Under the Surface

Ekipa is a Polish political drama TV series created and directed by Agnieszka Holland, aired from 13 September 2007 until 6 December 2007 on Polsat. Ekipa is the second Polish political fiction series after the 1980s miniseries The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma.

A story about women, set in the present and in 1950s Warsaw. Sabina, a quiet, shy woman who has just turned thirty lacks a man in her life. Her mother knows all about it and tries at all costs to find her daughter a good candidate for a husband. The whole situation is controlled by the grandmother, an eccentric lady with a sharp tongue from whom no secrets can be kept.

For decades the photographer Krzysztof Gierłatowski has portrayed eminent Polish figures, thus creating an invaluable visual testimony. This time his "victims" are well-known citizens of Kraków: Stanisław Lem, one of the most brilliant, versatile, and unapologetically cerebral science fiction writers, author of 'Solaris'; Krzysztof Penderecki, one of the most esteemed and widely discussed Polish composers of the 20th century; and Wisława Szymborska, Nobel laureate in Literature in 1996, one of the few women poets who has received the Swedish prize. Gierłatowski assumes the role of a modern Stańczyk, a legendary thinker-jester, prophesying on the historical Polish Republic in his dramatic conviction that History annihilated the intellectual elite of his nation and the future will bring awe and destruction.

An account of the life and work of the Polish writer Stanisław Lem (1921-2006), a key figure in science fiction literature involved in mysteries and paradoxes that need to be enlightened.

A bright, young officer joins General Police Headquarters to investigate one of its lead inspectors and the criminal cases he's working on.

A big shot prosecutor Teodor Szacki divorces his wife and leaves Warsaw to “start a new life” in picturesque town in south­east Poland ­ Sandomierz. After a short while he is called in to investigate a strange and mysterious murder case. Alienated in provincial reality he struggles to find a killer, when he stumbles upon more victims. While the investigation continues he realizes that all murders are connected to alleged historical Jewish ritual killings. Those murders prompt a wave of anti­Semitic hysteria in the town. In his investigation Szacki must wrestle with the painful tangle of Polish­Jewish relations and real findings of his work ­ that roots of some legends arefantasy, not a grain of truth…

Edward Popielski, a Polish detective, who suffers from photogenic epilepsy, which helps him track down criminals.

The story of Janosik, a legendary "Central European Robin Hood", based on real XVIII century documents and a romantic legend. Young Janosik, burnt out by war experiences and disappointment in love, joins a team of brigands. Soon after he becomes the troop's leader and is recognized as a brave and honorable commander, he never kills anyone he robs. Along with the fame he starts enjoying popularity among women. But Janosik's success raises jealousy in one of the troop's members, greedy and brutal Huncaga.

A reporter, Alicja Tabor, after many years returns to her hometown of Wałbrzych to write a report about kidnapped children and also to face her own dark family history.

The film enters into a dialogue with biographism as a method of interpreting art, while also showing that it is impossible to escape biographism entirely. Its creators recognize the value in the attitude of avant-garde artists, which lay in overcoming life’s adversities and pushing their imagination beyond what others consider an insurmountable horizon. In this film, nothing is as it actually happened—and this not-happening is intentional. By watching situations that never took place, we can draw conclusions about the things that did. The viewer steps into the role of a detective, because a crime has been committed in this story. Among the suspects are: Fanny Kaplan, who attempted to take Lenin’s life; Fritz Haber, the father of chemical warfare, and his wife, who took her own life in despair; as well as the cities Paris, Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Łódź.