Elementarz

"Who are you? A young Pole!" Thus begins a Polish patriotic children's poem. The alphabet, recited by a faceless crowd, forms the basis of this allegorical children's film, with the framework provided by a nursery rhyme that fluctuates between question and answer; in the process stylised descriptions of everyday life and stern-faced child portraits are interwoven with critical reflection on Polish identity in the seventies.

Wojciech Wiszniewski, whose documentary films largely ran afoul of state censorship during his lifetime due to their bleak undertone, sheds light with this work on a handful of barren corners of society that found themselves largely neglected by state-ordained patriotism and at the same time allows the viewer to face what was then an uncertain future with optimism. The film's editor Dorota Wardęszkiewicz also worked on OPERA O POLSCE/OPERA ABOUT POLAND, a work that despite the forty-one years that have meanwhile passed, takes a similarly sceptical, methodically artistic look at contemporary Poland. TB