Cultural bulletin 27

News in brief

·        „Shopping Mall Girls” (Galerianki), a Katarzyna Rosłaniec movie about 14-year-old girls visiting Polish shopping malls in search for men-„sponsors” ready to buy them expensive cloths and cosmetics in exchange for sex won this year Great Amber (Wielki Jantar) award for the best Polish feature film at the “Young and the Movie,” 28th Koszlin Film Debut Festival that ended on June 20. The award-granting ceremony was held at the Kryterium movie centre. The jury, made up of actress Małgorzata Pieczyńska, cameraman Adam Sikora, director Grzegorz Pacek and sociologist of culture Mirosław Pęczak was chaired by movie director Radoslaw Piwowarski.

·        An old-fashioned bus run the streets of Paris on June 20 with Polish poets board reading their poems to passengers. This was one of the attractions of the 27^th Paris Poetry Fair at which Poland is this year guest of honour. The agenda of Polish show in Paris included a number of meetings, concerts and film shows starring Polish actors.

·        Poland’s renowned actress Danuta Szaflarska won this year Cyprian Kamil Norwid award for life-time achievements, announced on June 24 together with nominations to four other Norwid awards granted for five years by self-government of mazowsze province. The winners will be known in September.

·        British historian Gunnar S. Paulsson, the author of the book devoted to Jews in occupied Warsaw won the Kazimierz Moczarski History Award, Agora Foundation that founded the award has told PAP.

Reports

Retrospective show of Skolimowski movies at Moscow festival

“Four Nights with Anna” (Cztery noce z Anna, 2008) by Jerzy (Yurek) Skolimowski inaugurated a retrospective show of movies by Poland’s film director at the 31st International Film Festival in Moscow.

On show were Skolimowski’s six movies including "Indentificiation Marks: None" (Rysopis-1964), "Walkower" (1965), "Barrier" (Barierę - 1966), "Deep End" (Na samym dnie - 1970) and " Le Depart" (Start  - 1967). The first one was his debut movie and "Start" won the Golden Bear at the International Movie Festival in Berlin in 1967.

"Jerzy Skolimowski, is one of those scarcely known classics whose fame comes sort of „post factum” in retrospective shows when the artist said everything what he had to say,” highly valued Russian film critic Evgeny Gusatyński wrote for "Kommiersant-Weekend".

Italians win Grand Prix at 5th International Festival of Theatre Schools

The Ateneo Theatre Centre from Rome won the Grand Prix of the 5^th International Theatre Schools Festival that ended in Warsaw on June 22 in Collegium Nobilium Theatre.

The theatre from Rome received the PLN 25,000 worth of prize for the conmedie dell’arte-style performance "Faithful Izabella" (Wierna Izabella), based on a play by Flaminio Scala, one of the greatest prime movers of the said genre. The main award of the festival jury worth PLN 20,000 went to students of the Arts Academy of University in Novi Sad, Serbia, who performed Nigel Williams’ "Class Enemy" (Wróg klasowy).

19th Malta Theatre Festival

Sixty five theatre performances including 19 foreign were staged at this year Malta Theatre Festival that ended on June 27. In total theatre goers saw 130 performances in 14 festival sites. The festival opened at the Poznań International Fair PIF premises on June 23 with the concert of Nine Inch Nasil band. Festival director Michał Merczyński said that a financial guarantee of the culture ministry would help implement future plans for the festival. As of 2010 Malta will change its character. The festival will be held under the name "Malta Idioms" and each year it will raise different topics. He added that it was Malta ambition to “enter into the group of Europe’s most important theatre festivals."

Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski has assured after the signing of the agreement (on guarantees) that the Poznań festival is one of a handful of events that may hope for special support.

Russian paper: Katyń Crime Case to be sorted out in September

The Russian Nezavisymaya Gazeta paper has written that the case of the Katyń crime will be sorted out in September during PM Vladimir Putin visit to Poland.

"One of the most difficult issues in Russian-Polish relations, the so called Katyń Crime may soon be sorted out. According to the paper the Russian co-chair of the group for the so called sensitive issues in Russian-Polish relations will present to Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Radoslaw Sikorski concrete recommendations. Moscow and Warsaw are expected to make a political decision in during PM Putin’s visit to Warsaw in September, the paper writes. The newpaper also recalls that the last meeting of the group for sensitive issues took place in Cracow at the end of May and centred on „scratching Katyń out of the daily agenda of problems to be solved. The group committed then both co-chairmen to present concrete proposals on the master (the 1940 Katyń Crime was a mass murder of thousands of Polish military officers, policemen, intellectuals and civilian prisoners of war by the Soviet NKVD by the order of Joseph Stalin)

Szczecin Rock Festival

The Szczecin Rock Festival, held on June 24 and 25 at the 40-metre stage at the Pogoń sports stadium attracted Polish and foreign rock music stars as Keiser Chiefs, Limp Bizkitz, Manic Street Preachers, Chris Cornell, Hey, Coma, Lipali, Myslowitz.

Also a camping site was built for the viewers as well as big screens were installed to enable all guests to see the concert Rock fans flocked from all over Poland, from German and Scandinavian countries for this biggest rock event in this part of Europe. According to initial estimates the concert was attended by some 15,000 people.

Banialuka Theatre from Bielsko-Biala in Croatia

The Banialuka theatre form Biesko-Biala presented a performance by Liliana Bardijewska entitled „The Greek Walker” (Zielony wędrowiec) at the 49th International Festival for Children in Sibenic, Croatia, held between June 20 and July 4. 

The festival was accompanied by workshops for Croatian children. Attendance was estimated at 1,000.

PAP envisages

·        A march of Teutonic and Polish Knights, a walking tower for sites’ besieging, launchers of torches are on the agenda of the 10th edition of „Besieging Malbork” (Oblężenie Malborka) , an open air event to be held from July 24 to July 26. Its agenda was presented by deputy director for marketing of the Malbork Castle Museum Beata Stawarska and director responsible for the show Jacek Spychała at a news conference in Warsaw. This year Malbork will see some 300 knights followers groups from different countries including Germany, Poland. The parts of knights will be performed by professional actors like Tomasz Karolak and Robert Gonera, Spychała said. He stressed that the performance showing the besieging of Malbork will be one of the element of the entire event. The show will be performed twice, on Friday, July 24 and on Saturday, July 25 late in the evening on the eastern part of the castle in the area of the so called von Plauen earth wall. The two performances will start at 2230 hrs and will last some 60 minutes.