This year the IFI Polish Film Festival, in association with the National Film School at the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dun Laoghaire, will host a 5-day-long School of Animation with Polish classic animation expert, Witold Giersz, from the 15th-19th October.
Witold Giersz has made about 60 short animated films, for which he has received over 70 awards and distinctions at film festivals all around the world. Born in 1927 in Poraj, Poland, in the 1950’s he began working as an animator in a newly established animated cartoon co-operative ‘Slask’, known today as Animated Cartoon Studio.
In Warsaw in 1956, Giersz established and trained a group of artists that was restructured into the current Miniature Film Studio. Here, the Polish School of Animation was born in the 1960’s. Between 1985 and 1992 Giersz worked for Animated Films TV Studio in Poznan as a director and an artistic executive.
Giersz will instruct students in the teaching of all styles of classic animation from traditional ‘cel’ animation to stop motion and other experimental techniques. This is a school in pre-computer animation methods, a predominantly practical workshop in which students will work with pastels, 3-D models, 2 –D cut outs and specialist graphic techniques.
The Polish Fest
This year's Polish Film Festival programme includes 20 feature-length Polish films, shorts, documentaries and animated films.
The opening film this year is Michal Kwiecinski’s comedy 'The Extras' ('Statysci'), which screens at 8.30 pm on Friday 12th October, and will be attended by the film’s star Kinga Preis. The story revolves around beautiful Bozena (Preis), who acts as translator when a Chinese film crew and an eccentric director arrive in a small Polish town seeking sad-faced extras for his epic tragedy.
Highlights include Michal Rosa’s ‘What the Sun Has Seen’ (‘Co Slonko Widzialo’), which weaves a poignant tale of economic adversity; Konrad Niewolski ‘Symmetry’ (‘Symetria’), which depicts life inside a Polish prison; and ‘Destined for the Blues’ (‘Skazanya Na Bluesa’) a biopic on the life of the late Ryszard Riedel, lead singer of Polish cult rock band Dzem.
The festival will close with on Sunday 21st October at 11.00pm with Polish cult comedy 'Sex-Mission' ('Seksmisja'), which tells the tale of two scientists chosen as guinea pigs for a time experiment. They are placed in hibernation and are brought back 50 years later, the only male survivors in an all female underground society, after a massive world war took place while they slept.
Also attending the festival are director Juliusz Machulski (Sex Mission) and actor Andrzej Chyra (Symmetry).
For the Giersz class, places are strictly limited to 30 people, and you do not need prior skills, though more advanced students will be instructed at their level of expertise.
All materials are provided. At the end of the course a film made by the class will be screened.
Course fee is €80 per person, which MUST be booked in advance via animationschool@ifi.ie.
For further info about the IFI's Polish Film Festival visit www.ifi.ie"
