Poland’s first animated film

With the definition of the first Polish film, historians and theoreticians of cinema have, as you can guess, quite a lot of difficulty. Many copies were destroyed during the war, many animations were created in artists’ homes and shown only to a small circle of friends, thus the trace of them is lost. Many theorists consider that, although created abroad in the country, the first Polish films are the works of the famous Wladyslaw Starewicz. He was the first Polish animator and one of the first in the world creators of animation, a cartoonist, caricaturist, passionate about entomology – which was reflected in the artist’s films. Starewicz is the author of dozens of original stop-motion puppet animations, which brought him fame and international success. Born in 1882 in Moscow to a Polish family, he was associated with Lithuanian, Russian and French cinematography. He died in 1965 in Fontenay-sous-Bois, France, where he lived and worked for more than forty years.

“Beautiful Lucanida” from 1912 is a film considered by many theorists to be the first animated Polish film ever made. “Beautiful Lukanida” is the first ever puppet film. It made such an impression on audiences at the time that some critics even wrote about the trained insects featured in the film. The film features animated beetles playing the roles of Helen and Paris, characters from Greek mythology. The film marked the beginning of Starevich’s directing career. His craftsmanship was characterized by the fine detail of the set design, the precision of the details, and the attention to smooth and dynamic movement or slowing it down, which can be seen in a beautiful scene, for example, in Horseman…, where leaves slowly fall from the trees.

At a similar time, philosopher, journalist and amateur painter Feliks Kuczkowski attempted to create a cartoon film. In 1917 he made the first two quasi-animated cartoon films, “The Flirt of the Chairs” and “The Telescope Has Two Ends.” The momentousness of these activities is evidenced by the fact that Karol Irzykowski – a prominent interwar critic – included Kuczkowski in the pages of “The Tenth Muse,” one of the first theoretical publications on cinema.

The landmark date in the history of Polish avant-garde film is 1930, when Stefan and Franciszka Themerson made “Pharmacy” – arguably the first Polish avant-garde film that was also largely an animated film and to a rather peculiar kind, for its material was mainly light, not drawings or objects,” – Marcin Giżycki wrote in his book “Polish Animated Film”. Indeed, in pre-war Polish cinema there were no creators as interesting as the couple Stefan and Franciszka Themerson. Illustrators, writers, graphic artists and filmmakers blazed a trail for experimental film in Poland. They made subversive, visually unobvious educational and instructional films, as well as original projects.

Shortly after the war in 1945, Stefan and Franciszka Themerson presented the film “Eye and Ear” The film was the author’s interpretation of four Słopiewnie (Wordsongs) by Szymanowski and Tuwim, or more precisely, moving images move against the rhythm of melodies derived from selected songs by Karol Szymanowski, included in the cycle “Słopiewnie” to words by Julian Tuwim. This was the result of the avant-garde artistic explorations of the couple back in the pre-war era. Made in Great Britain, the film is an expression of the Themersons’ interest in sound visualization. The film consists of four parts preceded by a narrator who explains the visualization technique used in them. The pieces that follow are excerpts from compositions by Karol Szymanowski and are selected for their variation in tempo and dynamics. The individual film excerpts use a variety of animation techniques, from repeatedly exposed photograms to abstract animations evoking the films of Richter or Fischinger, to filmed close-ups of water waves spreading concentrically.

However, the above examples are very often overlooked by Polish film theorists, who consider the film “For King Krakus,” directed by Zenon Wasilewski, to be the first Polish animation. The puppet story about the Slavic king was impressive due to the mapping of the characters’ facial expressions. This is because Wasilewski created puppets that had special holes filled with plasticine in the area of the eyes and mouth, making it easy to model them in such a way as to reflect the emotions of the characters. The idea for the film was conceived by Zenon Wasilewski back in the pre-war period, but it was not realized until after the war. The film is considered the first Polish professional animated film aimed at a children’s audience. The script of the 14-minute film was based on the legend of the Wawel Dragon and the brave shoemaker.

