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Kasia Kmita
(visual artist)
I’d recommend watching Petra by Jaime Rosales – an intelligent drama about searching for your own identity and an original story, filmed with great attention to the visual side. You also shouldn’t miss the chance to watch Cobain: Montage of Heck directed by Brett Morgen – a story of Kurt’s life, which is shown by clips from his life, interviews with Kurt’s parents and other people who knew him, as well as amazing visualisations and animations. My list wouldn’t be complete without Antonioni’s Blow-Up. This film, unknown to many young viewers, showed me what top-of-the-line cinema can be many years ago.
However, what I’d recommend the most is to look into ourselves and search for the love of creation, which was such an important element of our childhood (I don’t know a single child who wouldn’t draw!) It’s a good time to be with yourself – like artists do every day – and to try to be creative. You can have a ton of ideas, from painting to filmmaking and smartphone photography, even at home. Perhaps thanks to this, we will witness the rebirth of a new world – not only outside, but in ourselves as well.
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Przemysław Wojcieszek
(film and theatre director, screenwriter)
My dear friends, you live in the most beautiful city in Poland, and you read this text during the most beautiful season. So open the windows of your apartments wide, turn the volume up on your speakers and let your floor shake to the rhythm that will remind you how positive and beautiful life truly is. Daniel Goldstein (also known as DJ Lane 8) has just released the most positive house album I’ve heard recently. There is nothing better to warm up before summer dances and pump your brain full of endorphins.
The next thing I’m going to recommend is not a new release, but it remains current and you need to read it, if you want to clearly see what we’re in in near future. Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine is one of her best books, alongside No Logo – a meticulously documented story about how corporate capitalism takes advantage of various crisis situations to make laws that are beneficial to itself and disadvantageous to society at large. For this to happen, all that is needed is a shock – for example a pandemic, which puts a stop to social life and allows for a radical change in the economic system. It’s a great read!
Maja Staśko’s Amazon Burns is the best theatrical text I’ve read in a while. Two women – Polish Amazon staffers – go out for a smoke. Instead of hands they have scanners, which they use to browse a dating app. They dream of meeting a guy who will change their lives. The text has it all – real life, naive but touching dreams and a lethal dose of twisted humour. It’s the kind of comedy I personally love, with a very strong social context. It’s going to premiere at Wrocław’s Impart on 13 November. I already know it’s going to be a hit.
