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My Man Godfrey wrote:The Drygas set is fucking awesome. All four films are amazing.

i agree!best of the four sets... anyone know what's up in the future for PWA? ihope a set of Wojciech Has or Andrzej Wajda...

alfons416 wrote:i agree!best of the four sets... anyone know what's up in the future for PWA? ihope a set of Wojciech Has or Andrzej Wajda...

My understanding is that they're continuing down the documentary and animation route for now (as they're the minority categories that arguably need state backing to a greater extent), but that they have several projects in the pipeline in both categories.

Andrzej Munk's documentaries have just been released (my copy should arrive any day now), and a set of children's animation is due for Christmas. I also believe that the current animation overview is very much a "best-of" survey, and future releases will focus on individual animators.

Wajda is actually pretty well catered for on Polish DVDs - there are two ridiculously cheap box sets spanning eleven key titles, with English subs on the main features in all cases (though sadly not the extensive extras). And I also understand that five Wojciech Has features are being prepped for Polish DVD release, though I don't yet know about the subtitle situation.

I received the Munk set today along with the five other PWA sets, and some other single releases by Wajda and Zanussi.

From the brief initial glance I had a chance to give these, the Munk set is completely in line with the high quality of the other sets in the series. The layout (of all of the sets) is very nice, the booklet informative, and the quality of the English translations of both the texts in the book and the subtitles appear to be almost without fault. The transfers of the films likewise look good, although the age of the prints themselves show in a few instances.

Aside from the 7 films initially listed, the second disc also includes a newsreel directed by Munk in 1959, as well as a fragment of another newsreel devoted to Munk after his death (made in 1961).

In the back of the booklet, the following directors are listed as "coming soon" in the series:

Marek Piwowski
Wojciech Wiszniewski
Czarna Seria

In general, the whole concept of the series, layout, and presentation is on a par with some of the best labels out there, and the value for the money is outstanding. For the six sets + another six single disc releases, I believe the total price was around €150.

EDIT: Some screen captures here

In the back of the booklet, the following directors are listed as "coming soon" in the series:

Marek Piwowski
Wojciech Wiszniewski
Czarna Seria

Czarna seria means "The Black Series" - don't know what it refers to. Piwowski and Wiszniewski sound very interesting. Marek Piwowski made several documentary and semi-documentary shorts ("semi" because he would stage the opening and then improvise based on that), e.g. Kirk Douglas, which is about Douglas' visit to the Lodz Film School. He later made several feature films which became classics in Poland.

Wiszniewski (who unfortunately died young) had a highly individual style, a cross between documentary and fiction. They were not what we'd call true stories but they referred to definite aspects of life in the then-Communist Poland which was immediately recognizable to the viewers there. The films he made during the Solidarity era (1980-81) are probably his best known.

MichaelB wrote:My understanding is that they're continuing down the documentary and animation route for now

That's what I hear re. animation - more stuff is in preparation now.

JanPB wrote:Czarna seria means "The Black Series" - don't know what it refers to.

This refers to the beginning of a critical documentary movement in the 1950s. Here's a relevant quote from a web article:

'In 1955, as so-called "social realism"--"socrealism"--was at its apex, there appeared a group of films which may be called "black" documentary. The films were focused on presenting social problems and conflicts which were banned from official discussion. The films by Borowik, Hoffman, and Skorzewski dealt with such problems as prostitution, juvenile delinquency, and alcoholism.'

I have been wanting to see these films for some time, since they sound like they are of considerable historical importance.

I've just started writing up the Munk documentaries in detail, starting with Destination Nowa Huta!, an archetypal bit of Socialist Realist propaganda that's most interesting in retrospect for being the obvious inspiration for the Stalinist newsreel shown in Andrzej Wajda's Man of Marble 25 years later.

I've also uploaded a combined chronological list of all the documentaries released in PWA's series so far, which will be updated when future releases appear.

The Kieslowski set is also available at Chalet Films, a French site with an English interface. The set costs 30 Euros, which is a lot more than on the Polish sites - though you do get free international delivery on orders over 60 Euros.

Kinsayder wrote:The set costs 30 Euros, which is a lot more than on the Polish sites.