“For King Krakus” was Wasilewski’s greatest achievement and one of the most important films of the first decade after the war. The film’s director, Zenon Wasilewski, received the third prize for the film at the 1951 Bahia Film Festival, as well as honorable mentions: in 1954 at the Best Children’s Film Competition in Paris and in 1973 at the International Children’s Film Festival in Calcutta.

Postwar period

The postwar period was also a time of great influence of the regime on creativity, although many artists admit that in the animation circle they could afford to do more. However, there were many films whose role was to propagate the regime. The post-war period was also a time of technical problems, shortage of equipment and material. In sources you can find information about stealing X-ray film from hospital warehouses by their own means in order to have any opportunity to create. Film groups such as the “Silesia” Drawing Film Group were founded at this time, and the Warsaw Miniature Film Studio was also established.

In 1957, one of the most important films in the history of Polish animation premiered, the film “Był sobie raz…” directed by Jan Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk. It was a groundbreaking work by two outstanding artists, who together revolutionized the way animated film was created and perceived. ‘Był sobie raz‘ touches on issues of loneliness and alienation, but does so in an allusive way, using the symbolism of simple graphic forms. The film was a great success and critics considered it ‘experimental,’ which was both a tribute and proof of the lack of proper evaluation criteria.”

nother – even more avant-garde step – “Home” from 1958. No plot, no fixed convention, no single technique. All the shortcomings added up to an excellent non-fiction and a film successful in its uniqueness. In Home, instead of a plot, there is a sequence of scenes set in an Art Nouveau tenement. The dark sky above the tenement, the floors of the tenement, the windows of the tenement. What is happening behind one of the windows of the house? In one of the apartments, a beautiful woman ponders, and we peek into this bizarre stream of consciousness of hers, pass through the different floors of her imagination. Borowczyk and Lenica’s work is a combined film, using both acting and various animation techniques, cutout, collage, animation of objects and set in motion photograms. The avant-garde work, using various film techniques, turned out to be a significant step in the careers of both directors, already pursued separately, however. Confirmation of the success of the unconventional film was the Grand Prix, won at the International Experimental Film Competition, held on the occasion of the 1958 World Exhibition in Brussels.

The 1960s

The 1960s are the definite heyday of Polish animation. This is the time of the debut of outstanding individualists and protoplasts of new trends. Mention should be made of Miroslaw Kijowicz, Daniel Szczechura, Kazimierz Urbansky and Jerzy Zitzman. They were all proponents of auteur cinema, where one man is responsible for direction, set design and script. The notion of the Polish School of Animation emerged in the minds of international audiences. The numbers speak for themselves – 162 animated films were sold abroad in 1963, the export of animation in 1974 was more profitable than feature productions, dozens of awards at the world’s major festivals and competitions poured in.

Animation for children

It is worth mentioning at this point another trend of Polish animation which was very important and noticeable at the time, namely animation for children. Thanks to television, the most important children’s animations were created, and their presence on the small screen ensured international popularity for the heroes of Polish cartoons. Realized in the 1960s and 1970s, Wladyslaw Nehrebecki’s series about “Bolek and Lolek” or Lechoslaw Marszalek’s “Rex the Polyglot” paved the way for animated heroes on whose adventures generations grew up.

• Bolek and Lolek
  

Their real names were Roman and Jacek, and they were the sons of Wladyslaw Nehrebecki, director of the Drawing Film Studio in Bielsko-Biala. It was he who created one of the most popular film duos from the Vistula River, and in tribute to the pre-war film with Adolf Dymsza, the boys were renamed Bolek and Lolek. Since 1962 their adventures for 24 years (production of the series ended in 1986) were presented in 80 countries around the world. And although in1973 the fraternal twosome was also joined by the resolute girl Tola, she left the Bolko and Lolek universe after only thirty episodes.

Bolek & Lolek

• Reksio

Melodia rozbrzmiewająca w czołówce tego serialu działała na dzieci jak magnes. Poczciwy Reksio przyszedł na świat w 1967 roku, kiedy to stworzył go Lechosław Marszałek ze Studia Filmów Rysunkowych w Bielsku-Białej. Aż do 1990 roku Reksio podpowiadał młodym widzom, kim bardzo chcieliby zostać, a kim już nieco mniej. Sam bywał przecież poliglotą i strażakiem, taternikiem i kosmonautą, racjonalizatorem i dentystą.

