Photogramme du film Les Etudiants Etrangers à Łódź, Abdul Khalik, 11 min, 1961, PWSTIf
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Mexico-Caracas-Casablanca-Łódź
Africa, Asia, and Latin America, posters designed for CINIMA3 and inspired by the OSPAAAL (Organization of Solidarity with the People of Asia, Africa and Latin America) globe, with a list of the foreign students at the Lódź Film School and their year of arrival, as well as some of their first-year classmates that went on to study at other institutions in Poland, 2020
Wedding ceremony / Five years in Poland / Future specialists
Articles about foreign students in Poland, Poland Monthly Review, issues from 1968.
Articles about foreign students in Poland, Poland Monthly Review, issues from 1968.
Polish Monthly Review was a magazine distributed to embassies across the world to promote Polish culture. There were French and English versions. It contained many articles about foreign students in Poland, their daily lives, their achievements, and their successful integration into Polish society.
The first article, “Marriage Ceremony”, tells of the marriage of a Congolese student, who had come to Poznan to study law, to a young Polish woman. The Review’s photojournalist is invited to the ceremony and paints a portrait of a trouble-free romance.
“Five Years in Poland” describes how an Afghani student architect forged friendships and strong professional ties through his stay in Poland, during which he wrote his doctoral thesis, in Polish, on construction in earthquake-prone areas (Poland not being concerned by seismic tremors, his study focused on a site in Afghanistan).
“Future Specialists” tells of the young Vietnamese coming to Poland for internships, to “gain knowledge vital to their heroic country, brutishly ravaged by the American aggressor.”
Polish Monthly Review, JANUARY 1967 AND MARCH 1961, Personal collection
Stills from the film The Foreign Students in Łódź, Abdul Khalik, 11 min, 1961, PWSTiF
In his film, The Foreign Students in Łódź, the Iraqi filmmaker Abdul Khalik echoes the stories from the Polish Monthly Review through a short documentary showing different cultures living happily together, moments of leisure and discovery (of the snow, for example), and the kindness of Polish people towards those foreign students who chose to learn their trade in Poland before returning to their countries. Offering a glimpse into collective living in the university dormitories with a voice-over guiding us from one shot to another, this film has none of the tension of Lekcja 41, Abdellah Drissi’s film on language learning and the discovery of a foreign culture.
Through these articles and this film, although produced by a foreign student, it is clear that Poland seeks to appear to be an open and dynamic country, to establish itself as an example of successful development, far from any racism or hard acceptance of “the other”.
These themes would however be developed, sometimes in conflict with the School’s policy, by the international film students (such as in Adoption by Mostafa Derkaoui) who moved away from an idyllic image to look at the realities, margins and issues in Polish society, from an outsider’s point of view.
Copyright © 2020 / Léa Morin — CINIMA3 / Talitha