2023 Schedule

October 13

Drama

Swarm 6:00PM SIFF Film Center

For ten years a family has been living on an island, isolated from reality. This apparent harmony turns into a trap. Against her partner's wish, the mother decides to return to the world she has left behind.

Horror

It came from the water 8:00PM SIFF Film Center

A group of Warsaw high school graduates, sick and tired of lockdowns and online schooling, decide to head to the seaside for a party that they will never forget.

October 14

Comedy

Tough Luck 2:00PM SIFF Film Center

During the wake after the funeral of their beloved grandfather, the family finds out that the numbers that grandfather played all his life have just been drawn in the lottery.

Drama

Backwards 4:00PM SIFF Film Center

Inspired by real events, the story of a young mother of an autistic boy whose persistence and struggle with bureaucracy and human heartlessness have led to significant changes in the Polish education system.

Drama

Elephant 6:15PM SIFF Film Center

Bartek runs a small horse farm in the mountains in Poland. He had to become head of the family when his father left and his mother fell apart. One day their neighbour dies and his son Dawid comes back to the village for a funeral. Bartek becomes fascinated by Dawid and his carefreeness. First love will force him to decide if he’s ready to choose his freedom above family obligations.

Comedy

Dangerous Gentlemen 8:00PM SIFF Film Center

Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, Witkacy, Joseph Conrad, and Bronisław Malinowski, four leading figures among the Zakopane bohemians, wake up after an all-night drunken party. Their hangover headaches are killing them, none of them remembers anything, and finding the corpse of a male stranger on the floor doesn't help.

October 15

Documentary

Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness 2:00PM SIFF Film Center

A riveting portrait of the great writer whose stories became the basis of the Broadway musical Fiddler on the Roof. Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness tells the tale of the rebellious genius who created an entirely new literature. Plumbing the depths of a Jewish world locked in crisis and on the cusp of profound change, he captured that world with brilliant humor. Sholem Aleichem was not just a witness to the creation of a new modern Jewish identity, but one of the very men who forged it.

Drama

Woman on the roof 4:00PM SIFF Film Center

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.

Drama

Dad 6:00PM SIFF Film Center

A lonely dad, facing the sudden death of a Ukrainian babysitter, takes his daughter and her friend on a journey by truck. Will a trucker and two scamp girls handle the transport of frozen fish, body smuggling, and life without a home?

October 20

Comedy

If I were you 6:00PM SIFF Cinema Uptown

Kaśka and Krzysiek - a young, attractive married couple with a charming son and an apartment in a picturesque area. It seems that they should be happy, and yet they are on the verge of divorce. They spend every day the same - arguing. Until the morning when they must work together like never before. And all because of... switching bodies.

Drama

Filip 8:15PM SIFF Cinema Uptown

Filip, an attractive twenty-something man, juggles working as a waiter in a luxury hotel trying to enjoy life in a time when enjoyment is hard to find. But pleasure can also be derived from vengeance, especially when every day brings uncertainty in terms of survival. This very current study of identity and wartime trauma dressed in period garb poses unsettling questions about the limits of human resilience and the price of salvation.

October 21

Documentary

Until the last drop 2:00PM SIFF Cinema Uptown

It is a film about rivers and people, their relationship and interconnectedness. The documentary exposes the global cost and consequences of the destruction of nature "in the name of progress". Rivers have been especially badly hit.

Drama

True Life of Angels 3:30PM SIFF Cinema Uptown

Adam, a famous actor, a man with typical troubles of the middle-aged male and difficulties in finding the meaning of life, gets a stroke and loses contact with the world. Doctors make a catastrophic diagnosis.

Comedy

Baptism 5:15PM SIFF Cinema Uptown

Marianna wants the family to live in harmony. The christening of her youngest grandson is a chance for reconciliation between her relatives. Plans are thwarted by General Jaruzelski. It is December 13, 1981. On this solemn day for the whole family, martial law is introduced.

Drama

Songs About Love 7:30PM SIFF Cinema Uptown

Contemporary Warsaw. A young musician meets an aspiring vocalist from a small town. Can two different sounds harmonize?

October 22

Drama

Young Eagles Grodno ‘39 2:00PM SIFF Film Center

“Young Eagles” is a dramatic depiction of war against the Soviets as seen through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy, Leon. On 1 September 1939, marking the beginning of the school year, his school is bombed by German planes. The war forces Leoś, Tadek, Ewelina, and thousands of Polish children to leave their childhood behind and quickly grow up in order to confront the darkness of this new, twisted reality of adult life they are about to face.

Thriller

The Breach 4:15PM SIFF Film Center

Maciek's wife's accident turns his life upside down. Soon the tragedy turns into a mystery full of secrets.

Thriller

The Hidden Web 6:15PM SIFF Film Center

Young journalist Julita Wójcicka is investigating the mysterious death of a television celebrity. She believes that what the services classify as an unfortunate accident was in fact a precisely planned crime.

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