The Madison Polish Film Festival is back! This year, the festival will take place on November 19 and December 3 at the Marquee Cinema (located in Union South) on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus. All screenings are FREE and OPEN to the public. Join us to again celebrate Poland’s vibrant and universally recognized cinematic tradition. Everyone is welcome – Zapraszamy na festiwal!
The 2023 edition of the Madison Polish Film Festival will take place on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus on two Sundays – November 19 and December 3. Traditionally, all screenings will be FREE and open to the wider public and local community beyond UW-Madison students, faculty, and staff. English subtitles will be provided.
2023 MADISON POLISH FILM FESTIVAL (November 19 and December 9)
(click here to download the official 2023 Madison Polish Film Festival poster)
The 2023 Polish Film Festival will kick off with a special screening of Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border (Zielona granica), an award-winning black-and-white drama about the ongoing humanitarian crisis on the Polish-Belarussian border. Green Border will screen on Sunday, November 5, in a free and open-to-the-public event at the Marquee Cinema in Union South. To learn more about the film and its director, click the link below.
This year, the selection for the Madison Polish Film Festival includes:
Daddy / Tata (dir. Anna Maliszewska, 2022) | Running time: 1h 50 min
Sunday, November 19 at 3 pm
Marquee Cinema, Union South
Room 245 (2nd floor), 308 W Dayton St, Madison
Trailer:
Synopsis:
A lonely dad, facing the sudden death of a Ukrainian babysitter, takes his daughter and her friend on a journey by truck. Will a trucker and two scamp girls handle the transport of frozen fish, body smuggling and life without a home?
Dangerous Gentlemen / Niebezpieczni dżentelmeni (dir. Maciej Kawalski, 2022)
Running time: 1h 50 min
Sunday, November 19 at 5:30 pm
Marquee Cinema, Union South
Room 245 (2nd floor), 308 W Dayton St, Madison
Trailer:
Synopsis:
Joseph Conrad and three other notorious artists wake up after a crazy party with a dead man on their couch with no clue who he was, why he’s dead, or why the gendarme is knocking at the door.
Shreds / Strzępy (dir. Beata Dzianowicz, 2022) | Running time: 1h 40 min
Sunday, December 3 at 3 pm
Marquee Cinema, Union South
Room 245 (2nd floor), 308 W Dayton St, Madison
Trailer:
Synopsis:
The Pateroks are a loving, multi-generational family. Their lives are peaceful and humorous. Suddenly a crack appears in this harmonious reality: Grandpa Gerard begins to act strangely, breaking social conventions and norms. It turns out that these are the first symptoms of Alzheimer’s.
Filip (dir. Michał Kwieciński, 2023) | Running time: 2h 5 min
Sunday, December 3 at 5:30 pm
Marquee Cinema, Union South
Room 245 (2nd floor), 308 W Dayton St, Madison
Trailer:
Synopsis:
In 1943, a Polish Jew, who managed to escape from the Warsaw ghetto, is waiting restaurant tables in Frankfurt while pretending to be French and taking revenge on the Nazis in his own unique way.
Location and parking
The Marquee Cinema is located in Room 245 on 1308 West Dayton Street in Madison. Parking is available on lots 80 (Union South Garage), 17, and 20, in addition to numerous UW and City of Madison parking options. The Marquee is located close to bus routes 2, 7, 8, 11, 12, 15, 28, 38, 44, 48, 70, 72, and 80.
For more information on South Union parking, visit this guide. For a guest user guide, see this booklet. To find the best bus route, visit the Madison Metro Transit trip planning guide.
Celebrating Polish cinema at UW–Madison since 1991
The annual Madison Polish Film Festival is co-organized by the UW–Madison Polish Studies program and the Polish Student Association in collaboration with the Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+ (GNS+), Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia (CREECA), Wisconsin Union Directorate (WUD) Film Committee, and the Polish Heritage Club, Madison–Wisconsin. Inaugurated in 1991 by our longstanding Polish language lecturer Dr. Ewa Miernowska, the festival has quickly become an annual celebration of Polish cinema. Since then, it has attracted hundreds of viewers each year and is now a major cultural event at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Greater Madison Area. In 2021, the Festival’s longstanding director Dr. Miernowska received a prestigious distinction from the Chicago Society for Arts for her outstanding merits in promoting Polish cinema in North America. The award ceremony took place at the Polish Film Festival in America in Chicago.
Donate to UW–Madison Polish Studies program
The UW–Madison Polish Studies program is actively involved in researching, teaching, and promoting Polish film, language, literature, and culture. Since its establishment more than 80 years ago, our faculty has trained hundreds of students in these areas and disciplines, in addition to organizing numerous events such as the annual Madison Polish Film Festival. If you would like to help us continue our rich tradition of promoting Polish culture in Wisconsin and beyond, consider donating to our program using the Donate banner below. You can also consider setting up a fund to support our students or faculty in their studying, teaching, research, or outreach activities. To learn more about our program and what we do, click here.
Questions? Email Rebecca Forbes Wank, our Financial Specialist, or Dr. Łukasz Wodzyński, our Professor of Polish, to start the conversation today.
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UW–Madison Polish Studies Program
Educating the Wisconsin public about the Polish language, literature, and culture since 1936.
The University of Wisconsin–Madison Polish Studies Program is the oldest academic program in the United States focused on the study and teaching of the Polish language, literature, and culture. UW–Madison Polish studies offer a comprehensive package of Polish language, literature, and culture courses, a generous scholarship program designed exclusively for its students, and various extracurricular activities each academic year.
The program, dating back to 1935, offers beginning, intermediate, and advanced Polish language courses, in addition to intensive Polish courses for heritage speakers and (under)graduate students. In 2011, the program received the prestigious 2022 Award Distinction from the University of Warsaw for its achievements in promoting the Polish language and knowledge about Polish culture and history. The UW–Madison Polish program also offers a broad range of Polish culture courses on Polish film, contemporary Polish culture, Polish migration to the Americas, a survey of Polish culture from the Middle Ages to modern times, Polish comedy culture, and post-communism.
Each year, the UW Polish program awards scholarships for tuition through the Lapinski fund to undergraduate and graduate students studying the Polish language, literature, and culture. The Polish Student Association (PSA) provides a space for all students interested in events, activities, and learning about Poland and Polish culture. In collaboration with the Polish program faculty, the PSA also co-organizes the Madison Polish Film Festival, an annual celebration of Polish cinematography in Madison, Wisconsin, now in its fourth decade of existence.