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….

Artwork by Lindy Fisher

Teacher Only Session for the PHTM

In house lesson: Identity/Migration: Polish children arrive in 1944

You are warmly invited to a Teacher Only Session for the Learning Outside The Classroom, PHTM educational programme called Stefania For Schools based on the book Stefania’s Dancing Slippers by Jennifer Beck and illustrated by Lindy Fisher.

Primary / Intermediate teachers and home educators are invited to visit the Polish Museum for a presentation, in preparation for student visits in 2018 . Experience the ‘Stefania for Schools’ lesson called Identity/Migration: Polish children arrive in 1944 with slideshow, objects and artworks, linked to the NZ school curriculum.

These free sessions are also available on request for your school team.

For bookings/enquiries and alternative dates email phtmuseum@outlook.com or phone Lynette, PHTM Education Officer, on 533 3530.

This programmes is age appropriate from Years 3-8, age group 7-13 years old

Museum building

‘Battle of Warsaw – Uprising in 1944 / Bitwa o Warszawe – Powstanie w 44’ dir. Wanda Koscia (2005). History of the Warsaw Uprising, the bloodiest military action taken by the only underground army in occupied Europe.

The history of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising presented from the perspective of participants, mainly insurgents who in a lively, involved and emotional way talk about their experiences, fate of their friends and their beloved city. The story is also told from 2 other perspectives, a German soldier, who participated in the brutal suppression of the Warsaw’s quarter Wola and a British pilot and   member of the British Military Mission in Moscow.

Their accounts allow their views to reconstruct a dramatic story of the  uprising and the personal dramas of its participants.Produced in Poland and Great Britain. (47 min)

PLUS

‘A Forgotten Odyssey’ dir. Jagna Wright (2000). In 1940, after Russia invaded Poland, Stalin deported 1.7 million Poles to slave labour camps in Siberia and Kazakhstan. Only one third of them survived.

They tell their stories. The main destinations of these transports were Archangelsk and Kazakhstan. In some cases, the deportees were just dumped in the middle of a forest and told to build their own shelters. In other cases, they were moved to various collective farms called “kolhozs” (collectivnoye hoziaystvo).

It is estimated that slightly more than 100,000 people were later transported to Pahlevi, Persia, via the Caspian Sea. Roughly half were soldiers and half civilians. This constitutes about 7 percent of all Polish citizens who were in Russia between September 1939 and June 1941.

How many remained in Russia, how many died, how many were allowed to return to Poland after the war can be only speculated. (52 min)

In 1976, a young woman, Agnieszka is making her diploma film, looking behind the scenes at the life of Birkut, at how that heroism was created, and what became of him. She gets hold of out takes and censored footage and interviews the man’s friends, ex-wife, and the filmmaker who made him a hero.

The film chronicles the fall from grace of a fictional heroic Polish bricklayer, Mateusz Birkut, who became the symbol of an over-achieving worker in Nowa Huta, a new socialist city created in the 1950’s near Krakow. Dozens of men were lined up in the mud in a food line. There are no women to be seen. The men are housed in barracks. When presented with a single fish on a plate for lunch, they begin spontaneously to pelt the Party Official with the fish and succeed in driving him out. Birkut is one of these workers…

It is a surprise that Wajda would have been able to make such a film, revealing the use of propaganda and political corruption during the period of Stalinism.

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