The Polish Film Festival, which is being presented by the Art Institute’s Film Center and the Polish Museum of America in cooperation with WPNA radio, concludes this weekend, running Friday through Sunday, October 6 through 8. Screenings will be at the Copernicus Center, 5216 W. Lawrence, and at the Film Center, Columbus Drive at Jackson. Tickets for any single evening (two film programs) at the Copernicus Center are $6. Tickets for screenings at the Film Center are $5, $3 for Film Center members. For further information call 443-3733.
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CITIZEN P. Jerzy Stefan Stawinski adapted his own novel, Piszczyk’s Sad Destiny Continued, for Andrzej Kotkowski’s film about a hard-luck hero in postwar Poland. Early in his adult life, Piszczyk gets thrown in prison by postwar communist authorities for supposedly not adapting to the new ways of life; later, his girlfriend hails him as a victim of Stalinism and a revolutionary activist, which leads to another arrest. “Where are you going? Right or left?” asks a stranger toward the end of the film, after the hero has related all his mishaps in flashback form–the tragicomic misadventures of a man who usually gets in trouble for doing what he thinks is expected of him. “I don’t know,” Citizen P. replies, and the film’s wry position is not to know either. Watchable if predictable, as well as a bit contrived in spots, this dark comedy is certainly Polish to the core in its caustic ironies. (Film Center, 6:00)
THE FABULOUS JOURNEY OF BALTHAZAR KOBER Set in the 16th century, this new feature by Wojciech Has (The Saragossa Manuscript, The Sandglass), based on a novel by Frederick Tristan, describes the fantastic adventures and education on the road of a young German during the time of the Black Death (1988). (Film Center, 8:00)
UPSTAIRS, DOWNSTAIRS Andrzej Domalik’s film about the last years before World War II as seen from the vantage point of artists in southern Poland. Adapted from a novel by Michal Choromanski by Wladyslaw Terlecki; with Jan Nowicki (1988). (Copernicus Center, 7:00)
THE FABULOUS JOURNEY OF BALTHAZAR KOBER See listing for Friday, October 6. (Film Center, 4:00)
