainstream of social life; people who might be more capable of sacrifice and love than those who pushed them to the sidelines of society.

A story of Kundel, a boy searching for his place in life, his identity. After running away from an orphanage where he is treated as an outcast among outcasts by both his peers and the adults in charge, and being rejected a second time by his alcoholic mother, who had earlier abandoned him, the resolute 11-year-old finds a "home" on a deserted old barge on the outskirts of his hometown. He is still an outcast, but he is an outcast on his own terms, rejecting both patronizing charitable gestures and coercion by local thugs. In the process he makes one true friend, a girl from an affluent family who is also an outcast, despite living in material comfort.

Set before the first World War in part of Poland under Austrian occupation, the story of a young boy in primary school who later grows up to become a rebellious, poetic-minded teen in the same school when the national movement toward liberation is under way. The story of a country where church and state work together to suppress the human spirit.

1984, Poland. The investigation into a stolen Catholic relic takes an unexpected turn when the detective unravels a web that suggests the crime has far-reaching political implications.

Edyta is forty and in the midst of a crisis. She has left her family, her husband and son and their house on the Baltic Sea behind her. She spends her nights in a Warsaw hotel room and her days driving around the unfamiliar city. When she runs out of cash, she hatches a plan: An ad in the newspaper – sex for money. Edyta never lets things get that far though, as she drugs her clients and then uses their apartments as a refuge for the night. Then she meets an artist, Patryk. A smidgen of luck and Edyta can no longer maintain her dismissive attitude. In this enthralling character study, Tomasz Wasilewski uses filmic minimalism to ensure that glances and gestures say more than words. He portrays a lonely woman in both fragility and strength, using precise image composition.

Tomek lives only with his mother, because his father, Alek, left for the USA to earn some money. Unexpectedly, the man arrives home with a bunch of presents but no explanation as to why he has come back. Everybody seems happy but something is in the air.

The inmates and guards of a modern, clean and efficient maximum security wing are slowly and increasingly brutalized until they erupt in violence.

Mira, a 60 year-old woman, appears to have a normal life. One morning she starts her day like any other, wakes up early, puts her family's clothes out to dry, purchases food for her fish and commits a bank robbery with a kitchen knife. She discovers her need for money is surpassed only by her need for love.

Created under a 'manifesto' whose directives would make Lars von Trier shudder, an anthology is presented that might look on paper like an exercise in forced hipness. Fortunately, its creators – Harmony Korine (USA), Alexsei Fedorchenko (Russia) and Jan Kwiecinski (Poland) – prove innovative and just insane enough to make an exhilarating experiment.

The story of the late 90s generation and the three friends behind the music: Magik, Fokus and Rahim. The fact-based film charts the relentless struggle for success of Paktofonika, against the backdrop of crumbling traditional values in dreary 90s Silesia.

Based on a true story. Two brothers, Artur (22) and Marcin (12), murder their own mother. The film starts with the boys' arrest and then takes us through the last 12 months in a series of flashbacks.

A story about two childhood friends who are reunited by fate. This reunion after many years becomes an opportunity for a melancholy journey into the past, to recall memories of an irrevocable time gone by, as well as to reflect on true happiness, new values and the meaning of life. The plot of the film takes place as if on two time planes: on the screen, contemporary events are intertwined with images from years ago, when the heroines were still very young and the adult world seemed so distant.

Damian, a young boy raised by a single mother, believes that his father is a famous footballer playing for Glasgow Celtic F.C. His dream is to visit him. In his everyday life he has difficulty finding a common language with his mother who is trying to make a new life for herself with a younger man.

After a particularly embarrassing performance, a struggling Polish actor chooses to quit his acting troupe. In desperation, he returns home, only to find his dying mother has replaced him with a farm hand from a nearby mental institution. Alienated and depressed, he attempts to find his place in the world by driving out his replacement as completely as possible.

Ela is a resident of a provincial town in the foothills of the Sudetenland. She raises her 9-year-old son Damian alone. "She tries to survive in the gray of everyday life. Her every day closes in a circle of the same events: working at the local slaughterhouse, caring for her ailing mother and moments with her friend. One day magic and happiness enter the heroine's life.

A Polish spy working for the British during World War II is betrayed and compromised in Warsaw, leaving her no other choice but to descend into a dangerous world of treachery and deception in order to survive.

Two gangsters, fighting for influence in the city, decide to get suitcases filled with money and drugs. Meanwhile, another criminal group has the same purpose.

Under the leadership of an ex-footballer, a bunch of homeless men set up a football team and train hard to take part in the world championship.

Klara, devoted to her work as a tax inspector, becomes infatuated with the dashing but irresponsible and cynical Marian who is about to be charged with tax evasion.

An event, which main attraction is the dance marathon, has gathered crowds at the market square of the provincial Polish town. Impressive prizes compete with another attraction: the concert of the star singer Jessica. A local outsider Christian falls for the singer. Soon he discovers that her life is far from being a dream and decides to win her heart. In the crowd of marathon contestants we will meet many individuals who dream of winning the main prize for various motivations. Who will turn out to be the winner? Will there be a prize at all? Because two small-time crooks, Simon and Silvio, are lurking around. And why this persistent notion that our life is so often influenced by miracles...?