APF: Adventure in Mariensztat | Direction — Nowa Huta!

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:

An Adventure in Mariensztat, directed by Leonard Buczkowski

Direction — Nowa Huta! — directed by Andrzej Munk.

After the screening of the films, the lecture will be given by: Sylwia Kołos, PhD, professor at UMK.

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.

The Adventure of Marienstadt (1953)

Directed by Leonard Buczkowski

“Adventure in Mariensztat” combines a romantic comedy with a story about Warsaw being rebuilt. The main character is Hanka Ručajówna, who meets Janek during a trip to the capital. After returning to her hometown, she cannot forget the meeting and finally arrives in Warsaw, where she starts working as a bricklayer.

The film takes place in the space of the rebuilt capital and combines emotional history with themes characteristic of the cinema of the early 1950s — work, collective and social modernization. In the program of the Polish Film Academy, it is indicated as an example of social realism using the popular form of romantic comedy and song.

“Adventure in Mariensztat” was the first Polish feature film made in color. The main roles were played by Lidia Korsakówna and Tadeusz Schmidt. The film is 93 minutes long.

Direction — Nowa Huta! (1951)

Director: Andrzej Munk

“Direction — Nowa Huta!” is a short documentary film from 1951, one of the early films of Andrzej Munk. The picture was created in the period when social realism was a valid aesthetic doctrine in Polish cinematography, and the themes of labor, industrial construction and social modernization were among the basic themes of official film production.

The film is dedicated to the creation of Nowa Huta and is part of the current trend of documents presenting great industrial enterprises and the construction of a new model of society. In the program of the Polish Film Academy, it is presented as a 12-minute supplement to “Adventure in Mariensztat”, allowing to compare the fictional and documentary ways of presenting the reality of the early 1950s.