The Bolesławiec Film Discussion Club received a prestigious award from the Polish Film Institute (PISF). In this way, the PISF jury recognizes the work of people and institutions not involved in film production. “dkfbok” received the award for attendance and its 2011 programme.
Champagne, a red carpet and the statuette that Ewa Lijewska-Małachowska and Iwona Bojko received at the gala of the Polish Feature Film Festival in Gdynia awaited participants of Monday’s film club meeting.
“We received this award thanks to you,” the BOK-MCC director told those attending the meeting. “It is thanks to you that we can look at it here today.”
BOK-MCC is continuing the tradition of the Film Discussion Club, dating back to 1980, with great success. The idea of creating a Film Discussion Club in Bolesławiec occurred to Jerzy Pietrzak (then employed at the “Relax” club, operating at the “Bolesławianka” Housing Cooperative), although he had also heard about earlier meetings of film enthusiasts. They were reportedly organized by the PAX Association (a secular Catholic organization) in rooms in a tenement house on Kościelna Street.
“Although conditions at ‘Relax’ were not good, because I did not have a screening room, I founded the club anyway,” Pietrzak says of his activities. “I obtained films from Wrocław, consulted film journalists I was friends with, and cooperated with the film school in Łódź.”
Up to 30 people attended screenings at the club, but the lectures organized at Forum cinema were packed beyond capacity. Through the government agency responsible for film distribution, they managed to obtain censored films, known as “shelved films.”
“I showed everything: comedies, westerns and action films,” Jurek recalls. “‘Mother of Kings’ caused a huge sensation—a strongly politically incorrect film at the time—as did Żuławski’s ‘The Devil.’ That film shocked many people then.”
In 1990, the Film Discussion Club at the Relax club ceased to exist. At the end of 2004, BOK director Ewa Zbroja hired Grażyna Hanaf to reactivate the club. Other films were causing a stir at that time.
“I remember how much emotion my proposal to show ‘The Piano Teacher,’ a film based on a novel by the feminist and communist Elfriede Jelinek, aroused,” Hanaf recalls. “The screening proceeded peacefully, and afterwards a heated standing discussion began in the Forum lobby. Topics included human sexuality, physicality, desire, loneliness and the inability to cope with life,” recalls the journalist of the Istotne.pl website.
After two years, the Film Discussion Club’s activities were suspended for reasons related to the premises—the Forum was being renovated. In 2007, thanks to the efforts of Iwona Bojko and a group of film enthusiasts, the Bolesławiec club was entered into the register of the Polish Federation of Film Discussion Clubs. Meetings began to take place regularly every Monday, and the group of club members grew year by year.
“dkfbok” certainly attracts viewers with its excellently selected, attractive programme, proposed by Iwona Bojko and discussion leader Ireneusz Wojtkow, as well as excellent film-viewing conditions in the renovated cinema.
For five years, the weekly meetings have been held with financial support from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage through the Polish Film Institute. The title of Poland’s best Film Discussion Club is well deserved and has been honestly earned by the organizers and viewers.
(information: ii)