\"RUSSIA-POLAND. NEW GAZE\"

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2007, 8 PM – PART II
New York, October 17, 2007 - Following the warm reception of Part One by a full-house international audience on September 30, the second in a three-part series of new documentaries by young Polish and Russian filmmakers will be screened at Brooklyn’s Galapagos Art Space on Sunday, October 28, at 8 p.m. (Part Three will be shown on Sunday, November 18, 8:00 PM.)

In an innovative program of cross-cultural encounter called Russia-Poland. New Gaze, selected film students from a number of film
schools in Russia “traded places” with their counterparts from film schools in Poland to make short documentary films about each other’s countrymen. As a group the films offer intriguing personal glimpses – a “new gaze” – into the lives of “others”, with the similarities at least as startling as the contrasts. The enthusiastic young film-school students used their talents and skills to explore who those "Poles" and "Russians" really are. These films thus came to life through the confrontation of prejudices with spontaneous interactions, and the collision of expectations with facts, bringing us closer to the truth about the stereotypes dividing these two nations. The films have been shown over 300 times throughout Europe and cumulatively have garnered nearly thirty awards.

Detailed information about The Program and Film Descriptions follow below

LISTINGS:
WHAT: A series of new documentaries by young Polish and Russian filmmakers presenting Russia in the eyes of Poles, and Poland in the eyes of Russians. Part II.
WHERE: GALAPAGOS ART SPACE ( www.galapagosartspace.com ) 70 North 6th Street (between Kent and Wythe, Williamsburg), Brooklyn, NY 11211, Tel. (718) 782-5188
WHEN: Sunday, October 28, 8:00 PM (Part Three Sunday, November 18, 8:00 PM)
TRANSPORTATION: Subway: L to Bedford Ave (first stop in Brooklyn), Bus: 61 to Bedford Ave & 7 Street
ADMISSION: Free
MORE INFORMATION: http://www.PolishCulture-NYC.org

PROGRAM AND FILM DESCRIPTIONS:

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2007, 8 PM – PART II: PLACES

7x MOSCOW by Piotr Stasik (from Poland) (19’00’’)
This film is like poetry without words. In seven long shots we can observe seven different areas in Moscow. These locations are not accidental. In each case the camera is placed in a key spot, typical for Moscow, yet completely different from the others. Each one of them lets us get deeper and deeper into the city and its reality.

THE LAST STOP – ZAGORZ by Yulia Iskhakova (from Russia) (17’06”)
We are shown around this provincial, picturesque town in southern Poland by a local postman. Together we meet people from the town and visit their homes. For the young, Zagorz is just the first stop on their way into the big world. For the old it\'s a place where they are getting ready to say their final goodbyes.

6 BIELINSKI STREET by Karolina Bielawska (from Poland) (26’00’’)
A communal apartment in a Petersburg tenement house is shared by a few young artists, crooks, an elderly music composer, and a teenager deeply in love with her husband. We see the life of both bohemians and ordinary people. But are they just sharing the hall, kitchen, and the city they live in, or also their dreams or lack thereof? Total time: 62’06”

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2007, 8 PM – PART III: METAPHYSICS

A FOLK TALE by Monika Filipowicz (from Poland) (23’09’’)
In a small, desolate village somewhere in Karelia live two people depicted by Mariusz Wilk in his book The House on Onega. Their life
resembles a bucolic Russian folk tale – they fish, exchange their catch for gasoline, keep animals, grow ’taters... Some say that this
idyll hides a big secret.

THE SACRED by Aliona Polunina (from Russia) (30’17”)
The Lichen sanctuary as seen by the Russian director, who found this place while searching for sacredness. At Lichen religion is fitted to the needs of modern life, and the pilgrims there are more like tourists; their goal is not the sanctuary itself, but rather the
amusement park that the place has become. The film concentrates on the Golgotha maze, intended to symbolize the ordinary man\'s search for meaning in life.

THE SEEDS by Wojciech Kasperski (from Poland) (27’09”)
In a cottage at the outskirts of a small village surrounded by the Altai Mountains lives a family rejected by the local community. Little by little we learn about their secrets. The story is haunting and it\'s difficult for the viewer to remember that this is a documentary film.
The attractive Russian surrealism turns out to be real life. Total time: 80’35”

ABOUT THE PROJECT:
Russia-Poland. New Gaze ( www.newgaze.info/english ) was co-produced by Eureka Media and the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, with further financial support from the Polish Film Institute and in collaboration with the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing, Gerasimov All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography, St. Petersburg State University of Cinema and Television, K. Kieslowski Faculty of Radio and Television at University of Silesia, Polish Television, and the European Documentary Network.

Project curator: Mateusz Werner
Tutors and art supervisors: Maciej Drygas, Andrzej Fidyk, Vladimir
Fienchenko, Dmitriy Kabakov, Tue Steen Müller, Jacek Petrycki, Dorota
Wardęszkiewicz, Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz
Producer: Krzysztof Kopczyński

Co-producer for Polish Television TVP SA: Witold Będkowski

ABOUT THE POLISH CULTURAL INSTITUTE:

The Polish Cultural Institute, based in New York, is dedicated to
nurturing and promoting cultural ties between the United States and
Poland, both through American exposure to Poland\'s cultural
achievements, and through exposure of Polish artists and scholars to
American trends, institutions, and professional counterparts. The
Institute takes an active collaborative role in the organization,
promotion, and in many cases the actual production of a broad range of
cultural events in theater, music, film, literature, and the fine
arts. With its extensive contacts in both America and Poland, the
Institute is in an excellent position to help such initiatives in a
variety of ways that include fund-raising, facilitating contacts in
Poland, organizing concurrent panels of artists and scholars,
generating press coverage, and developing public outreach.