Działalność
This year LOGTV Films Polska, LOGTV Ltd. and Polish Film Institute (PISF) brought to American educational institutions and film festivals a series of the following three awarded films, each dealing with Polish-Jewish relations: „Karski & The Lords of Humanity” by Slawomir Grünberg, „Blinky and Me” by Tomasz Magierski and „Bogdan’s Journey” by Michał Jaskulski and Lawrence Loewinger.
The grant we received allowed us to initiate a pilot program and to present these great films at the selected institutions and film festivals in the US and Canada.
Bogdan’s Journey
Kielce, Poland was the site of Europe’s last Jewish pogrom in 1946. The militia, soldiers and ordinary townspeople killed over 40 Holocaust survivors seeking shelter in a downtown building, injuring 80 more. As news of the pogrom spread across Poland, Jews fled the country. The Kielce pogrom became a symbol of Polish post-war anti-Semitism in the Jewish world. Under communism, the pogrom was a forbidden subject in Poland, but it was never forgotten.
In a free Poland, Bogdan Białek, a Catholic Pole, journalist and psychologist, emerges to talk publicly about the issue. Over time, with great effort, he persuades the people of Kielce to confront this painful history. Beginning as a solitary figure, he confronts the deepest prejudices in his fellow citizens, and strives to reconnect Kielce with the outside Jewish community. The effort costs him dearly. “Bogdan’s Journey” was filmed in Poland, Israel and the United States for almost a decade. Its two directors, a Polish Catholic and a Jewish American, combine to tell a unique story about one man and how he redeems 70 years of bitter, contested memories–by telling the truth with love.
SCREENINGS
November 10, 2018
Ann Arbor Polish Film Festival, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
November 11, 2018
Hamilton Jewish Federation, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
March 4, 2019
Cornell Cinema at Cornell University
Q&A with the film’s Director Lawrence Loewinger
April 24, 2019
University of Maine at Presque Isle, Presque Isle, Maine, USA
May 9, 2019
Fordham University’s Lincoln Center, Nowy Jork, USA
Q&A with the film’s Director Lawrence Loewinger
Karski & The Lords of Humanity
This partially animated film tells the story of a member of the Polish underground who acted as a courier during World War II and part of his mission was to inform the Allied powers of Nazi crimes against the Jews of Europe in an effort to prevent the Holocaust. Jan Karski infiltrated the Warsaw Ghetto and a Nazi transit camp and carried his dreadful eye-witness report of the atrocities to Britain and the United States, hoping that it would shake the conscience of the powerful leaders or – as he would later call them – the Lords of Humanity. 2017 The Best Film RussDocFilmFest NYC „Remembering Holocaust in the XXI Century”; 2016 Lavr Award – the Russian “Oscar” in educational category, Moscow, Russia; Grand Prix in documentary category – International Historical Film Festival, Warsaw, Poland; Nomination for the Best Documentary – The Eagles Awards, the Polish „Oscar”, Warsaw, Poland; Best Polish Documentary – „Jewish Motives” at International Film Festival, Warsaw, Poland.
SCREENINGS
February 19, 2019
Bergen Community College, New Jersey, USA
Q&A with the film’s Director Slawomir Grunberg
April 17, 2019
University of Maine at Presque Isle, Presque Isle, Maine, USA
September 11, 2019
Hamilton Public Library, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Q&A with the film’s Director Slawomir Grunberg
October 22, 2019
University of Virginia, Chatlottesville, VA, USA
Q&A with the film’s Director Slawomir Grunberg
Binky and Me
The connection between an adventurous cartoon koala named Blinky Bill and the Holocaust is hard to fathom at first, but it lies with the animator and producer Yoram Gross, who was born in Krakow. The subject of the documentary, Mr. Gross survived the Nazis and lived to tell the tale, and many more through animation, in his adopted country, Australia. This untold story comes to life in this film that follows the artist through his childhood in Nazi occupied Poland, in Israel and all the way to Australia.
Best Documentary – Chargin Falls IFF, USA; Audience Award and Bronze Phoenix Award – “Jewish Motifs” IFF, Poland
SCREENING
May 1, 2019
University of Maine at Presque Isle, Presque Isle, Maine, USA