The First Circle

One of the few surviving documentaries about Jewish life in Poland before World War II, this film was produced to raise funds for the Vladimir Medem Sanitarium, an institution that stood as the embodiment of health and enlightenment, in striking contrast to the grim images of urban Polish-Jewish poverty.

Based on the biography of the Polish doctor and educator Janusz Korczak, the film retells the last phase of his life. Korczak, director of the Jewish orphanage in Warsaw and a Jew himself, was forced to move to the ghetto with all the orphans living in the home in 1940 following the occupation of Poland by the Nazis. Despite the terrible conditions within the walls, Korczak continued to care devotedly for "his" children. He even managed to save cases that had been written off as hopeless. However, when Korczak's orphans were also to be deported to the Treblinka extermination camp as part of the "Final Solution" and the resulting evacuation of the ghetto, he insisted on going with them. Fully aware that he would no longer be able to help his protégés, he let the children believe that he was taking them on a trip to the countryside to alleviate their fears.

A tale of a young impoverished nobleman, who with his uncle returns from a war against the order of the Teutonic Knights in Lithuania. He falls in love with a beautiful woman and pledges an oath to bring her "three trophies" from the Teutonic Knights.

Describe the harsh reality attempts of establishing a Jewish settlement in Israel and the efforts of the Arab to prevent it. The film is considered as the first talking film in Palestine Israel.

Józek enters a cycling race to win a bike, which he needs to deliver newspapers and pay for his mother's surgery.

Stach is a wayward teen living in squalor on the outskirts of Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Guided by an avuncular Communist organizer, he is introduced to the underground resistance—and to the beautiful Dorota. Soon he is engaged in dangerous efforts to fight oppression and indignity, maturing as he assumes responsibility for others’ lives.

Freed Polish soldiers are trapped in a small town in Germany during the last days of World War II. After a doctor's daughter is raped by a concentration camp worker, the Poles allow her and her father to stay in the house that is their temporary quarters. While waiting to be repatriated, the war-weary group is forced to fight some German soldiers who invade the town. The war brings out conflicting emotions of the Poles who find themselves trapped in the house and once again under fire from the enemy.

The story of Polish and Jewish families living side by side in one Warsaw street. Everything changes once and for all with the Nazi invasion.

Filmed immediately after the Red Army liberated the Majdanek concentration camp, this documentary is regarded as the first cinematic record of Nazi genocide. Shot on July 24–25, 1944, it presents stark evidence of atrocities alongside testimony from surviving prisoners representing many European nations, making it one of the earliest films to confront the scale of the Holocaust.

Young Frederic Chopin comes of age during a tumultous time in Polish history.

In war-ravaged Warsaw, five juvenile delinquents are given probation for stealing, to rehabilitate themselves, but remain under the influence of their profiteer-boss.

Zbigniew Cybulski and Sonja Ziemann play lovers struggling to find happiness and privacy in overcrowded Warsaw. The movie shows an honest picture of life in a war-damaged city, contrasting the characters' difficulties with their dreams of a better life. It was banned in Poland in 1958 and would not be seen anywhere until its European release one year later.

A serious Swiss melodrama/documentary about abortion, marketed as a sexy exploitation movie in the US. The film contains real medical footage.

A look at the lives of people who work on the barges and boats flowing across the Vistula River.