That's a major understatement - the current price at Merlin.pl equates to 9.75 Euros!

a new release of polish animation, for children:



the information is only up on the polish version of PWAs-webpage, but it will be their first 3-disc set, with this movies:

1 DVD KLASYKA:
- ZA KRÓLA KRAKUSA, 1947 reż. Zenon Wasilewski
- CYRK, 1954 reż. Włodzimierz Haupe
- MYSZKA I KOTEK, 1958 reż. Władysław Nehrebecki
- BULANDRA I DIABEÅ

A quick heads up - the latest PWA documentary release has just been announced on PWA's site (in Polish only, but the package itself should be just as English-friendly).

They're breaking with the "single author" approach for the first time, and have compiled a selection of key titles representing the so-called 'Black School' of the 1950s - when a number of documentary makers broke free from the old socialist realist model and started making far more personal work dealing with previously taboo subjects (juvenile delinquency, prostitution, etc.)

I suspect it'll be just as much of a ridiculous bargain as the others, so I'm definitely buying blind.

PWA also released two other sets:
Marek Piwowski
Wojciech Wiszniewski
I am not familiar with Wiszniewski but I can recommend Marek Piwowski.
I ordered both sets and Black School set from Traffic Club.
Their price is far better than Merlin's.

posto wrote:Their price is far better than Merlin's.

The difference looks pretty negligible to me - are Traffic's international postage rates much cheaper?

Merlin's prices for new PWA sets are 47 zl against Traffic 34.5.
Shipping is, I think, comparable. Traffic charged me 84 zl for shipping to US. I haven't ordered from Merlin recently.

posto wrote:Merlin's prices for new PWA sets are 47 zl against Traffic 34.5.

I stand corrected - Merlin have put their prices up a lot since I last ordered from them!

(And they're still charging Traffic-level prices for the earlier PWA sets, so I'm not sure what's going on here).

Merlin's prices have now dropped to 35.50 zlotys apiece - one zloty more than Traffic, but that's a difference well worth paying for Merlin's industrial-strength packaging.

(It's twenty pence, 27 European cents or 40 US cents, for the record)

I've just started exploring the new PWA documentary sets - the standards are pretty much in line with what they've already released (i.e. generally excellent, bar the occasional subtitle typo).

One very welcome development, though, is that the booklets are now set in upper and lower case as opposed to the bizarre block caps of previous entries - which makes the pieces much easier to read.

The Anthology of Polish Animation for Children comes with three discs - but this is at the expense of a decent booklet. They supply a broad overview of Polish kids' animation, but individual works and filmmakers aren't discussed in any depth. Still, 41 films for the equivalent of about £8/$16 has to be a bargain even by PWA's standards!

This is probably lazy of me, but I don't think I can hold off ordering more PWA beauties any longer and I don't want to overlook anything. Could somebody (Michael?) who's been paying attention post a list of the titles released in the series so far?

zedz wrote:This is probably lazy of me, but I don't think I can hold off ordering more PWA beauties any longer and I don't want to overlook anything. Could somebody (Michael?) who's been paying attention post a list of the titles released in the series so far?

No problem - and here are links to the relevant PWA pages too.

In order of release:

Krzysztof Kieślowski
Kazimierz Karabasz
Maciej Drygas
Marcel Łoziński
Andrzej Munk
Marek Piwowski
Wojciech Wisniewski
The Black Series

plus of course the wondrous Anthology of Polish Animated Film and its successor, the Anthology of Polish Children's Animation. All the above are two-disc sets (the children's animation set has three), and everything is 100% bilingual in English and Polish (some, though not all, releases also have French, German and Russian subtitles).

I'm gradually working my way through them, in strict chronological order - the full list (including the documentaries on assorted Kieślowski DVDs) currently spans 97 titles, of which I've reviewed eight in depth.

My regular supplier is Merlin, partly because they're very reliable, but mostly because of their industrial-strength packaging - it takes a good 10-15 minutes to open, but I've yet to receive a damaged disc.

