SCREENING
Everyday Dramas: Documentary Shorts III
Ongoing
Location: Redstone Theater
Dir. Krzysztof Kieslowski. (Program duration: 110 mins. DCP.)
Factory (Fabryka). 1970, 18 mins. Factory is a daring early look at a day in the life of Ursus tractor factory, with footage alternating between laboring workers and a management board meeting. Due to a shortage of equipment and parts, the factory cannot meet its production quota, leading to an endless bureaucratic roundelay.
Before the Rally (Przed Rajdem). 1971, 14 mins DCP. Before the Rally illustrates ten days of preparation before leading Polish racing car driver Krzysztof Komornicki races in the 1971 Monte Carlo rally. The technical shortcomings of his Polish Fiat 125 serves as an allegory for the country’s industrial and economic problems.
X-Ray (Przeswietlenie). 1974, 12 mins DCP. In X-Ray, tuberculosis patients speak of their fears and of their wish to return to a normal life. In a place where they seem to lack nothing, there emerges a longing for the drudgery of everyday life away from the sanatorium.
Curriculum Vitae (Zyciorys). 1975, 45 mins DCP. A fascinating expansion upon the strategies of First Love. Here the “provocation” is a cross examination between a real-life Party Control Committee and a man accused of inappropriate conduct whose life story is a total fiction. “I would never have been allowed to enter a meeting of the Political Bureau. So I made a film on the Party Control Committee. Whatever has to do with the Party Control Committee is true. But what the protagonist brings to it is a fiction.” (Krzysztof Kieslowski)
Hospital (Szpital). 1977, 21 mins. The camera follows orthopedic surgeons on a 32-hour shift, as instruments fall apart in their hands and the power keeps going out. Kieslowski is as impressed by the perseverance, compassion, and humor of the surgeons as he is by the crumbling Polish hospital.
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