Founded in 1989, the Polish Film Festival in America drew its commercial strength from the city’s giant Polish-American population, but more than a generation later, the fest has found a more comfortable home at the suburban Rosemont 18 multiplex, where most of its big programs take place. This year the festival has even foregone its usual shows at Facets Cinematheque, leaving the Society for Arts in Jefferson Park as its sole remaining Chicago venue. The good news for Chicagoans is that the Society for Arts programs, heavy with shorts and TV documentaries, dig deeper into contemporary Polish culture than some of the prestige movies out in Rosemont. The festival runs through Sunday, November 20; for a full schedule visit pffamerica.org. —J.R. Jones
Klezmer Echoes of Samuel Beckett drift through this nearly plotless 2015 drama, which is set during the Nazi occupation of Poland and—like Paweł Pawlikowski’s Ida (2013) and Agnieszka Holland’s In Darkness (2011)—explores the Polish people’s role in the Holocaust. Foraging peasants discover a half-dead Jewish musician who escaped a Nazi roundup, and lengthy sequences show them carrying their mute captive through the forest as they debate whether to save him or turn him in to the Germans for a reward. Writer-director Piotr Chrzan portrays the characters’ lives with a bleakness and futility that verge on nihilism, mitigated only by his treatment of the unfortunate Jew as a Christ figure and by the luminous imagery of cinematographer Sylwester Kazmierczak. The film is commendable for its hard-nosed realism, but when Chrzan suggests that the ignorant poor are primarily to blame for Polish anti-Semitism, he proves that the nation’s self-examination has only begun. —Andrea Gronvall 95 min. Sun 11/13 and Sun 11/20, 7 PM. Society for Arts v
Sat 11/5-Sun 11/20 Rosemont 18 9701 Bryn Mawr, Rosemont
Society for Arts 1112 N. Milwaukee 773-486-9612pffamerica.com Dramatic features $15, documentaries $10, seven-screening pass $75
