News

The Yellow Affair has boarded world sales on Locarno kid’s title “Pixie: The New Beginning” (“Skrzat. Nowy początek”) by Krzysztof Komander.

The family adventure pic has just had its world premiere at Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival on Aug. 14 where The Yellow Affair kicked off sales to Komander’s debut feature.

Next Film has slated its theatrical release debut for Sept. 19 where it will screen across more than 200 theatres in Poland.

“Pixie” follows Hania, an imaginative eleven-year-old who still believes in pixies and is mocked by her classmates. Determined to protect the magical world she once shared with her recently deceased mother, she sets out to prove that fairy-tale creatures are real. With the help of Michał, a fellow school outcast, Hania encounters Sindri—a mischievous pixie living in the nearby forest—who vows to aid them.

What follows is a whirlwind adventure full of surprises, where Hania discovers the true strength of friendship,...

Evgenia Dodina and Martin Ogbu in Mama. Or Sinai on the migrant workers she spoke to when researching her script: 'They build these temporary identities – her life is full, even in Israel' Photo: Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival

The two worlds of a Polish migrant worker are explored in Or Sinai’s impressive debut film Mama. Mila (Evgenia Dodina), works for an upper middle-class couple in Israel, a long-standing arrangement which has also seen her strike up an affair with the gardener (Martin Ogbu), but after a minor accident, she is sent home to Poland to recuperate, where she finds reconnecting with her husband (Arkadiusz Jakubik) and young adult daughter Kasia (Katarzyna Łubik) is not as simple as she had hoped. Sinai’s film explores familial love and the stresses placed upon it by migrant work from an unusual angle that retains sympathy for all the characters involved. We caught...

“Mama,” director Or Sinai’s first narrative feature, proves the filmmaker as a keen character observer. Inspired by stories she heard from migrant Eastern European women working in Israel, the film follows Mila (Evgenia Dodina), a housekeeper for a rich family providing for those she left back in Poland. When an unexpected accident forces her home, she discovers that her family doesn’t need her as much as she thought they did. But while “Mama” is a revelatory character study of a fascinating woman, it resorts a few too many times to melodramatic flourishes that undercut where its power lies.

Above all, Sinai’s film is a social drama, concerned with its characters’ economic plight and attuned to what rights are denied to them. Mila is first shown in the big, lavish house owned by the family she serves. Her position there becomes apparent to the audience by the dismissive,...

Exclusive: Italian sales firm Intramovies has boarded world sales rights excluding Israel and Poland on Or Sinai’s Mama, which was selected as a Cannes Special Screenings title in the Official Selection yesterday.

Mama is the only Israeli title in Official Selection at Cannes this year. The Hebrew- and Polish-language film follows Mila, a woman forced to temporarily leave her seaside mansion – and her secret romance – to return to her family in a remote Polish village. But the long-awaited reunion is far from what she imagined.

Adi Bar Yossef produces the film, which is a co-production between her Israeli company Baryo,...

This article contains brief mentions of suicide and sexual assault.

There are many other great mystery TV shows to watch after finishing Netflix's Missing You. Missing You is Netflix's latest Harlan Coben TV show, based on Coben's book of the same name. The series follows Detective Kat Donovan as she investigates her ex-fiancé's mysterious disappearance while reconciling with her father's murder. Missing You has a cast of characters with both familiar and fresh faces that are all well-suited for their roles. The narrative has several jaw-dropping plot twists and turns, culminating in Missing You's shocking ending.

Despite a few plot holes, Missing You is still bingeworthy and entertaining. Missing You ends with a craving for more exciting mystery TV shows, and there are several more titles to accompany this Harlan Coben adaptation. Some of these TV shows include additional Harlan Coben adaptations, thrilling spy narratives, shows based on true stories,...

"Are you not telling me something?" Netflix has unveiled an official trailer for a Polish drama-thriller series called Feedback, arriving for streaming this November. Yet another localized Netflix creation (as part of agreements for each country to utilize local artists / filmmakers) made for Polish audiences being released worldwide on Netflix. When his son mysteriously disappears, an alcohol-addicted former rock star ventures into the darkest corners of Warsaw and the human psyche to find his child. Arkadiusz Jakubik stars as Marcin Kania in this cinematic adaptation of Jakub Żulczyk’s renowned novel. Is he prepared to confront his past and unravel the mystery of his son's disappearance? Also co-starring Jan Hrynkiewicz. This looks like an intense series about crime and corruption in Warsaw, and how one this one alcoholic former rocker breaks down dealing with this terrible situation. If you're curious to see what this is all about - check it out.

Nine films and nine series among streamer’s latest Polish commissions.

Netflix has unveiled a slate of 18 titles that it has greenlit in Poland, spanning nine films and nine series.

See full list of titles below

News of the commissions comes just weeks after the streamer announced it is opening an office in the country’s capital of Warsaw later this year, which will function as a central hub for Netflix’s Central and Eastern Europe (Cee) productions.

Netflix has previously enjoyed success with Polish erotic thriller 365 Days, which was a top 10 hit for the streamer in over 90 countries.

Netflix has revealed a slate of nine films and nine series that it has commissioned in Poland. Scroll down for the full list.

The series include Detective Forst, from noted Polish writer Remigiusz Mroz, which revolves around a crime-solving journey across the Polish Tatra Mountains. Jakub Żulczyk’s novel Feedback is also being adapted for a series starring Arkadiusz Jakubik, which will be helmed by Leszek Dawid.

On the film side, Anna Szczypczyńska’s romance novel Tonight You Are Sleeping With Me will be adapted for a feature helmed by Robert Wichrowski, while the famed Polish novel Mr. Car & The Knights Templar is also getting the film treatment, with Rafał Skalski directing and Matylda damięcka, Lena Góra, and Aleksandra Domańska starring.

On the genre side, the film Hellhole, directed by Bartosz M. Kowalski, promises to be a play on horror, focusing on the nightmare of a monk who has lost...

This Polish thriller, which is based on the true events of the 1950s, sees Lieutenant Karski (played by Tomasz Schuchardt) trying to solve the disappearances of 67 people in Kraków, Poland. It starts with a bang – quite literally and from then on, you’re enticed. Throughout the film there are Wtf moments you just don’t see coming.

Directors Magdalena Kronenberg-Seweryn and Krzysztof Lang introduce us to the mystery behind the murderer that is Władysław Mazurkiewicz (played by Andrzej Chyra). His cunning methods and the brutality of his kills are hard to watch, and the thoughts you have when you watch are why would someone do something like this? How can one man kill someone the way he does? It’s pure evil.

The film isn’t as distressing as most thrillers would be but it’s still gripping and savage nonetheless. Lieutenant Karski is a clever man and determined to find out the truth.

Pawel Pawlikowski’s Ida scored a second top festival prize in one night, after success in London.

The international jury of the Warsaw Film Festival has awarded the City of Warsaw Grand Prix to Pawal Pawlikowski’s Ida, which won Best Film at the BFI London Film Festival on the same night.

The black-and-white film set in the 1960s, which the international jury praised for “the superb combination of script, directing, cinematography, acting and music”, also received the prize of the Ecumenical Jury in Warsaw.

Speaking to ScreenDaily after the awards ceremony, producer Ewa Puszczynska of Lodz-based Opus Film said the film will be released on 90 screens in Poland this Friday (Oct 25) by distributor Solopan Spólka.

Fandango Portobello Sales is handling international distribution, and Music Box Films are planning the North American release for the second quarter of 2014. It debuted at Toronto last month.

Puszczynska was joined on stage to receive the Grand Prix by the non-professional...