APF: Dybuk | The Way of Youth (Mir Kumen On)

Another meeting of the Polish Film Academy at the Student Cinema “Blue Blanket” in Toruń, realized in cooperation with the National Film Archive — Audiovisual Institute.

In the program:

Dybuk — directed by Michał Waszyński,

The Way of the Young (Mir Kumen On), directed by Alexander Ford

After the screening of the films, the lecture will be given by: dr hab. Daria Mazur, prof. UKW

The meeting takes place as part of the first semester of the APF Plot “In Search of Identity. Polish Cinema until 1956”, dedicated to the development of cinema on Polish soil in the first half century of its existence — from pioneering productions to the first works of the Polish Film School.

The Polish Film Academy is a nationwide educational program of the National Film Archive — Audiovisual Institute, which disseminates knowledge about the history of Polish cinematography. Each meeting combines a film lecture with a film screening, allowing us to look at indigenous cinema through its creators, genres, themes and historical contexts.

In the academic year 2026/2027, Toruń for the first time joins the group of cities where the program of the Polish Film Academy is implemented.

Dybook (1937)

Director: Michał Waszyński

“Dybuk” is one of the most important films of Polish Yiddish cinema. The film adaptation of Szymon An-ski's drama tells the story of Lea and Chonen — young people whose fate is bound by a promise made many years earlier by their fathers. When the vow is not kept, the love story leads to events unfolding on the border of the real and supernatural worlds.

The film combines melodrama with elements of Jewish folklore, music and customs. Of particular importance is its visual layer and atmosphere — the world is presented at the same time as a space of everyday life, memory, tradition and what cannot be rationally explained.

“Dybuk” was created in Yiddish, and the pictures were shot, among others, in Kazimierz Dolny. The film occupies a unique place in the history of pre-war cinematography and remains one of the most important surviving testimonies of the developing Yiddish film culture in Poland.

The Way of the Young (Mir Kumen On) (1936)

Directed by Alexander Ford

“The Way of the Young” is a fictionalized documentary made in Yiddish, presenting the everyday life of children staying at the Włodzimierz Medem Sanatorium in Miedzeszyn near Warsaw. The institution surrounded the care of children from poor families, combining treatment with modern methods of upbringing and education.

Alexander Ford observes the life of the sanatorium - joint work, study, exercise, play and contact with nature. The camera captures the process of recovering health, but also building bonds and a sense of community. The film combines documentary observation with staging, creating a picture of the children's world seen against the background of the social realities of the 1930s.

Today, “The Way of the Young” remains a unique testimony to the pre-war Yiddish culture and the life of Jewish children in Poland. The preserved and reconstructed version of the film makes it possible to return to reality, the material traces of which for the most part did not survive the war.