EXCLUSIVE: The Kinoteka Polish Film Festival has set the lineup for its 23rd edition, running from March 6 to April 26 at venues across London.

The festival will open at the BFI Southbank with a screening of Under the Volcano (Pod wulkanem) from filmmaker Damian Kocur. The pic is Kocur’s second feature following Bread and Salt, which opened Kinoteka in 2023. Arriving at the festival following screenings at Toronto and LFF, the film follows a Ukrainian family on holiday in Tenerife who struggles to reconcile their new status as refugees following the Russian invasion.

Following past retrospectives on celebrated Polish directors such as Andrzej Wajda and Jerzy Skolimowski, Kinoteka will once again host a widescale retrospective, this year focused on the work of  Wojciech Has in collaboration with BFI Southbank and the ICA. As part of the retrospective, the festival’s closing gala on April 26 at the ICA will be a screening of Has’ The Hourglass Sanatorium (1973). The retrospective season will play Has’ entire filmography, including titles such as The Saragossa Manuscript (1964) and the director’s acclaimed debut The Noose (1957).

The festival will once again host its New Polish Cinema strand alongside programs dedicated to documentary films and cinema classics. Highlights across the strands include Under the Grey Sky, the feature debut from former journalist Mara Tamkovich, which won the feature prize at the Gdynia Film Festival 2024. Inspired by the true story of reporter Katsiaryna Andreyeva, who was arrested in Belarus after covering peaceful protests following the 2020 elections, the film blends archive footage with fiction to show the dilemmas faced in both personal and professional spheres as journalist Lena (Aliaksandra Vaitsekhovich) and her husband Ilya (Valentin Novopolskij) strive to make the best choices, seeking to survive with dignity. The festival will also screen Agnieszka Zwiefka’s Silent Trees. The docu feature focuses on a Kurdish family caught in a forest between Belarus and Poland who become a geopolitical pawn. The film debuted at CPH DOX.

The Kinoteka Polish Film Festival is organized by the Polish Cultural Institute, based in London, and supported by the Polish Film Institute. The full festival line-up will be announced in two weeks.