Seattle Polish Film Festival 2023
October 13-22, 2023
The 31st Annual Seattle Polish Film Festival (SPFF) is an annual event showcasing the best of Polish cinema since the early 1990s. The SPFF is produced and presented by the Seattle-Gdynia Sister City Association.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: Swarm
Poland | 2023 | 110 min. | Bartek Bala
October 13, 2023
For ten years a family has been living on an island, isolated from reality. This apparent harmony turns into a trap. Against her partner's wish, the mother decides to return to the world she has left behind.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: It Came from the Water
Poland | 2022 | 120 min. | Xawery Żuławski
October 13, 2023
A group of Warsaw high school graduates, sick and tired of lockdowns and online schooling, decide to head to the seaside for a party to remember.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: Tough Luck
Poland | 2023 | 86 min. | Mateusz Głowacki
October 14, 2023
During the wake after the funeral of their beloved grandfather, the family finds out that the numbers that grandfather played all his life have just been drawn in the lottery.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: Backwards
Poland | 2022 | 112 min. | Jarosław Barzan
October 14, 2023
The story of the mother of an autistic boy, whose fight against bureaucracy and human heartlessness led to significant changes in the Polish education system. Inspired by real events.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: Elephant
Poland | 2022 | 94 min. | Kamil Krawczycki
October 14, 2023
Bartek runs a small horse farm in the mountains in Poland. He had to become head of the family when his father left and his mother fell apart. One day their neighbour dies and his son Dawid comes back to the village for funeral. Bartek becomes fascinated by Dawid and his carefreeness. First love will force him to decide if he’s ready to choose his freedom above family obligations.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: Dangerous Gentlemen
Poland | 2022 | 107 min. | Maciej Kawalski
October 14, 2023
Tadeusz Boy-Zelenski, Witkacy, Joseph Conrad and Bronislaw Malinowski, four leading figures among the Zakopane bohemians, wake up after an all-night drunken party. Their hangover headaches are killing them, none of them remembers anything, and finding the corpse of a male stranger on the floor doesn't help.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness
USA | 2011 | 113 min. | Joseph Dorman
October 15, 2023
American biographical documentary film about Yiddish writer Sholem Aleichem, who is best known for his stories about Tevye the Dairyman, the basis for the musical Fiddler on the Roof.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: Woman on the Roof
Poland | 2022 | 97 min. | Anna Jadowska
October 15, 2023
Mira, a 60 year-old woman, appears to have a normal life. One morning she starts her day like any other, wakes up early, puts her family's clothes out to dry, purchases food for her fish and commits a bank robbery with a kitchen knife. She discovers her need for money is surpassed only by her need for love.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: Dad
Poland | 2022 | 110 min. | Anna Maliszewska
October 15, 2023
A lonely dad, facing the sudden death of a Ukrainian babysitter, takes his daughter and her friend on a journey by the truck. Will trucker and two scamp girls handle the transport of frozen fish, body smuggling and life without a home?
Seattle Polish Film Festival: If I Were You
Poland | 2023 | 110 min. | Antonio Galdamez-Munoz
October 20, 2023
Normal married couple with one adorable child find fighting about everything the norm until one day they wake up in the other's body.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: Filip
Poland | 2022 | 125 min. | Michał Kwieciński
October 20, 2023
Filip, an attractive twenty-something man, juggles working as a waiter in a luxury hotel with trying to enjoy life in a time when enjoyment is hard to find. But pleasure can also be derived from vengeance, especially when every day brings uncertainty in terms of survival. This very current study of identity and wartime trauma dressed in period garb poses unsettling questions about the limits of human resilience and the price of salvation.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: Until the Last Drop
Poland | 2023 | 69 min. | Ewa Ewart
October 21, 2023
The latest documentary by the famous director and producer Ewa Ewart, created in co-production with TVN24.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: True Life of Angels
Poland | 2022 | 77 min. | Artur W. Baron
October 21, 2023
Adam, a famous actor, a man with typical troubles of the middle-aged male and difficulties in finding the meaning of life, gets a stroke and loses contact with the world. Doctors make a catastrophic diagnosis.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: Baptism
Poland | 2022 | 88 min. | Jakub Skoczeń
October 21, 2023
Marianna wants the family to live in harmony. The christening of her youngest grandson is a chance for reconciliation between her relatives. Plans are thwarted by General Jaruzelski. It is December 13, 1981. On this solemn day for the whole family, martial law is introduced.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: Songs About Love
Poland | 2021 | 90 min. | Tomasz Habowski
October 21, 2023
Contemporary Warsaw. A young musician meets an aspiring vocalist from a small town. Can two different sounds harmonize?
Seattle Polish Film Festival: Young Eagles Grodno ‘39
Poland | 2022 | 104 min. | Krzysztof Łukaszewicz
October 22, 2023
Young Eagles is a dramatic depiction of war against the Soviets as seen through the eyes of a twelve-year-old boy, Leon.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: The Breach
Poland | 2023 | 95 min. | Bartosz Konopka
October 22, 2023
Maciek's wife's accident turns his life upside down. Soon the tragedy turns into a mystery full of secrets.
Seattle Polish Film Festival: The Hidden Web
Poland | 2022 | 106 min. | Piotr Adamski
October 22, 2023
Young journalist Julita Wójcicka is investigating the mysterious death of a television celebrity. She believes that what the services classify as an unfortunate accident was in fact a precisely planned crime.