POLISH CINEMA IN THE INTERWAR PERIOD

The years prior to the first world war and the inter-war period are deemed by many film experts as a golden era for Polish cinema. During the first world war movie luminaries such as Pola Negri and the creator of Poland’s first animation film Feliks Kuczkowski made their mark on the scene. However, the great depression of the 1920’s nearly wiped out the movie industry all together. The scene was kept alive with imports and low budget domestic productions. But cinema was truly reinvigorated in the 30’s, starting with the release of “Everyone Can Fall in Love” of Poland’s first film with sound in 1933. The production of comedies, melo-dramas, historical, avant garde and Yiddish films throughout the decade drove the industry on to greater strength. The glory years were sadly short-lived, with the German occupation in 1939 leading to a banning of films made in Poland and the death of many filmmakers. The nail in the coffin arrived during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, when all cinemas and copies of films were destroyed.