In September this year a second edition of the biggest festival of contemporary Polish films will commence in the UK. This is Play Poland Film Festival organised by Polish Art Europe. The event will last for four months, until December 2012. It will take place in Great Britain, Ireland, Norway and Canada. Cinema goers will have the opportunity to see popular Polish movie productions (both full length and short) and exhibitions of the best film posters as well as to participate in meetings with artists and movie industry people.

Play Poland Film Festival is a unique event that promotes Polish cinema abroad, comments the festival’s chairman Mateusz Jarza, the director of Polish Art Europe, the non-profit organisation which promotes Polish culture and art in the UK. While organising this biggest and the longest mobile film festival we have an ambition to show new and positive trends in the Polish cinema industry and we want to be as successful as we were last year.
We can boast about partners that each film festival organisers around the world would be proud of. These are, among others, T-Mobile New Horizons International Film Festival, Short Waves Polish Short Film Festival, Wajda School and Platige Image post production studio.

All of them helped us to plan a programme, together with the viewers who had an opportunity to vote for the most attractive, in their opinion, of the presented suggestions. It is important for us to promote Polish producers and film schools through this festival as well, adds Mateusz Jarza.

This year a mobile Play Poland Film Festival will take place, among others, in Edinburgh, Glasgow, Liverpool, Birmingham, Oxford, Belfast and London. A programme of the autumn celebration of Polish cinema in the UK will involve projections of the best Polish feature films that have been chosen on the basis of the market research conducted by Polish Art Europe.

Festival audience will also have a unique opportunity to see a review of short-length films. Among those appreciated both in Poland and abroad will be comedies, student etudes as well as the gems of Polish animation and experimental documentary.

The highlight of the festival programme will be a cycle of exhibitions of Polish film posters. The festival audience will have an exceptional opportunity to see posters of the artists from the famous Polish School of Posters as well as Polish posters created for American movies. Among the artistst there will be: Erol, Flisak, Neugebauer, Treutler, Krajewski, Pagowski, Wasilewski, Mlodozeniec, Lipinski and Starowieyski. It is going to be a special treat for Polish posters fans.

The festival is supported by numerous prestigious institutions and culture patrons, among others: the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Edinburgh, Richard Demarco – one of the most prominent Scottish critics of the contemporary art, the professor Zbigniew Pelczynski from Pembroke College University of Oxford, a chairman and a founder of Stefan Batory Trust.

The festival is also supported by numerous Polish, British and Irish cultural institutions, among others: Glasgow University Polish Society, The Sikorski Polish Club, Oxford University Polish Society, Screen Academy in Edinburgh; Merseyside Polonia Society in Liverpool, Polish Association Northern Ireland in Belfast and Polish Expats Association in Birmingham as well as Culture Development Foundation from Zielona Gora.

More information about the programme of the event, places of film screenings and availability of the tickets can be found on a website: www.playpoland.org.uk and festival’s fan page on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/#!/PlayPoland