Old And New Cinema Clash Kinoteka Polish Film Festival 2025 Line Up

Next month London based Polish cinephiles can celebrate all things Polish cinema with the Kinoteka Polish Film Festival. The 23rd edition line up has been launched another compelling line-up of contemporary and classic Polish cinema.

From 6th March until 25th April, the festival will be venturing around the UK for the first time ever. Working in collaboration with Klassiki,expanding into eight cities for a tour that will highlight key titles from across the programme.

This year’s festival will kick-off with Damian Kocur’s Under the Volcano (Pod wulkanem, 2024) at BFI Southbank on 6th March. the film speaks to the emotional heart of those impacted by war. Life can change in an instant, due to circumstances beyond our control, as this story from outside the conflict zone shows us. A Ukrainian family on holiday in Tenerife struggles to reconcile their new status as refugees, as a result of the Russian invasion. An exceptional performance from Sofiia Berezovska that embodies that identity crisis of international politics colliding with teenage fun in the sun.

The opening gala will also serve as the official inauguration of the UK/Poland Season 2025. This will also kick-off a six-month-long season, between March and November. 100 multi-artform events in 20 cities will serve to promote British culture in Poland (coordinated by the British Council) and Polish culture in the UK.
Wojciech Has retrospective that will span the festival’s dates in April. An opulently strange and hallucinatory classic that filters Bruno Schulz’s elusive and elliptical novella through Has’s own familiar obsessions. Józef (Jan Nowicki) is trying to access the past, in this case by visiting his father (Marek Kondrat) in a sanatorium that turns out to be a portal to a world based as much on Józef’s fears and long-suppressed memories as it is on objective reality.

The retrospective will also include The Saragossa Manuscript (Rękopis znaleziony w Saragossie, 1964), the director’s acclaimed debut The Noose (Pętla, 1957) and the influential wartime drama Farewells (Pożegnania, 1958).

The other highlights include Under the Grey Sky (Pod szarym niebem, 2024), the outstanding feature debut from former journalist Mara Tamkovich. Inspired by the true story of reporter Katsiaryna Andreyeva, who was arrested in Belarus after covering peaceful protests following the 2020 elections, the film blends archive footage alongside strong lead performances to show the dilemmas faced in both personal and professional spheres as journalist Lena (Aliaksandra Vaitsekhovich) and her husband Ilya (Valentin Novopolskij) strive to make moral choices and survive with dignity. Irena’s Vow (2023), the remarkable true story of Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border, this observational documentary focuses on a Kurdish family caught in a forest between Belarus and Poland who become a geopolitical pawn.

For full information of the full line-up and to book tickets please head over to Kinoteka Film Festival Website.  The 2025 Kinoteka Polish Film Festival takes place 6th March – 25th April.