On Wednesday, May 25th, Big Book Café in Warsaw will present two documentaries by renowned Polish filmmakers. The attendees will be able to watch Krzysztof Kieślowski’s “Seven Women of Different Ages” and Janusz Majewski’s “The Last Klezmer”, a biography of Leopold Kozłowski. The event starts at 7 P.M. and entry is free.
The happening is titled “The Observatory: Klezmer and Ballerinas”, inspired by the movies that will be presented. “The Last Klezmer” (2017, dir. Janusz Majewski) is a biography of Leopold Kozłowski-Kleinman (1918-2019), a Jewish pianist, compositor and concertmaster known for creating the soundtrack for “The Inn” (1982, Jerzy Kawalerowicz). He’s the last representative of Klezmers, Jewish musicians who played instrumental music firstly during religious ceremonies, and later for entertainment. The documentary includes interviews with Leopold and his klezmer compositions.
“Seven Women of Different Ages” (1978, Krzysztof Kieślowski), as the title suggests, combines the stories of 7 ballerinas of different ages to paint a picture of this career. The movie follows different women from childhood to senility, from a pupil to an instructor. This documentary won the “Golden Lajkonik” award at the 1979 Cracow Film Festival.
The movies screened the courtesy of Documentary and Feature Film Studios in Warsaw (WFDIF), a motion-picture studio founded in 1949. It worked with the biggest names in the Polish film industry, such as Jerzy Hoffman, Andrzej Munk, Kazimierz Karabasz and Maria Kwiatkowska and developed movies by Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Jerzy Antczak and many others. It’s the biggest production studio in Poland.