Anna Rok

The film tells the story of seven people from different parts of the world, who live together in a remote valley in Italy. It’s a very unique theater group started by Polish director Jerzy Grotowski. The Workcenter Group is like a miniature society, a mosaic of different mankind, contrasting personalities. People disappointed with religion but struggling to create a new spiritual practices that will fill the void. Their daily lives are more like monks than actors. They devote their entire time to spiritual practice. Part of the activities of the team is working on old songs of tradition, which activates energy centers in the body and leads to transformation and to the interiority of the human being. Every member of the group comes with their own stories, own problems, and has a different approach to be in such a closed group, but all of them are united by the desire to go beyond their human limitations and find in the work a moment of transcendence and liberation. Our documentary looks for new ways of storytelling, aiming to convey this ritual practice into the language of film. We are trying to capture the spirit and energy of it.
Pandemia and life on-line shattered the group, which for many reasons started to fall apart after many years of working together. Why do some of the members decide to leave the group ? Workcenter is a story of human thirst, desire to see what is “behind the veil”, but it’s also a story about disappointment, collapse, about the world that nowadays is slowly fading away.
We all ask ourselves: what is the meaning of life? Actors from Workcenter believe that performing art can bring us closer to answering this question. As filmmakers, we wonder whether a documentary, which is only a record, can bring the same impact. We envision our film as a brief encounter with art that in its purest form can also be a space of sacrum.

A group of Warsaw-based gender queer artists fulfil their dreams as performers; Aaa debuts in trans-feminist porn, Filipka debuts as actor in a theatre piece based on Virginia Wolf’s “Orlando” and Billy grows as a poet. Through their entangled journeys, friendships and protest, the film is a fragmentary and intimate tale of a queer community flourishing despite and resistance to the hostile state.

Composed of intimate moments in the lives of a group of genderqueer artists and friends living in Warsaw, Poland, the film is a poetic account of queer life, friendship, performance and love, flourishing despite and in resistance to the hostile state.

Young lawyer Ewa grew up without a father, but with the stigma of being the daughter of a murderer and a racist. Her father, Janusz, planned the assassination of Nelson Mandela, but his victim was the leader of the Communist Party, the hero of the struggle against apartheid - Chris Hani. After more than 30 years, Ewa manages to get her father out of prison and bring him to Poland. But she soon discovers that she has unleashed evil, and her father - the idol of Polish nationalists - is now more dangerous than ever.
“My Father, the Iceman” is an intense political and psychological documentary thriller, underscored by a compelling narrative. It explores ideas like crime and punishment, lack of remorse and forgiveness, dangerous beliefs, and the thin line between good and evil."

"In Poland, people drink, have drunk, and - if nothing changes - will continue to drink. Alcoholism appears in complete families, incomplete ones, wealthy and poor, intellectual, working-class. We wanted democracy? Here we have it.
 One and a half million Polish children are raised in families with alcohol problems.
 What about those who grew up and still carry this experience?" - ask the authors of the reportage that became an inspiration to make a film about an experience that is very personal, yet terrifyingly common. How do Adult Children of Alcoholics build relationships with themselves and the world? How do they cope with shame suppressed for years, the need for control, loneliness, fear of intimacy? Today, they still play roles they were trained for in the past: they are Heroes, Scapegoats, Peacemakers, Mascots, or Invisible Children. Therefore, House in a Bottle
 is a sober film. By design, its topics are neither alcoholics nor alcohol. We are interested in adults stuck in roles that once helped them survive but today prevent them from living. The film starts with a portrait of the director’s relationship with her brother with whom she never talked about their childhood. But what does
 the film bring that a book cannot? She therefore invited four friends to participate in the film and – inspired by the books characters - to share their stories. The film becomes an attempt to reconnect with the brother and make sense of the past and understand who they - a director and her friends - are today.