Polish Movie Springtime

Polish Movie Springtime

Polish Movie Springtime, a festival of classic and contemporary Polish films presented by the Society for Arts, runs Saturday, March 13, through Friday, March 26. Screenings will be at the Copernicus Center, 5216 W. Lawrence. Tickets are $5 to $10, depending on the program. For more information call 773-486-9612.

SATURDAY, MARCH 13

With Fire and Sword

Jerzy Hoffman directed this 196-minute adaptation of the historical novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz (Quo Vadis), a love story set amid the 17th-century rebellion of Ukrainian Cossacks against the kingdom of Poland. The screening is sold out. (7:00)

SUNDAY, MARCH 14

With Fire and Sword

See listing for Saturday, March 13. The screening is sold out. (7:45)

THURSDAY, MARCH 18

Monday

A young wholesaler finds himself unemployed when his company goes under; instead of back pay, he’s offered a notebook listing debtors to the company, and with the help of a friend he sets out to collect the money. Witold Adamek directed this 1998 chronicle of life in a small town. (7:00)

Germans

Per Oscarsson (Hunger, Montenegro) gives a wrenching performance as an elderly professor forced to confront the grim realities of Nazism when an escaped prisoner from a concentration camp arrives at his family’s home. Director Zbigniew Kaminski adapted the script for this 1996 feature from a play by Leon Kruczkowski, but the film’s English dialogue is leaden and the story is far too schematic to work as cinema. Casting third-tier British and American actors in key supporting roles doesn’t help; the performances range from wooden to embarrassingly overwrought, crippling a drama that might easily have been compelling. (Adam Langer) (9:00)

Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): With Fire and Sword film still.