WELCOME TO KINOTEKA 2025!

The 23rd KINOTEKA Polish Film Festival hits screens from 6 March to 25 April 2025, bringing another compelling line-up of contemporary and classic Polish cinema.

This year’s Opening Gala (6 March) will also serve as the official inauguration of the UK/Poland Season 2025, organised by the British Council, the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and the Polish Cultural Institute in London. During the six-month-long Season, between March-November, 100 multi-artform events will be held in dozens of cities in both countries.

KINOTEKA and the UK/Poland Season 2025 will open with Damian Kocur's Under the Volcano at the BFI Southbank, followed by a director Q&A.

The New Polish Cinema strand will feature the most significant Polish productions of the past year, including Minghun, Under the Grey Sky, Simona Kossak and It’s Not My Film, screening at renowned London cinemas including BFI Southbank, BFI IMAX, the Barbican Centre, The Garden Cinema, Cine Lumiere, and the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA).

Polish documentaries will be represented by two films: Silent Trees (screened in collaboration with Bertha DocHouse, the UK’s only dedicated documentary cinema) and Wanda Rutkiewicz: The Last Expedition.

Following on from past retrospectives on celebrated Polish directors such as Andrzej Wajda and Jerzy Skolimowski, KINOTEKA will honour another of Poland’s greatest filmmakers with a season dedicated to Wojciech Has in partnership with the BFI and DiFactory. All of Has's works will be shown at BFI Southbank and the ICA, opening on 1 April with a screening of The Saragossa Manuscript, introduced by Tomasz Kolankiewicz, Director of the National Film Archive - Audiovisual Institute (FINA). Screenings throughout the month will be accompanied by lectures on Has's work, a showing of Sławomir Rogowski's documentary Description Found Years Later and an exhibition of posters from Has's films in the BFI Southbank foyer and ICA.

KINOTEKA will also include music and film events, such as a concert of electronic music inspired by Krzysztof Komeda's compositions at the Southbank Centre and a collaboration with the Jazztopad Festival presenting iconic Polish, British and French animated films for children with live jazz improvisations at Cine Lumiere.

Another special event will feature the documentary A for Antkowiak by Tomasz Ossoliński, alongside a Q&A with the film's protagonist and its director.

One of the main partners of next year’s KINOTEKA will be Samsung, who will provide their King's Cross space for the presentation of Polish digital art and video games. Samsung will also partner with the festival on an exhibition of Polish film posters and their digital interpretations.

For its 23rd edition, KINOTEKA will also head across the UK, with regional editions in 8 UK cities organized in cooperation with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute and in partnership with Klassiki, an online platform showcasing films from Central and Eastern Europe. Selected films will be shown in cinemas in Canterbury, Hull, Nottingham, Newcastle, Birmingham, Sheffield, Leeds and Oxford.

The Closing Gala, on 25 April at the ICA, will conclude the festival with a screening of The Hourglass Sanatorium, the final film in the Wojciech Has retrospective.

See you at KINOTEKA 2025!

Magdalena Grabianowska

Deputy Director, Polish Cultural Institute in London

Marlena Łukasiak

Kinoteka Artistic Director and Producer