A big housing estates is an experience shared by the entire Polish society. Blocks are frequently associated with social problems, confined space, exclusion, alienation, greyness, sense of hopelessness, and social pathology. But are all these connotations always true? The director of the series, Tomasz Knittel, asks about the culture-forming role of housing estates from that time.
The films present the influence that mass residential architecture has had on generations of Poles from various perspectives, including cinema, literature, visual arts, film, music and also generations brought up in big housing estates. In the films, artists, architects, historians, sociologists, journalists, cultural experts, and residents of large-panel housing estates share their knowledge and their own experiences of living in blocks of flats.
During this year’s edition of Patterns of Europe, join us for screenings of “Block” – a documentary series. All screenings will take place on Thursdays starting from November 15th. Just after the episode “Block. Generations” on December 13th we will hold a discussion panel with the director of the series – Tomasz Knittel. The panel will be moderated by Małgorzata Klimkowska.
Tomasz Knittel – directs documentary films, short features, commercials, video clips and social campaigns. He’s an enthusiast of music films and has made several documentaries focused on the topic, including “From Podserednieje with Love”, which tells the story of an American woman in love with a Russian dancer, “Dobry wieczór, Opole” [Good evening, Opole], about the legendary music festival and “Polska-Path of Dance” about a Polish-Swedish music project. Knittel has also directed a futuristic music film “Elektro_sonda”, featuring Polish leading bands of electronic music (among others, Kamp, Bokka, Rysy) which eludes standard genre classifications.
Małgorzata Klimkowska – graduate of the Warsaw School of Advertising, Photography and Film and Institute of Sociology at Maria Curie-Skłodowska University. She is happy not to have any FB or Instagram accounts. She loves good cinema, in her spare time she enjoys long walks around the city and hiking outside the city.
Programme of screenings:
Block. Visual Arts
When: 15 November 2018 (Thursday), 6 PM
Venue: Workshops of Culture in Lublin, Grodzka 5a, Auditorium, 2nd Floor
Street art is a branch of art inextricably connected with the landscape of housing projects. But this is not the only close connection between the two worlds. The viewer may follow less obvious examples of how visual arts have been affecting the housing project scenery since 1970s until now – from stencils, graffiti, tagging, writing, murals, street art to art in the public space and involving the residents and local communities in art events.
In the episode focused on visual arts, we will be guided among others by: art curators and critics – Stach Szabłowski, Sebastian Cichocki, Ewa Gorządek, Iwo Zmyślony and Bogna Świątkowska as well as artists who will discuss selected works and their activities in the housing projects – Tomasz Sikorski – intermedia artists, a pioneer of Polish art graffiti, Egon Fietke – stencil artist, Krik v – graffiti artist, Michał Linow (Pikaso) – multimedia artist, Piotr Szwabe – painter, mural artist, Stach Szumski – painter, visual artist, Iza Rutkowska – visual artist and activist and Wojciech Bąkowski – visual artist, musician and poet.
Block. Literature
When: 22 November 2018 (Thursday), 6 PM
Venue: Workshops of Culture in Lublin, Grodzka 5a, Auditorium, 2nd Floor
A film about the literary phenomenon of housing projects. The viewer’s guide will be literature itself – selected litrary works whose protagonists / topics / background is a block of flats (among others, Miron Białoszczewski’s “Ja stróż latarnik nadaje z mrówkowca” and “Blok, ja w nim”, Zygmunt Miłoszewski’s “Domofon”, Gaja Grzegorzewska’s “Betonowy pałac”, Łukasz Orbitowski’s “Święty Wrocałw”, Sylwia Chutnik’s “Jolanta”, Sławomir Shuty’s “Cukier w normie”, Cezary Domarus’ “Raport Północny”. The viewers alongside selected authors meander through the labyrinths of the building – corridors, stairs, lifts, passages, cellars, attics, roofs and backyards. Nest to novels and prose, the film also features Polish comics set in Polish housing projects and new literary genres, such as poetry slam (Wojtek Cichoń’s “X99”, “Przypadkowy dzień roku 2006”), Facebook poetry (“Elizje” Elizy Kąckiej) and the work of the duet Estragon & Palmer Eldritch. “BLOCK – literature” is the most intimate instalment of the 6-part series “Block” discussing the experience of living in the housing estates.
