The 24th KINOTEKA Polish Film Festival returns from 4 February to 29 March 2026, presenting a curated selection of the most important contemporary and classic Polish films, documentaries and special events across London’s leading cinemas.

This year’s edition is anchored by a major retrospective of films by Andrzej Wajda, Academy Awarded auteur, marking the 100th anniversary of the director’s birth. One of the most influential filmmakers of post-war Europe, Wajda understood cinema as a moral, civic and political act. His films confront the defining experiences of the twentieth century: war, occupation, totalitarianism and the struggle for freedom while asking enduring questions about individual responsibility, com- promise and resistance. In a time of renewed geopolitical tension and historical revisionism, Wajda’s work remains urgently relevant.

The Opening Gala on 4 February at BFI Southbank will feature Wajda’s Ashes and Diamonds, inaugurating the retrospective ‘Portraits of History and Humanity’. Presented across BFI Southbank, the ICA and Ciné Lumière, the programme offers a rare opportunity to experience such an extensive selection of Wajda's film output on the big screen, tracing how personal stories intersect with the great fractures of European history.

This year’s ‘New Polish Cinema’ strand will feature the most significant Polish productions of the past year, including Franz by Agnieszka Holland, Poland’s official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 98th Academy Awards and Chopin, a Sonata in Paris, Michał Kwieciński’s lavish biopic of Frédéric Chopin. Films in this strand will be screened at renowned London cinemas including BFI IMAX, the Barbican Centre, The Garden Cinema, Ciné Lumière, and the ICA.

KINOTEKA 2026 also reflects on cinema as a shared European language of memory, by a tribute to Krzysztof Kieślowski, a showcase dedicated to Marcel Łoziński, a master of documentary, and Trains by Maciej Drygas, with use of metaphor and montage to map the continent’s collective experience, its movements of people, the machinery of war, moments of silence and fragile peace. Together, these works reveal Europe not as an abstract idea, but as a lived history shaped by trauma, displacement and moral choice.

Special events at this year’s KINOTEKA will include Blokowisko (The Estate) at the Southbank Centre, a new work created by composer and performer Blanka Barbara Stahl, blending contemporary dance, live electro-acoustic music and immersive video scenography. The performance is inspired by a story Andrzej Wajda once envisioned but never brought to the screen.

Samsung KX will welcome us again this year, providing their Kings Cross space for the presentation of a conference on Artificial Intelligence and how it is transforming the film industry.

By bringing these many voices together, KINOTEKA 2026 invites audiences to reflect on cinema’s unique ability to bear witness to history, to humanity, and to the respons ibilities of the present.

Join us at KINOTEKA 2026!