Reksio

• The strange adventures of Matołek the goat

Shortly thereafter, “Strange Adventures of Matołek the Goat” was created, the first episodes of the puppet “Uszatek Bear” were produced at Se-Ma-For in Lodz, and under the direction of Tadeusz Wilkosz, master of puppet animation, the series “Adventures of Coralgol Bear” was created. The character created by Kornel Makuszyński did not speak much (only a penetrating “meee”), was not overly intelligent, but almost everyone knew him. The bearded vagabond wandered around the world from 1969 to 1971, looking for the mythical Pacanów and getting into more and more trouble in the process.

Koziołek Matołek

• Adventures of Coralgol Bear
  

“And now, dear children, kiss the bear’s ass”. – was supposed to say to Bronislaw Pawlik, the main – besides the bear – character of the old bedtime show, thinking that the TV cameras were already off. The story of the scandalous mistake provided “Teddy Bear from the Window” with a second life and made him a legend. Without it, few would remember the good-natured teddy bear, who from 1958 to 1973 talked to an older man (played by Stanislaw Wyszynski alongside Pawlik) about children’s reading.

• Ingenious Dobromir
  

“Ingenious Dobromir” lived only two years, but how many inventions he discovered during that time – one dreads to think. Between 1973 and 1975, the red-haired boy became the hero of 20 ten-minute episodes of the series. He was the brainchild of director Roman Huszczo and Adam Słodowy, the guru of Polish do-it-yourselfers. Not surprisingly, instead of wasting time on futile trips or childish adventures, this country boy invented new items to make his daily chores easier.

Pomysłowy Dobromir

• Teddy bear

He made it to the silver screen from the children’s magazine Teddy Bear, where he first appeared in 1957 (five years later the first film starring Uszatek was made). Since 1975 he became a TV star, appearing in 104 episodes of the series. Only on Polish Television his adventures were broadcast as many as ten times. Uszatek was known to children in 22 countries, including Canada, Iran, Slovenia, Holland, Japan and Finland.

Miś Uszatek

Serial popularity meant that for the next decade, until the late 1980s, children’s animation was largely limited to television productions. Also due to international popularity : the adventures of “Bolek and Lolek in Europe” were presented in 80 countries around the world for 24 years, and a not much smaller career was made by the cheerful “Teddy Bear Uszatek”, whose series numbered as many as 104 episodes.

Baginski’s Cathedral

Although for years Polish animated film was associated with traditional forms: stop-motion, puppet, non-camera, cut-and-draw, the computer revolution that occurred in the second half of the 1990s brought it new talents. Tomasz Baginski, a self-taught director who studied architecture after failing the exam at the Academy of Fine Arts, became the symbol of the new generation of filmmakers, creating his first computer films himself.

With his debut “Rain” (1997) he managed to make a name for himself in the Polish animation community, and a few years later he created his most important work to date – “The Cathedral” (2002), nominated for an Oscar for best animated short film. “Cathedral” – 3D animation became Bagiński’s ticket to fame (he followed it up with the excellent ‘The Art of Falling’), while opening a new path for artists such as Damian Nenow, Grzegorz Jonkajtys, Marcin Pazera and Marcin Waśko.

Your Vincent

“YOUR VINCENT” from 2017, directed by Dorota Kobiela and Hugh Welchman, is the world’s first full-length painting animation. The film is composed of about 65,000 images painted with oil paint on canvas, made over 7 years by more than 100 Polish and foreign painters using a technique that faithfully imitates van Gogh’s work. There are 12 paintings per one second of the film. Animated characters, telling about the artist’s life, are at the same time characters of his own paintings, more than 120 of which will be incorporated into the frames of the film. The paintings that make up the film were created in studios in Gdansk, Wroclaw and Athens. Meanwhile, the acting shots were realized in Wroclaw and London.

This is, of course, our subjective history of Polish animation. We realize that we have certainly left out many creators and titles. However, we hope that by reaching this point you have enriched your knowledge!