Block. Architecture
When: 29 November 2018 (Thursday), 6 PM
Venue: Workshops of Culture in Lublin, Grodzka 5a, Auditorium, 2nd Floor
A tale about dreams and ideas of avant-garde artists who designed large panel housing estates in Poland. By presenting the legacy of modernism in the architecture of this part of Europe, the film touches on the significance of housing in Poland. The film assumes the point of view of architects and urban planners – a generation of masters – designers of such housing estates as Ursynów in Warsaw or Plac Grunwaldzki in Wrocław, as well as their students, continuators and the next generations of young architects focusing on blocks of flats. The film features, among others: Marek Budzyński, Jacek Damięcki, Tomasz Fudala, Dariusz Gawin, Jadwiga Grabowska-Hawrylak, Małgorzata Kuciewicz, Lidia Pańków, Grzegorz Piątek and Jakub Snopek.
The film shows the invention of the panel as a revolutionary breakthrough – now frequently overlooked, the variety of buildings and the subtle language used by modernist architects while designing the estates in Poland. At the same time, it talks about the confrontation of architectural ideas and often utopic visions with Polish political, economic and technological reality of PRL and the expectations of the residents. It also asks questions about the future of the housing projects and the possibilities that the large building panels offer the residents nowadays.
Block. Music
When: 6 December 2018 (Thursday), 6 PM
Venue: Workshops of Culture in Lublin, Grodzka 5a, Auditorium, 2nd Floor
A movie about punk and hip hop, two music genres which grew and developed in the Polish housing projects in the 1970s-1990s. Artistically original, it familiarizes the viewer with the phenomenon of both genres of Polish alternative music and their origins in block estates. The protagonists are musicians: Robert Brylewski, the co-founder of Brygady Kryzys, Muniek Staszczyk (T. LOVE), Jakub Wandachowicz (Cool Kids of Death), Piotr Górny DonGURALesko, Wojciech Alszer Focus (Paktofonika), Wojciech Sosnowski Sokół, Piotr Więcławski Vienio and Konstanty Usenko (Super Girl & Romantic Boys). The film also features figures important for Polish alternative music scene: the director Cezary Ciszewski, the author of the first hip hop radio programme “Kolorszok” – Bogna Świątkowska and the culture anthropologist Waldemar Kuligowski.The filmmakers seek to discover the connections between these two genres and to find out to what extent is alternative music dependent on the housing projects.
Block. Generations
When: 13 December 2018 (Thursday), 6 PM
Venue: Workshops of Culture in Lublin, Grodzka 5a, Auditorium, 2nd Floor
The film presents housing estates from the perspective of Polish society. It is an attempt to capture the experiences of different generations raised and living in the estates since the 1940s. “Block – generations” is a polyphonic tale woven by anthropologists, architects, artists, journalists, historian, critics, musicians, publicists, directors, sociologists, city activists and residents. Among people discussing their experiences of living in large panel housing and the culture-forming role of estates we will hear: Maciej Chmiel, Cezary Ciszewski, Waldemar Kuligowski, Michał Mioduszewski, Maciej Nowak, Michał Ogórek, Weronika Parfianowicz, Mirosław Pęczak, Agnieszka Szydłowska, Jan Wiśniewski, Numer Raz.
This collective tale woven from the perspective of the user – resident of large panel housing is, at the same time, a sort of diagnosis of social life in large panel system housing projects. The film also asks fundamental questions about life in the housing projects today, the needs of the residents and what they can do to improve life for everyone in the estate.
Block. Film
When: 20 December 2018 (Thursday), 6 PM
Venue: Workshops of Culture in Lublin, Grodzka 5a, Auditorium, 2nd Floor
Large panel housing estates are an integral part of Polish reality – they have always stirred intense, often contradictory feelings.
Polish films, especially feature films, mirror the emotions of the residents of blocks of flats. They depict reality and the changing public feelings, taking us from the reconstruction of Poland after the war and the hopeful period in the 1940s and 50s through the yearning and anticipation for your own flat in the 1960s, the later sense of unfulfilment, disappointment, alienation, powerlessness but also irony and surrealistic humour of the 1970s and 1980s and the paradoxes of the 90s, new hope juxtaposed against a sense of alienation and finally, today’s affection for large panel blocks.
The protagonists and guides for this episode are: Maja Komorowska, Krzysztof Zanussi, Robert Gliński, Jerzy Gruza, Bodo Kox, Jerzy Bończak, Teresa Czepiec and film critics: Dorota Chrobak, Kaja Klimek, Łukasz Maciejewski, Jakub Majmurek and Michał Oleszczyk.