52 short films qualified for the competition of the 2nd Long Story Short Film Festival, organised by the Lower Silesian Film Centre (DCF). This year’s festival will take place in DCF cinema from 10-13 June and then online.

Jarosław Perduta, director of the Lower Silesian Film Centre, emphasized that last year’s Lower Silesian Short Film Festival was the first one organized entirely online.

“The selected festival films have been viewed over 22,000 times. This year we wanted our festival proposals to be presented in cinemas. Hence the postponement of the festival from May to June and the decision to make this year’s Long Story Short a hybrid” – he said.

Nearly 260 productions were submitted for the competition. From among them, the jury selected 52 films, which will be shown first in the cinema and later also online. 22 feature films, 16 documentaries and 14 animations submitted by filmmakers from all over Poland will compete for prizes.

Apart from competition screenings, the audience will be able to see short films by outstanding filmmakers. The special guests of this year’s Long Story Short Film Festival will be Mariusz Wilczyński, Aleksandra Terpińska and Grzegorz Szczepaniak. Meetings with them will be accompanied by screenings in the Panorama section. 

The festival will be accompanied by an exhibition of works by Wrocław-based artist Katarzyna Emose Uhunmwangho. The opening will take place on June 10 in the DCF cinema.

This year’s festival will take place in DCF cinema from 10 to 13 June and then online from 14 to 19 June. All films shown both in the cinema and online will be free of charge.

An open-air exhibition of photographs and quotations prepared by the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) to recall the visit of Pope John Paul II to the cities of northeastern Poland. On the 30th anniversary of these events, an exhibition was opened on Wednesday in Białystok. In the afternoon, a similar exposition will also be opened in Łomża and next week in Olsztyn.

The exhibition, which can be seen on the grounds adjacent to the Ton Cinema building downtown, is titled “Behold, I make all things new. On the anniversary of the 4^th Pilgrimage of the Holy Father to the Homeland”. John Paul II was in Łomża on 4-5 June 1991, in Białystok on 5 June and in Olsztyn on 5-6 June.

The photographs gathered at the exhibition come, among others, from private collections of people who sent them to IPN, some were taken by professional photographers. You can also find there a description of the course of the pilgrimage to the given cities and quotes from papal homilies delivered then.

Patrycja Leszczyńska from the Białystok branch of the Institute of National Remembrance (IPN), the author of the exhibition, thanked everyone who shared their photographs and memories. She said that from the homily she tried to choose universal quotes that could reach everyone, and in the photos, she also tried to show the emotions of the pilgrims.

The director of the IPN Białystok branch, PhD Piotr Kardela, said during the opening of the exhibition that the mission of the Institute was not only, as he put it, ‘to collect files on the secret police, vetting, showing communist informers, but also to educate, remind, and commemorate important events and figures.

“An exhibition about the Holy Father’s fourth pilgrimage to his homeland (…) we also treat in categories of showing the man who not only preached the truths of faith, instilled in us patriotism, love for God and homeland, but also was a great advocate of regaining independence by Poland (…). He was also the one who not only outside Poland, but also in Poland, including the communist one, contributed significantly to Poland regaining its independence” – said Kardela.

In Białystok and Łomża, the exhibition will be on display until the end of June; in Olsztyn – until June 22.

“The establishment of the International Day for the Victims of German Camps may help in the struggle for the truth about Polish victims of genocide,” points out “Nasz Dziennik”.

“I think it is appropriate to request that the UN declare June 14 as World Day for Prisoners of Concentration and Death Camps. ” – tells Barbara Wojnarowska-Gautier, a former Auschwitz prisoner and chairman of the June 14th Committee, to “Nasz Dziennik”.

“Nasz Dziennik” recalls that on June 14, 1940, the first transport of Polish prisoners arrived at Auschwitz.

This day is considered the beginning of the operation of the German concentration camp Auschwitz. And this very day – according to Wojnarowska – can be used to honour all the victims of German camps from the period of World War II at the international forum” – the paper said.

Wojnarowska-Gautier believes that “establishing such a day would make it possible for the collective memory of the world to include the Polish victims of the German camps”. “A former victim of physician Josef Mengele’s criminal experiments, points out that the occasion for proposing such an initiative is the exhibition to be opened on June 14 in the United States in Kansas City entitled “Auschwitz. Not Long Ago. Not Far Away”, prepared by the Auschwitz Museum and the Spanish company Musealia”, we read in “Nasz Dziennik”.

“We want to thank them for honouring June 14, and this would be a good opportunity for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to put forward such an idea,” – said Wojnarowska-Gautier.

According to Wiesław Wysocki, a historian from Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University in Warsaw, the postulates of reminding the world about the Polish victims of German camps and the murders of prisoners from other nations are necessary. 

“The initiative of internationalization is valuable and it is worth talking about this issue,” says Prof. Wysocki in an interview with “Nasz Dziennik”. He stresses that this would finally be an appreciation of the other victims of the camps. 

“Thanks to this, perhaps it would stop saying that only Jews died in Auschwitz,” the historian adds noting that “all victims of the camps should be treated equally”.