100 Years of Poland 2018: Films Series
Starts 1st July till mid September 2018
This Polish films series covers a wide range of periods, styles and genres, including struggles for freedom and life under foreign and communist rule. It is part of the Polish Museum’s celebration of the Centennial Year of Poland regaining its independence at the conclusion of WW1 in 1918. Both heroes and ordinary citizens called to step up in extraordinary times feature in many of these popular films, which include masterpieces by Andrzej Wajda and George (Jerzy) Hoffman, with classic adaptations of much-loved stories featuring some of Poland’s best actors.
Individual and small family bookings are not required, open to the public, entry by individual donation.
Sundays and Thursday afternoons. All films start at 2pm sharp.
Please contact museum staff for any queries….
Hosted Visit, open to individuals and small groups: join our popular tour of the galleries. Hear an introductory talk and watch the film ‘Poles Apart’.
The programme will start at 1pm, with a look around the Lower Gallery, and follow with a talk starting at 1.15, then the film Poles Apart which is one hour, starting at 1.30pm with free time after the film to wander the exhibits and visit the Upper Gallery.
We will serve afternoon tea during the film. Price is $10 cash per person. Afternoon tea / coffee / biscuits included.
Bookings not required.
‘Poles Apart’ (1 hour) tells the poignant story and background of 733 Polish children and 102 adults who came to live in Pahiatua, New Zealand, 1944. These survivors were forcibly deported from Poland to Russia during World War 2 then evacuated to Persia during a short amnesty. They eventually found a home in New Zealand.
Museum founder Mr John Roy-Wojceichowski is one of the children,
In 1980, during the strikes in Gdansk, Wajda visited the shipyard. A worker shouted to him “Now you must make a film about our story – ‘Man of Iron.’
The workers thus directly commissioned Wajda’s second film. Its production, from beginning to end, was completed in nine months.
The story unfolds…In Warsaw in 1980, the Party sends Winkel, a weak, alcoholic TV hack, to Gdansk to dig up dirt on the shipyard strikers, particularly on Maciek Tomczyk, an articulate worker whose father was killed in the December 1970 protests. Posing as sympathetic, Winkel interviews people who know Tomczyk, including his detained wife, Agnieszka. Their narrations become flashbacks using actual news footage of 1968 and 1970 protests and of the later birth of free unions and Solidarity.
‘1918-2018 Poland 100 Years’.
2018 is a special year in the history of Poland.
Poland was off the political map for 123 years and regained its independence at the conclusion of World War 1.
Come and discover the historical timeline.
Display running till the end of 2018
Every year in Poland, the Polish Government chooses key people to celebrate, known as The Year Of … This year, at the museum, we are showcasing ‘The Year of Irena Sendler’, whose life was made famous in the film Life in a Jar.
Irena was a selfless nurse who saved Jewish children from the Warsaw ghetto in World War 2.
Display running till the end of 2018
Every year in Poland, the Polish Government chooses key people to celebrate, known as The Year Of …
Because this is a significant year, museum staff have chosen a second exhibition featuring a famous poet, ‘The Year of Zbigniew Herbert’.
He is well known for his words ‘No time to grieve for roses when the forests are burning’. A winner of over twenty literary awards, from the late 1960s, Herbert was one of the most serious contenders for the Nobel Prize for Literature.
His books have been translated into 38 languages.
Display running till the end of 2018
‘Our Lady of Czestochowa’, is a religious film showing the history of the monastery and sanctuary of Jasna Gora in Czestochowa, Poland. The film takes you on a tour of Poland’s greatest religious shrine, including those places which are not accessible to ordinary visitors. This film helps to understand the unique phenomenon of the Jasna Gora sanctuary
The Black Madonna Icon is a 122 x 82cm painting on a wooden panel which is shrouded by richly ornamented jeweled robes, legends and miracles.It is believed that Poland is under protection of The Black Madonna painting. A famous Catholic icon celebrated by Polish people on 15th August each year.
Story about a Pilgrimage to Czestochowa, Poland
The tradition of pilgrimages to Czestochowa, a famous Marian sanctuary (also commonly known by the name of Jasna Gora, or the Bright Mountain) is a long and diverse in Poland.
The most characteristic form of devotion is the summer walking pilgrimages to the sanctuary, when people from all over the country set off to walk in organized groups to this very special place. The experience involves hours or days of walking but there’s much more to do than just walk. The friars organize lectures on the way, focusing on various aspects of Catholic spirituality.
Perhaps the most striking feature of such an experience, it is the attitudes of people you inevitably meet on the way. From sharing drinking water or carrying your backpack for a while, to just being there to listen when you need it – but also inhabitants of local villages that pilgrimage passes through offer vast assistance, provide meals and places to stay overnight. Thus the way to the sanctuary becomes at least equally important to finally reaching it – another nice parable to the Christian way of life.
The experience is open to anyone who would like to participate in the pilgrim each August. There are some foreign guests – from the US, France, Finland, Philippines. Just bring yourself a pair of comfortable shoes – and you can start walking. Text by Kamila (Warsaw, Poland)
A 10 year Karol Wojtyla in the 1930’s in Poland, has dreams, many dreams. One by one they are shattered. First, by the loss of his mother and brother. Then by the outbreak of war and the death-fleeing exodus that ensued. And finally by the first sign of Jewish persecution.
These events will mark Karol’s long journey from worker, to poet and to teacher. A journey full of encounters that eventually leads him to become the man we all knew. A man who has marked an era. A man who has made history.
Karol Wojtyla, whose tireless fight for humanity and basic fundamental rights begins with the German invasion of his native Poland in 1939.
Appalled at the brutal treatment afforded his Jewish friends, Karol turns to his religion as a means of making a difference in the world, and with the help of several other like-minded individuals mounts a non-violent, but extremely effective, anti-Nazi resistance.
Ordained as a priest at war’s end, Karol finds himself fighting another form of Godless totalitarianism, this one from the Communists who have overtaken his country.
Ultimately, Father Karol Wojtyla’s noble mission culminates in his being elected as Pope John Paul II in 1978 and it was surely no coincidence that Poland’s liberation was now but a matter of time.
Polish Museum, 125 Elliot St, Howick phone 09 533 3530.
Entry by cash donation or internet banking
Stay for a few minutes or the whole 2 hours for a meditative reflection.
This film is an intimate portrayal of the everyday lives of Carthusian monks of the Grande Chartreuse, a monastery high in the French Alps (Chartreuse Mountains).
It is a transcendent meditation on the human pursuit of meaning, on man as a religious and social creature; on the form and function of symbols and ritual and tradition; on the rhythm of work and prayer, day and night, winter and spring.
The film has no score, no voiceover and no archival footage. What remains is stunningly elemental: time, space and light as it dissolves the border between screen and audience with total immersion.
This exhibition is part of the Auckland Heritage Festival 2018
View delightful styles of Polish ceramics, from hand-painted Boleslawiec blue dot tableware, famous in Europe for several hundred years, to regional Kashubian plates and a vintage folk-art floral teapot.
The other galleries in the museum will also be open.
Entry by Donation to the museum is suggested $10 – $5