The history of both the Balkans and Poland include killing neighbours and wartime cruelty (albeit to a different extent in the latter). Agnieszka Arnold directed two films on the Jedwabne pogrom during the Second World War, in which hundreds of Polish Jews were massacred by their Polish neighbours, and several other films about the “blank spaces" in the history of Poland (f.ex. the documentaries about one of the “cursed soldiers” Romuald Rajs “Bury” and the Volhynian massacre). How should one be filming the witnesses of events that still evoke powerful emotions? How does the presence of a camera affect them?
THE BALKANS PLATFORM Meetings at Liberty Square
As always, the Malta artistic programme is accompanied by the Forum, a series of discussions on the festival theme. This year the meetings are focused on the correlation between Balkan and Polish history, and on the Balkan experience compared to the current situations in Poland, Europe and worldwide. The Balkans are seen as a platform for knowledge and reflection on ourselves and on the reality we live in. The guests are political scientists, psychiatrists and anthropologists, as well as Slavicists, philosophers, writers and documentary filmmakers.16.06, 17:00 “THE VICAR BLAMES THE LORD, AND THE LORD BLAMES THE VICAR, WHILE WE SIMPLES SUFFER HARDSHIP ON EVERY SIDE.” THE DISCUSSION BETWEEN A LORD, A VILLAGE MAYOR AND A VICAR, CONTINUED: Adam Michnik
17.06, 13:00 MEETING WITH THE 2017 IDIOM CURATORS: Oliver Frljić, Goran Injac
18.06, 17:00 THE SHAME AND PRIDE OF EASTERN EUROPE: Konstanty Gebert, Magdalena Koch, Joanna Tokarska-Bakir
19.06, 17:00 MIGRANT OR REFUGEE?: Draginja Nadażdin, Kalina Czwarnóg, Roman Wieruszewski
20.06, 17:00 COMMON LITERATURE. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?: Krzysztof Varga, Stanisław Bereś, Dorota Cirlić-Mentzel
21.06, 17:00 WHAT IS AGGRESSION?: Bogdan de Barbaro
22.06, 17:00 STATE / NATION / CITIZEN: Sławomir Sierakowski, Rafał Matyja, Krzysztof Podemski
23.06, 17:00 JHOW TO BE A WITNESS. ABOUT THE WORK OF A DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER: Agnieszka Arnold
24.06, 17:00 Neo-fascism and its limits: Boris Buden, Dragan Markovina, Przemysław Wielgosz