Przemysław Gintrowski

A black silhouette wanders across some empty white space. In the background, we could see shapes of different equipment items. The routine of everyday life emerges from the play of black and white forms. The contrast between black and white (privacy) turns into grey reality outside the building. Loneliness changes into the indifference of passers-by.

Told as a film within the film, the story concerns an aging actress. Ewa is a flamboyant, pushy actress whose career and love life have come to a dead end. She lives in a faceless housing development. She is totally engrossed in herself and dreams of making a comeback as a singer. But her overbearing personality time after time sets her into conflict with those she tries to work with in the theater and her bedroom.

A young architect is locked up in prison. He recalls his uncompromising youth and gradual sliding into the moral swamp of compromises. He was not alone. A group of his friends, dreamers and glass house builders, accompanied him.

Sports officials are trying to decide the result of a football match before it starts. The stake is to stay in the top league.

One of the passengers on a ship carrying Poles on a cruise in December 1981 is a dissident high school teacher sent abroad by Solidarity. He is under surveillance of the secret police, anxious to get their hands on the info that he is carrying. When the ship is in the middle of the Baltic sea, martial law is declared and the ship is militarized. The captain announces he will turn and return the home port. Many anguished passengers put the life vests on and jump into the sea, where they are picked up by two German ships. The teacher, however, decides to return to Poland and continue the struggle for freedom.

In difficult times of political and social change, a mother raises four sons alone.

Tato is the story of a divorced father fighting for the right to raise his 7-year-old daughter. When his marriage falls apart, he decides to kidnap his daughter rather than let the court award custody to his mentally ill wife, whom he deems unfit to raise their child. But as he quickly finds out, it’s easier to be a real man than it is to be a real father.

An animated short film from 1987 that deals with the incarceration of a man in a dark cell from where there is no escape.

Martial Law in Poland. Marek the journalist steals a truck and starts his quest.

Petty thief Czarek takes part in a TV reality show to escape from the mafia. He is sent to a house on a desert island with 9 other contestants. Even the death of one of them does not stop the show.

Well-known fencer Paweł Kaczmarek makes an important decision in his life – he decides to quit drinking. Unexpectedly, he receives information that his ex-wife is staying in Austria with his child. He immediately sets off for Austria, finds Anna's apartment, and kidnaps his own son.

Three adolescents from different backgrounds, who share the same passion for sports, come of age and start a new life as grown-ups.

"Zmiennicy" is a grotesque comedy of absurdity and reality that masterfully blends slapstick, satire, and surrealism to expose the absurdities of life under communist rule in the People's Republic of Poland (PRL). The story follows Jacek Żytkiewicz, a taxi driver in Warsaw, and his mysterious new shift partner, Katarzyna Piórecka, who disguises herself as a man to get the job. The series is a comedy of the grotesque, filled with exaggerated characters, nonsensical bureaucracy, and surreal plot twists. It mocks the inefficiencies and contradictions of PRL institutions—from corrupt officials and inept police to bizarre workplace dynamics and social hypocrisy. Underneath the absurdity lies a thriller-like subplot: a drug trafficking operation smuggling heroin from Thailand to West Germany. This storyline, featuring shady sports officials, a Thai student, and a crooked firefighter, adds a layer of intrigue reminiscent of American crime dramas.