Oh, and the back of the Black Series booklet says that these sets are in preparation: Irena Kamieńska, Jacek Blawut, Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz, Pawel Łoziński, Andrzej Titkow

Thanks a bunch. Maybe a kind admin can rectify the title of this thread, or split off a PWA-dedicated thread from it?

zedz wrote:Maybe a kind admin can rectify the title of this thread, or split off a PWA-dedicated thread from it?

I think PWA more than deserves its own entry in 'Boutique Labels' - not since Second Run have I come across a label that releases such fascinating (and incredibly rare) material to such a high standard at such ridiculously low prices.

I now blind-buy literally everything they release, and I haven't been disappointed yet.

MichaelB wrote:

zedz wrote:Maybe a kind admin can rectify the title of this thread, or split off a PWA-dedicated thread from it?

I think PWA more than deserves its own entry in 'Boutique Labels' - not since Second Run have I come across a label that releases such fascinating (and incredibly rare) material to such a high standard at such ridiculously low prices.

I now blind-buy literally everything they release, and I haven't been disappointed yet.

I agree, i've bought all PWA-releases (except the ones with music) and thay've all great as far as i've seen, well wort their own topic.

I've finally reviewed a PWA set in full - the DVD Times review supplies an overview of the Andrzej Munk set, with links to my blog for longer pieces on each film.

And here are direct links:

Destination Nowa Huta! (1951)
Peasant Diaries (1952)
The Railwayman's Word (1953)
The Stars Must Burn (1954)
Men of the Blue Cross (1955)
One Sunday Morning (1955)
A Walk in the Old Town of Warsaw (1958)

(I didn't write longer pieces on the two newsreels - the second is a straightforward short obituary of Munk, while the first... well, let's just say it's probably a lot funnier if you're a Pole living in the late 1950s and can recognise more of the references!)

Next up is the Black Series DVD, which from what I've seen so far promises to be even more fascinating.

I trying to get the Anthology of Polish Children`s Animation dvd set but Merlin does not seem to carry it and i dont understand on iota on the traffic site to able to order it from them. Does anybody know of other places were one might get it?

That's very strange - my copy came from Merlin, but I can't seem to find it on there any more.

Anyway, here are direct links to Traffic Club and Empik, plus the invaluable Poltran translation site.

(I've only used Merlin, so can't comment on direct experience)

Also, if I interpret this announcement correctly, PWA's next animation release will be Antologie Polskiej Animacji Eksperymentalnej, which probably doesn't need translating!

I had the same problem with Merlin and the Children's compilation, but I ordered a bunch of documentary sets anyway. So far I've only watched the Munk, but it's wonderfully revealing. I'm very glad PWA are so laissez-faire about their definition of 'documentary', since most of these films are actually dramas.

Even when Munk is constrained by the requirements of governmental propaganda, as he is almost everywhere here, with the possible exception of a surprisingly sarcastic 'anti-' newsreel, he's formally impressive. Thus the films are dramatically compelling even when the characters and plot are cookie-cutter bland.

I just put in a order for all eight documentary dvds and the childrens animation(it's now available) dvd at Merlin for the total cost with shipping to Sweden for 378 zt(108 euro). That is a jaw dropping price for such Quality dvds(i have the first animation dvd so i assume these are of same).
Does anybody know of some upcoming stuff from PWA?

Gus wrote:I just put in a order for all eight documentary dvds and the childrens animation(it's now available) dvd at Merlin for the total cost with shipping to Sweden for 378 zt(108 euro). That is a jaw dropping price for such Quality dvds(i have the first animation dvd so i assume these are of same).

The quality's pretty much the same across the board, and I'm guessing the transfers are about as good as they're ever likely to get with material like this.

The subtitles can be a bit variable (on the whole, the ones on the Black Series DVDs are worse than the ones on the Andrzej Munk ones), but we're only talking minor typos - the only more serious problems I've come across were on a couple of the Kazimierz Karabasz titles (The Musicians and People on the Road), when they were badly out of sync.

Does anybody know of some upcoming stuff from PWA?

Five more documentary sets: Irena Kamieńska, Jacek Blawut, Maria Zmarz-Koczanowicz, Pawel Łoziński, Andrzej Titkow - and they also appear to be preparing an Anthology of Experimental Polish Animation, if I interpret the end of this announcement correctly.