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„Blind Chance” is one of the most known films of the Polish cinema of moral anxiety genre. The plot of the film is divided in three equally important parts: three different life stories of a young man (reenacted by Bogusław Linda). Depending on the sheer accident (him getting on the train or missing it), the main character enters different social milieus and constructs differently his biography. Main question of the “Blind Chance” is a reflexion on human agency and ability to shape one’s fate, destiny and inevitable course of events. Film shows in an interesting way the social reality of Poland in the 1970s and the 1980s. Depending on the smallest, the most mundane choices a student could find himself in different social groups: communist party, democratic opposition or politically neutral Academia.

Kieślowski’s film was produced in 1981, but it was not screened until 1987, as it was perceived as “dangerous” by the censorship and the Ministry of Culture and Art. In the National Film Archive we can access the protocol from the pre-release closed screening devoted to “Blind chance”. Some of the participants of the Ministry’s pre-release commission, tried to underline the philosophical and metaphysical value of the film as well as the craftsmanship of the director and the historical value of the oeuvre (the pre-release screening took place only few days after the introduction of Martial Law in Poland). Most of voices in discussion did not perceive the film as a threat to Polish society. Despite of rather mild opinions voiced during the pre-release audition, the “Blind Chance” waited 6 years to be shown publicly in Polish cinemas.

This makes Kieślowski’s „Blind Chance” one of the most known „półkownik” (Polish vernacular world for “films laying on the shelves for years”). The case of Kieślowski’s film shows that even the movies produced with support of the public funding and despite the positive feedback from other filmmakers could be banned from distribution under the excuse of posing a threat. In this sense, even film directors working publicly, could be taken out from the official field of cinema production.

„By the railroad” is a film based on one of the novels of Zofia Nałkowska's „Medallions”, written just after the World War II (1946). This debut of Andrzej Brzozowski was banned from being shown publicly for 27 years. Zofia Nałkowska was a member of the Central Committee for Investigating German Crimes in Poland, a body documenting from 1945 to 1949 Nazi crimes on Jewish and Polish citizens during the Second World War. In her novels, Nałkowska in very modest, moderate way describes the atrocities of German occupation in Poland. The book “Medallions”, one of the most vital sources of social imagination about the World War II in Poland, is an important part of school curriculum, read by generations of Polish pupils.

Film “By the Railroad” by Brzozowski is an accurate film adaptation of Nałkowska’s novel under the same title. It concentrates on the Jewish woman who jumped off the train heading to concentration camp. She breaks her leg and lays on the ground by the railroad, while people from the nearby village debate what they should do with her. The plot of the novel and the film raises the issue (often neglected in official narrative) of Polish reactions to Holocaust and especially Jews trying to survive “on the Aryan side” - outside ghettos and concentration camps. The question of Polish “bystanders” to Holocaust, was only one of issues tackled in Nałkowska’s novels. Film by Brzozowski clearly concentrates on the indifference of the Catholic citizens of Poland in the face of perpetrations aimed at their Jewish compatriots.  

Banning Brzozowski’s film from public distribution was a result of fear that this oeuvre could be used for “anti-Polish propaganda” and could “threaten Polish reason of state” (Preizner 2010). Events presented in the film contrasted with the historical narrative of Polish authorities, which presented Polish citizens as victims of Nazi crimes and neglected the importance of Jewish experience.

Film critics (Preizner 2010, Calderón Puerta 2010) state that the film itself is more suggestive than Nałkowska’s novel. Role of Halina Mikołajska, austere filming, concentration on one short plot have a great influence on the audience. However,  the film was shown in public television broadcast only in 1992 (sic!), late in the night and without any meaningful public discussion.

The 1988 Freiheit? Nein, danke! is one of the most prominent creations of Łódź Kaliska, and a breakthrough work in the career of the artists. After the ties brining together the wider community of the Pitch-In Culture had dissolved, Łódź Kaliska members focused on collaboration among each other, and moved from their previous anarchistic, art-world-contesting stance towards a postmodernist play of quotations, pastiche, and borrowed meanings. In 1987 the group entered into possession of a video camera, which allowed it to record performances for camera, document events and recreate previously unrecorded actions. It was at that time that the now iconic stagings of classic works of art were created, along with the famous Freiheit? Nein, danke!, a jocular reconstitution of Eugene Delacroix's Liberty leading the people.

