KVIFF CAPSULE REVIEWS by Alex Deleon   The competition film “Zabic Bobra" (To Kill a Beaver) by Polish director Jan Jakub Kolski is a grisly psychological drama that tries to show what it is like inside the head of a returning professional soldier who cannot readjust to everyday life. Kolski, 56, has been described as a master of Polish “magical realism” and is certainly one of the few directors of his generation who can be called an auteur. At his press conference Kolski said �...

  On my first evening at the Montreal World Film Festival on September 1, my thoughts are going to Venice. Not only because that venerable film festival opens today but because Venice, as both a real place and a metaphor, is a potent symbol in the Polish film viewed this evening in Montreal, which is simply called VENICE.      The film, which is making its International Premiere in the World Competition section here, is written and directed by Jan Jakub Kolski, a vete...

  by Sandy Mandelberger, Online Dailies Editor This year’s crop of contenders in the New Polish Films competition at the ERA New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland continue the unbroken chain of film artists who are acknowledged as world-class masters of their craft. This year’s   program is especially strong, with a forceful representation of emerging women talents. Malgorzala Szumowska brings a masterful directorial hand and an intellectual discipline ...

This year’s crop of contenders in the New Polish Films competition at the ERA New Horizons International Film Festival in Wroclaw, Poland continue the unbroken chain of film artists who are acknowledged as world-class masters of their craft. This year’s program is especially strong, with a forceful representation of emerging women talents. Malgorzala Szumowska brings a masterful directorial hand and an intellectual discipline to her latest film “33 Scenes From Life”, which won the Spec...

 Wednesday, June 11-------Although they are both part of the European continent, Poland seems as far away from Portugal as one can imagine. I’ve now been to both places, and while it is a cliché and an exaggeration that Poland is always rather cloudy, gloomy and weighed down by its difficult history, the Polish sensibility (and humor) are decidedly dark. It is intriguing to have that sober mood contrast with the lightness and sparkle of Portugal in early June, but that is exactly the contras...