Nonetheless, this work represents more than just a simple joke on the art history canon. Its perverse title — to add fuel to the fire in German, which at that time in Poland could be interpreted as a purposeful provocation — reflected the years of struggle of Łódź Kaliska against the aporia of liberty in the field of art. Subsequent experience in creating “embarrassing art”, “idiotic art”, “unfocused art” etc., conceptualised in numerous theoretical texts, have led the artists to believe that any violation of artistic conventions, insult to audience, as well as disdain for art institutions, and creation of intentionally trivial, mediocre, and pointless works, will sooner or later be absorbed by the art system. Acts of resistance belong to the domain of art, and it is in accordance with its rules that they are interpreted. Artist’s liberty may seem very ample but it stems from the very status of the artists and their works (similarly, in Łódź Kaliska’s view, there is no freedom from society). Thus, the idea of freedom in art seems to be naïve or false — that is why Łódź Kaliska artists decided to make do without such freedom.

Freiheit? Nein, danke!is a rejection of liberty offered to artists by the society, in a deliberate, bantering, frivolous, and immature act. As a paradox, if anywhere, it was in those brief moments of antics, shenanigans, immature jokes, frolics, and mischief where Łódź Kaliska saw freedom, and again, paradoxically, it was burdened with great solemnity and tension, in spite of the festive and ludic atmosphere. The film serves as a testimony: the artists are fooling around in front of the camera, pushing each other out of the frame, frolicking, making faces, waving around their genitalia.

The film shot by Andrzej Kwietniewski (according to his and Marek Janiak’s concept) accompanied the creation of a photograph by the same title. The photograph was displayed in 1988 during the Polska fotografia intermedialna exhibition, a major event at the Art Exhibitions Bureau (BWA) in Poznań. In front of the large-format photograph, a nude female model was placed, around whom Łódź Kaliska artists continued with their actions, such as colouring elements of the photograph, or adding humorous slogans. The event attracted the attention of the visitors and gained recognition among at least some of the critics, e.g. in Poznań Krzysztof Jurecki expressed a positive opinion on Łódź Kaliska. However, there was a scandal too: during the dinner, the members of the group threw a pork knuckle in the direction of the table where Andrzej Lachowicz and Urszula Czartoryska were seated.

The altered, repainted version of the 1989 photograph, known by the title The Bull Man is currently in the depository of the Museum of Modern Art.

(https://artmuseum.pl/pl/kolekcja/praca/lodz-kaliska-czlowiek-buhaj-freiheit-nein-danke).

Sources:

Jarosław Lubiak (ed.), "Szczerość i blaga. Etyka prac Łodzi Kaliskiej w latach 1979-89", Łódź 2009.
Łódź Kaliska (ed. & comp.), "Bóg zazdrości nam pomyłek", Łódź 1999.
Marta Pierzchała (ed.), "Biała aura", Łódź 2010.

An open letter written in January 1965 by Knuts Skujenieks from the prison camp was addressed to his writer colleagues. He asked them not to keep silent about his fate, because ‘culture does not exist without its carriers, and it is important to fight for them, and not to contribute to their moral and physical annihilation.' The letter is a statement of Skujenieks' civic position, a protest against inertia and the fear in Latvian society. It was perhaps too bold for the political climate of Latvia, because it presented evidence that in prison Skujenieks became spiritually more liberated than his colleagues who enjoyed physical freedom, although it has to be admitted that the spirit of resistance of the younger generation of writers in Latvia in the 1960s was stronger than in the 1970s. Official discussions by the Writers' Union in 1965 and 1968 of the poetry he wrote in Mordovia testify to this.

“Interrogation” is one of the most renowed films directed in Poland after World War II. It is a bold, politically engaged settlement with the Stalinist period in contemporary Polish history. The story is about a young actress (character played by Krystyna Janda) who is arrested by the Security Service and held captive in prison in order to force her to testify about her colleagues. “Interrogation” shows the methods used by Stalinist repression apparatus in order to break ordinary citizens, as well as prisoners’ efforts to preserve dignity and humanity.

The pre-release committee took place in April 1982, in the midst of Martial Law in Poland. As one can see from the committee’s meeting protocols, film critics and representatives of authorities deplored Bugajski’s oeuvre as hateful, false, antisocialist propaganda without any value. By the central decision, the copy of “Interrogation” was sealed and put on the archive’s shelf (this way “Interrogation” became one of the most famous “półkowniki” – the films laying on shelves, without possibility to be shown publicly). Bugajski managed to preserve one copy of his film, which was later screened privately within opposition circles of the "second circuit" (“drugi obieg”).  The official premiere of “Interrogation” took place on 13^th December 1981 – eight years after introduction of the Martial Law and eight years after the film had been produced. The film was Bugajski’s debut – repressions put on him by authorities, forced him to emigrate from Poland in 1985.